Hillary Clinton needs to put a smile on her face. Donald Trump needs to avoid saying anything at all about her face.
Those are two of the tips from insiders for the major party candidates as they head toward their first, potentially pivotal debate. Among the others: They need to be careful. The public knows the two presidential candidates unusually well, so if they suddenly seem to be undergoing personality shifts, they’ll stumble.
“Trump’s got to worry about being overprepared and overtrained,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally. “You can’t stand there and try to remember what some adviser told you to say.”
Clinton has to avoid trying to become a blunt-talking personality like Trump. At the same time, she can’t be too detailed. “She doesn’t want to overtalk things,” said Steve Schale, who ran President Barack Obama’s 2008 Florida campaign.
Clinton and Trump are scheduled to debate for the first time on September 26. They will face off again on October 9 and 19. These, say the experts, are the key takeaways from 2016 campaign debates gone by:
Don’t get too personal
It’s one thing to challenge a rival’s public record, but quite another to insult them personally. Trump’s lowest debate moment came a year ago.
He had criticised rival Carly Fiorina’s face before the debate, and at the debate, Fiorina hit back hard, “Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” Fiorina said icily. Trump backed off, saying Fiorina’s “got a beautiful face.”
Fiorina’s response “wasn’t thought of in advance, tested with a focus group or written by Hollywood elites — it was Carly being Carly,” recalled Fred Sadler, her campaign manager. It gave her a brief boost into the GOP top tier, though she soon faded after controversy over her anti-abortion rhetoric.


Seize the agenda
Trump proved himself a master of controlling the debate and keeping opponents guessing what he’d do or say next. “One of his strengths is his spontaneity,” said Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.
Clinton must be careful not to fall into the trap of spending too much time reacting. She should heed the lesson of Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, who tried to match Trump’s insults at a February debate in South Carolina. Trump easily won the state a week later. Bush finished a distant fourth and was out of the race.
The lesson, said Dan Gerstein, a veteran Democratic political strategist, is that Clinton should quickly try to present herself as the true change agent. Don’t try to go one-on-one with Trump’s quips or insults, he said, because whether he’s correct or not, a lot of people see the media and the Washington establishment as villains that he’s effectively challenged.
Instead, Gerstein said, Clinton should stick to a central theme, that she’s been promoting change for years while he has no record. “She has to keep asking, ‘What have you done?’” said Gerstein, who helped prepare Connecticut Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman for his 2000 vice presidential debate and 2004 presidential primary debates.

Don’t get locked into your script
Senator Marco Rubio, R-Florida, was pretty much done after Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, scolded him repeatedly at a February debate for his “memorised 25-second speech.”
Clinton has a tendency to repeat her points, Gingrich said, so Trump has to be ready to disrupt her rhythm. “She is very prepared for a controlled environment,” Gingrich said.
Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, a Clinton campaign surrogate, had this advice: “As long as she keeps a smile on her face and time after time after time shows she knows what she’s talking about and he doesn’t, that’ll make a difference.”

Make people like you
“These debates are ultimately about feelings. You want people to come away with a good feeling about you,” said Bob Mulholland, a California-based Democratic consultant.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, found that while he had command of issues and a solid ideological base, he couldn’t match Trump’s regular-guy appeal.
“Trump is willing to do what other candidates have rarely done,” said Saul Anuzis, a Cruz adviser. He comes off as real, as approachable, and that’s hard to match. “You don’t know what to expect,” Anuzis said.
Remember, this is not a primary debate audience
Primary candidates had different missions. Because there were many candidates, voters had the luxury of looking for someone who agreed with them on specifics.
Clinton sparred with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders over ideas and policy. Republicans began with a 17-person field, and the debates often became a demolition derby of sorts, not only a test of ideas but also an effort to demonise and eliminate many rivals.
Now that there are two general election candidates, and each is trying to appeal to broader audiences, “you’re not debating the person onstage,” said Chris Lehane, who advised Al Gore during his 2000 presidential debates. “You’re speaking directly to the audience.”—McClatchy Washington Bureau/TNS