Trump v Clinton: Candidates prepare for round two

Donald Trump insisted his Thursday night question-and- answer session with supporters in New Hampshire was not "prep" for his second presidential debate against Hillary Clinton on Sunday.

It was a town hall-style event where he responded to questions from an audience, which is the same format as Sunday's debate against Clinton in Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. He also had a large two-minute countdown clock in front of him – coincidentally, the time limit that he and Clinton will have to answer questions in their next encounter. Still, Trump said: "This has nothing to do with Sunday."

Preparation appears to be a sign of weakness for the Republican nominee whose shoot- from-the-hip manner is part of his appeal to the anti-establishment, working-class whites.

“It’s like they make you into a child,” Trump said, wounded at the media’s interest in his debate preparations.

Populist message

However, Trump has much to prepare for. Since his mauling at the hands of Clinton in the first debate almost two weeks ago, the New York tycoon has seen his poll numbers fall nationally and in almost every key battleground state. This next debate is critical for him.

"If Hillary has another great night and Trump has a bad one, she will break his back and I don't think he will ever be able to recover from it," said Mike Murphy, a veteran political strategist and anti-Trump Republican who has worked closely with Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The first debate showed Clinton’s skill as a debater, wounding the thin-skinned Trump with attacks on his business record, taxes and past remarks, and distracting him from his core populist message.

This debate throws up a new complication for him. Clinton has experience in town halls from her “listening tours” when she ran for the US senate in 2000 and in the early stages of this campaign.

“This could be a bumpy format for Trump,” said Murphy. “His campaign events tend to be Trump at a podium, barking at the crowd, so there is some wonder: can Trump adapt or will he just slip someone $50 billion and say, ‘There, go buy yourself something nice, honey’ and just be coarse and horrible?”

It is a setting that Clinton could use to her advantage to show a softer side that many turned-off voters feel they have not seen on the campaign.

The town hall setting makes it difficult for Trump to take a harder line of attack against Clinton. Answering questions surrounded by an audience of everyday Americans – who can be tougher than TV-host moderators – and not having an audience of adoring fans will make it tricky to engage in the kind of reality-TV style attacks that have defined his campaign.

"It is much harder to be nasty and do the kind of interrupting, rude behaviour we saw from him the last time in front of an audience," said political consultant Matt Bennett who helped Democratic candidate Wesley Clarke for his debate preparations during the party's primary election in 2004.

Unpredictable edge

The will-he-or-won’t-he speculation around whether Trump will raise the subject of Bill Clinton’s infidelities, as he threatened near the end of the last debate, adds an unpredictable edge to this one.

“It is like handicapping a crazy person. It is just very hard to know what the Trump rule book is because Trump’s rule book is to not follow any rules,” said Murphy.

The Republican nominee could perform better in two ways: if he repeats his performance in the first 15 minutes of the first debate when he cast Clinton as a representative of the failed policies of the last 30 years and if he follows the lead of his running mate Mike Pence in Tuesday's vice-presidential debate by sticking to the campaign theme of change and not let his opponent provoke him.

“Can Trump not be in defence all the time and can Trump have a modulated, grown-up, even presidential tone? Those are the two big questions,” said Murphy.

“If he learned from Pence, he will. If he is incapable of learning because he is a 70-year-old guy who has his own style and his own madness, then we are going to have more of the same in a different format.”

Tall order

By being forced on the defensive in response to Clinton’s attacks in the first debate, Trump broke a rule of political debate that he must avoid repeating.

“There’s a saying in this business: when you are explaining, you’re losing,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “He spent most of the first debate explaining what he said and did. He has to find a way to put Hillary Clinton on the defensive but that it is not easy for him; he is undisciplined and ill-focused.”

Success will mean Trump having to avoid being Trump. In his penultimate opportunity to appear presidential in front of the nation for 90 minutes, that may be a tall order.