If there’s one thing Donald Trump was able to do well in the 2016 Republican primary, it was get under the skin of everyone running against him. He needled, poked, and prodded until just about every candidate was ready to explode. Jeb Bush lost it, Marco Rubio lost it, Ted Cruz lost it, and eventually only Trump was left standing.
If there’s one thing Hillary Clinton’s displayed in all her time in the public eye, it’s a remarkable unflappability. If you watched her Benghazi hearing, where every Republican congressperson spent nine straight hours accusing her of actively plotting the death of Americans, you saw how unfazed she is by taunts, insults, and insinuations.
But those people were not Donald Trump. I imagine he’ll be much, much more difficult to handle.
Interestingly, though, it sounds like Hillary will be taking a page out of his playbook.
The New York Times reports Hillary is loading up on opposition research to attempt to beat Trump at his own game.
Hillary Clinton’s advisers are talking to Donald J. Trump’s ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal,” seeking insights about Mr. Trump’s deepest insecurities as they devise strategies to needle and undermine him in four weeks at the first presidential debate, the most anticipated in a generation.
Her team is also getting advice from psychology experts to help create a personality profile of Mr. Trump to gauge how he may respond to attacks and deal with a woman as his sole adversary on the debate stage.
According to sources, she is going to attack Trump on the things he cares about most.
The Clinton camp believes that Mr. Trump is most insecure about his intelligence, his net worth and his image as a successful businessman, and those are the areas they are working with Mrs. Clinton to target.
The only problem with this is that Trump’s attacks almost always come off the cuff. Will Hillary have the same sort of effect with a carefully workshopped burn?
Probably not. And that may be exactly what Trump wants.
Mr. Trump’s certitude — “I know how to handle Hillary,” he said — reflects his belief that the debates will be won or lost not on policy points and mastery of details, which are Mrs. Clinton’s strengths, but on the authenticity, boldness and leadership that the nominees demonstrate onstage. Mr. Trump is certain that he holds advantages here, saying Mrs. Clinton is likely to come across as a typical politician spouting rehearsed lines.
Interestingly, Clinton, who is no doubt well versed in policy and could outperform Trump on any question of substance, won’t be taking that route.
Mrs. Clinton, a deeply competitive debater, wants to crush Mr. Trump on live television, but not with an avalanche of policy details; she is searching for ways to bait him into making blunders.
Either way, it’s going to be something to watch.
[Via The New York Times]