WASHINGTON _ No heavyweight prize fight has been more anticipated than Monday night's televised square-off between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with NBC News anchor Lester Holt as moderator or, perhaps, referee separating them in the clinches.
For all the expectations of a brawl raised by the obvious mutual dislike of the two nominees, both have been counseled to remain self-controlled in the heat of the 90-minute confrontation, in order to emerge as the more "presidential" or at least disciplined under fire.
Democrat Clinton seems much more equipped, by sheer policy knowledge and temperament, to meet that test. But Republican Trump has demonstrated himself to be, as he boasts, a superior counterpuncher, having easily mowed down 16 primary opponents.
Clinton is the policy wonk ever prepared on the facts and tightly wound, to the point her likeability and trustworthiness are widely questioned. Trump, on the other hand, is the policy-deficient loose cannon given to bobbing and weaving on the facts, and often erupting with personal insult and invective.
That this first debate will be before a huge television audience may give Trump a home-field advantage, given his long experience as a TV entertainer. However, his tendency to rise to the bait of any critic will tempt Clinton to try to get under his thin skin.
Clinton has prepared using mock debates to sharpen her policy expertise and ability to answer questions and challenges about her private email server and other controversial topics. Trump has said he considers mock debates a waste of time, and will rely on the shoot-from-the-hip style that has gotten him where he is now.
Thus the debate promises to be a battle of wits, styles, raw knowledge and policy positions. Clinton will seek to reveal Trump's governing deficiencies, and he will try to play on her alleged lack of warmth and her occasional flights of sarcasm and superiority.
Most of all, both candidates must guard against a bad moment, answer or even physical appearance that might put either of them in a bad light and provide negative video clips presented later that night or in the newspaper and morning television news shows the next morning. Such gaffes have often dominated the news coverage in past debates.
In the very first televised presidential encounter in 1960, an ailing and edgy Richard Nixon, sweating profusely, offered an unfortunate contrast to the cool and collected John Kennedy. Some polls found radio listeners rating Nixon the winner, but Kennedy got the clear nod from television viewers. In 1976, President Gerald Ford committed a major gaffe in saying "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." Though panelists twice reminded him of the contrary, as did Democratic opponent Jimmy Carter, Ford stuck to his answer until aides persuaded him otherwise, and he lost the election.
In the same election, Ford's running mate, Bob Dole, in his vice-presidential debate with Walter Mondale angrily dubbed World Wars I and II and the Korean War "all Democrat wars," a remark that some critics said later contributed to the Republican defeat.
In 1980, Carter confided that he had consulted with his nine-year-old daughter on what was the most important issue and was told "nuclear weaponry and the control of nuclear weapons." On the other hand, in that same campaign Ronald Reagan asked the audience, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" He won easily.
In 1984, when Reagan's age of 73 was raised after a shaky first debate, he demolished challenger Mondale by wryly quipping: "I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." Mondale said afterward that he knew at that moment he had lost the election.
In 1988, Michael Dukakis shockingly was asked by CNN's Bernard Shaw if his wife Kitty were raped and murdered, whether he would favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer. Dukakis blandly defended his opposition without showing the slightest emotion over the question. He lost badly to then Vice President George Bush. So just how a debate question is handled can be critical, as both Clinton and Trump need to remember.
