Monday morning, Politico published an “Insiders” presidential debate preview featuring interviews with a bipartisan group of political professionals from swing states. One notable tidbit is that Republicans and Democrats agree that Hillary Clinton is under more pressure tonight.
This makes sense to a certain extent. Clinton’s once-significant lead over Donald Trump has diminished in recent weeks to the point where the race appears to be a dead heat heading into tonight’s debate. She needs a good performance to stem Trump’s momentum and reestablish herself as the frontrunner.
But there’s an unfair dynamic at work here too — one that’s captured nicely by a quote from an unnamed Ohio Democrat in the Politico piece.
“Hillary Clinton has spent a public lifetime of being held to a strikingly different standard, and this debate will be no exception,” the Ohio Democrat said. “She will have to answer every single question flawlessly, exude gravitas, look presidential, channel Bill’s and Barack’s oratorical mastery, not raise her voice, not cough, wear an acceptable pantsuit, smile enough, be likable, not laugh and have a good hair day. Donald Trump will just have to show up.”
The notion that Hillary is held to a higher standard was reinforced by a graphic MSNBC used during its debate coverage Monday morning.
In MSNBC’s estimation, Clinton has to explain her entire vision for the country to viewers. Trump, by contrast, just has to get through 90 minutes without lying.
There are plenty of other examples of pundits setting the bar low for Trump. A Washington Post piece headlined “Trump wins the debate expectations game” features this quote from Politico’s Jake Sherman: “I think that Trump is buoyed by the very low expectations. This is a guy who’s never debated one-on-one… So if he does passably, we’ll all say he won.” In the same vein, the New York Times’ Yamiche Alcindor is quoted as saying, “A lot of people are going to look at Donald Trump and think, ‘Hey, if he can even get out a good sentence and show off his experience, then he’s doing well,’” as is CNN’s Dana Bash, who said, “Maybe it’s not fair, but it’s the way it is — the onus is on her.”
More egregious examples of the same dynamic are featured in a Media Matters post. For instance, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell said last week that Trump “could go 90 minutes, misstating facts let’s say, but looking smooth, being the performer” and have a successful night. Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer went even further, saying on September 9 that the Clinton campaign has “set the bar so low for Trump that if he just shows up not foaming at the mouth, if he looks normal, relaxed, and sort of reasonable, he wins automatically.” Krauthammer’s comment was echoed roughly a week later by Fox News’ Melissa Francis, who said, “The Clintons have set the bar so low for Donald Trump that if he doesn’t walk in sort of frothing at the mouth and, you know wearing a swastika, then I don’t think, you know, that it’s going to look like a victory.”
Whether NBC’s Lester Holt will even hold Trump to the low standard of calling him out on lying remains an open question. Earlier this month, NBC broadcast a Matt Lauer-hosted presidential forum where Trump lied with impunity. And yesterday, Commission on Presidential Debates head Janet Brown said she doesn’t think moderators should serve as fact-checkers.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to get the moderator into essentially serving as the Encyclopedia Britannica,” Brown said on CNN.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is preemptively portraying major print media outlets as the “propaganda arm” of Clinton’s campaign for doing their own fact-checks of tonight’s debate.
Trump camp talking points for debate: NYT, Wash Po & Politico part of "propaganda arm" of Clinton campaign for doing "so called fact checks" pic.twitter.com/MkAWo5JpSc
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) September 26, 2016
While Holt reportedly plans to take a more active role policing the proceedings than Lauer did, it’s clear that Clinton goes into tonight’s debate needing to clear a higher bar than Trump. For her, merely being present and not lying won’t be enough for pundits to deem her performance a success.