EXPERTS ADVISORY

The first of three presidential debates between Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and GOP candidate Donald Trump begins Monday (Sept. 26) in New York. University of Michigan has experts available for interviews.

Aaron Kall, director of debate and editor/co-author of “Debating The Donald,” can discuss the debates and the impact on voters.

“Trump doesn’t need to throw the kitchen sink at Clinton or lob a Hail Mary zinger in her direction,” he said. “Acting presidential and rising above the fray will enable Trump to successfully address concerns about his temperament, which remains his biggest vulnerability and obstacle to becoming president.

“Clinton must ensure that Trump owns all the crazy and outrageous things he’s said in the primary debates and on the campaign trail, including birtherism. Trump’s in the midst of a late general election pivot to the center, but he’s got a pile of baggage a mountain high and presidential debates provide the ideal forum to educate and remind voters of this.”

Contact: 734-239-3996, akall@umich.edu

Michael Lempert, associate professor of anthropology, can discuss the candidate’s gestures and body language. He wrote “Barack Obama, Being Sharp: Indexical Order in the Pragmatics of Precision-Grip Gesture.”

“One thing worth recalling is that political bodies are scrutinized intensely—at times, mercilessly—for what they supposedly betray about the politician and his or her ‘message,'” Lempert said. “Not just gesture, but hairstyle, clothing—anything can be read as revelatory, as if it offered a glimpse into who the candidate “really” is. This says a lot about how suspicious we are about political communication.”

Contact: 734-764-2156, mlemp@umich.edu

Arthur Lupia, the Hal R. Varian Collegiate Professor of Political Science and research professor at the Center for Political Studies, examines how people make decisions when they lack information and in how they manage complex information flows.

He said there are two things to know about modern presidential debates:

• It’s all about differences. In presidential elections, candidates have incentives to draw attention to their differences. Despite the fact that the major candidates agree on many, if not most, of the ways that the government currently operates, the candidates will use the debates to showcase their differences.
• Watch for the pivots. The modern presidential debate is not a game where the candidate with the best command of details is declared the winner. It is, instead, an opportunity for candidates and their campaigns to create iconic soundbites that the campaigns can use to accentuate candidates’ differences. For this reason, a critical element of a candidate’s debate strategy is how quickly and adeptly a candidate can pivot from the moderator’s question to a topic that they want to address. They will try to appear to respond to the question while moving as quickly as possible to a topic that they prefer.

Contact: 734-647-7549, lupia@umich.edu