A Dialogue of Lowered Debate Expectations, Feat. the Trump and Clinton Campaigns
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty
Hours before the first Presidential debate, both campaigns are engaged in the “lowered expectations” game. By actively discounting the possibility of their candidate’s success, they hope to create a situation where any showing—even a bad one—is perceived as a triumph based on the low standard they’ve set.
As fate would have it, we here at Paste found ourselves in the midst of this spin zone earlier today. In an enormous coup, we were able to get both Katrina Pierson, Trump’s national spokesperson, and Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, on a conference call. The conversation was…interesting.
We present the transcript without further comment:
Paste: Thank you both so much for joining us tod—
Mook: I’m just going to say it—Hillary Clinton doesn’t like debates. She’s going to be a great president, but she’s a real debate-hater. They give her hives.
Paste: Okay, well my first quest—
Pierson: You think she hates debates? Donald Trump has woken up every morning since 1948 by rolling around his bed in a cold sweat and moaning the words “please don’t argue, please don’t argue.” Tonight is his nightmare, seven decades in the making.
Mook: That’s nonsense, Katrina, and you know it. Donald Trump is the greatest debater any of us will ever see in our lifetime. No, screw that: In world history. He makes Cicero look like…well, like Hillary.
Pierson: Robby, please. Hillary is a rhetorical virtuoso. She’s so good, she’s made me forget that one guy with the big stovepipe hat who everyone said was good at debating. Can’t remember his name. She’s wiped him out of our collective memory.
Mook: If “The Devil and Daniel Webster” had been written today, it would be called “two weak-ass cuckolds get thumped by the Trump.”
Pierson: There are at least 15 unaired episodes of The West Wing where Hillary makes Jed Bartlet cry like a pathetic little weenie.
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