Don’t Discount The Trump Effect

Given some perspective of time, one week after the first GOP 2016 Presidential Debate is a good time to reflect on what happened in Cleveland.

First—and here I may be old fashioned in this sentiment—but the media shouldn’t spend time covering the media. A lot was written before the debate about the moderators and how they were preparing to take on the candidates. After the debate media wrote how moderators scored points against certain candidates. 

Moderators should arrive with only one agenda; to ask issues-based questions and then back up and allow the candidates to speak. Candidates either answer questions directly or pivot to answer what they wanted to be asked. If the candidate answers a question about one issue by talking about something else that should tell us two things; he or she is avoiding a credible answer on that issue or maybe just values the other issue more. Voters must judge for themselves what each candidate values. 

Moderators should not draw attention to themselves with grandstanding questions or spar with candidates. Let the candidates go after each other as differences arise organically in the debate. Rather than wasting time trying to spark tit for tat bickering on minutiae candidates could talk about issues.

Nowhere was that more obvious than the pointed, and sometimes pointless, questions shot at Donald Trump—the current frontrunner. 

Some Republicans bemoan his statements on any number of issues as potentially hurting the party image. But they should stop and consider the unintended consequences of the Trump Effect. In some ways he is a huge boost for Fox and the G.O.P.  

If the reports of Fox News Boss Roger Ailes calling Donald Trump are true, then it shows that Ailes really gets it.  Ailes knows this; Twenty-four million people tuned into a Presidential debate in AUGUST that will neither solve, nor settle anything months before anyone casts a vote. Some of the other candidates are interesting but none spark intense emotions like Donald Trump. 

The candidates should be thankful for the Trump Effect. This early debate drew an audience well beyond political junkies. The casual observer tuned in to see the Trump Show. While there they also got acquainted with other viable candidates. Viewers walked away knowing more about the other people on stage. In future debates Trump will continue to command big audiences giving valuable exposure to the other candidates in the race. 

Even if JFK or FDR came back from the great beyond to enter the Democratic Race and debate Secretary Hillary Clinton they might not draw 24 million viewers. 

One downside of the Trump effect is that candidates need to understand is that these are not preseason games. In the past, uneven performances this early would go unnoticed by the majority of people. Not anymore. Some candidates seemed unprepared for questions they should have known were coming. They’d better prepare to perform at a higher level next time out. 

The other potential downside of the Trump effect for the party was pressing issues that may make some of these candidates vulnerable in the General Election. Those positions may now be cemented in the minds of Independents and Democrats who tuned in to see the debate. 

At the end of the day, it seems Fox was impatient. Perhaps they were looking for a one-time huge audience while trying to clear Trump and cull the 17-member herd. 

But the reality was that the audience for this debate went well beyond far-right Republicans. This debate drew people from across the spectrum, many of the type of people that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has been trying to lure to win the White House. Universal understood this so much that they ran an ad for the upcoming film “Straight Outta Compton” on Fox News during a Republican debate—not exactly a film aimed at Fox’s usual demographic.

Eliminating Trump and boxing candidates into extreme positions this early would be a mistake. Without Trump the crossover audience and the ability to reach them falls away. If they are there extreme positions become cemented in their minds. 

With the Trump effect, Republicans own the biggest television draw on either side getting the eyeballs of crossover voters on the debates. But it does force candidates to be better prepared to debate earlier than they’ve ever been while also having to understand that the audience they must appeal too is much broader than the party “base”. 

Like him or not, find him credible or not it doesn’t matter. The Trump Effect is real and if the GOP manages it well it can be an advantage. They can gain hundreds of millions of dollars in exposure and free media to showcase all the candidates to the much broader audience either party needs to win The White House. 

How they manage the Trump Effect may have an enormous impact on their hope in November of 2016.