OPINION:
The current candidates for the Republican presidential nomination seem to think that former President Donald Trump won in 2016 because he won the debates, which is why they all want to be on stage in the upcoming debate in Milwaukee and the one next month at the Reagan Presidential Library.
The theory is that if they can get on the debate stage, they can win as an insurgent candidate, just as Mr. Trump did in 2016.
That is nonsense.
Mr. Trump won in 2016 because he was faced with a large field of mostly unattractive candidates selling late-stage Republicanism who ran bad or poorly funded campaigns.
He won because he has a knack for dominating every news cycle and because, at some fundamental level, he figured out relatively early in his career that the tricky part of making news is not providing content — there is always time to make that up — it is getting the public’s attention.
Once you have that, you can say or do pretty much whatever you want, which is why Mr. Trump has always been less worried about policy and more worried about wrangling the media. It is also why the quality and consistency of his policies — and personnel, for that matter — of the former president have gyrated a bit. They are largely (and perhaps appropriately) an afterthought.
Mr. Trump was also the first to recognize that the legacy media (and now their colleagues in conservative media) have become — because of time, cash and intellectual constraints — mostly stenographers. They will pretty much print the press release and the statement of the day without much scrutiny.
As he noted back in 1987 in his book “The Art of the Deal”: “One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational, the better. … The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.
“Sometimes they write positively, and sometimes they write negatively. But from a pure business point of view, the benefits of being written about have far outweighed the drawbacks.”
The other contestants in this game — with the exception of Mr. Trump’s stalking horse, Vivek Ramaswamy — have not figured out that the game is now about aggregating attention and eyeballs. They are still running the same campaigns at roughly the same tempo that politicians have run since World War II.
Consequently, you should expect the debate on Wednesday to be about Mr. Trump, one way or the other. You should also anticipate that the 48 hours on either side of the debate will be dominated by whatever mini-soap opera Mr. Trump devises to divert attention toward himself and away from anything that might happen in the debate hall.
The only remaining questions are whether Mr. Trump will appear in person at the debate and demand a lectern, despite his refusal to sign an unenforceable pledge to support the party nominee, and, in the event he does, will his hand-picked Republican National Committee chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, enforce the rules or let the former president participate.
It seems more likely than not that he will show up and demand a spot on the stage. As for not signing the pledge, who can blame him? What right-thinking American could really vote for former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson? Is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie really going to vote for Mr. Trump?
Mrs. McDaniel is not likely to be a tower of strength in this instance. If her sponsor Mr. Trump shows up, she’ll let him on stage. Should that happen, the best way for the other candidates to convince the voters that they are serious people would be to walk off and refuse to participate.
Or stay and announce that if elected, they plan to pardon Mr. Trump.
Those are the sorts of things that win you a news cycle and alter the trajectory of a campaign. If you want to be the champ, you have to beat the champ.
But it is unlikely that any of the current contestants would even consider such things. What does seem likely is that whether he is on stage or not, Mr. Trump will somehow dominate the news coverage of the debate and this campaign will continue on its current path.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is president of MWR Strategies. He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. He can be reached at mike@mwrstrat.com.
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