What I’d Advise Candidates to Say to Donald Trump in Tonight’s Debate

Spoiler: It’s NOT What they HAVE been saying.

As a former Democratic political operative of 20 years, I don’t pretend to understand Republican primary politics.

But after watching the remarkable rise of Donald Trump, it’s clear that his Republican opponents don’t either.

After saying things that would disqualify just about any other candidate in the history of politics, Trump appears to be the teflon candidate, as other Republican candidates take aim — and shoot themselves right in the foot.

Trump supporters point to this and caution the others — “every candidate who has gone after Donald Trump has seen it backfire,” they say.

True. But maybe because they’re not going after him the right way.

After the first debate, when he engaged with moderator Megyn Kelly about his long history of offensive comments to women (defending his statements and saying he doesn’t have time for “political correctness”, only one candidate really took him to task — Carly Fiorina. Since then, they’ve gone back and forth a few times, and she seems to be the only candidate who has figured out how to get the best of him.

(I, for one, am excited to see how she handles him in tonight’s debate.)

But pretty much everyone else has blown it. Their reactions have ranged from total silence, to completely misfiring. They either set themselves back, or at the very least, missed a huge opportunity.

Tonight’s debate will give them another chance. I’d put money on Trump saying something tonight that will offend large numbers of American people. Here’s what I would say to a candidate I was advising before the debate:

1) Trump is beating you because he’s the unpolitician. Maybe sounding super political isn’t the best response.

In the first debate, Rand Paul came out swinging at Trump for having once said something nice about Hillary Clinton. Jeb Bush, in the days following, focused his fire on Trump for having supported Democrats in the past. (A terrible line of attack tonight at the Reagan Library, since you know… Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat!) Conservative commentators are on TV today attacking Trump for having voted for Barack Obama once. The Club for Growth is running ads calling Trump “a typical politician” for some of his policy positions, in what are perhaps the most typically political ads of the season. (They apparently don’t see the irony.)

Now, I’m not privvy to Republican polling, but… really? That’s what you think is going to move people? At a time when people are sending plenty of signals that they’re frustrated with politicians, your attack is that he’s not a loyal politician?

No wonder he smiles every time you attack him.

Trump supporters don’t support him because of his position on issues. (They can’t. He hasn’t really taken many.)

Their support is visceral, emotional and human. Just this morning, I stood behind a woman in the security line at JFK airport who, frustrated with the single TSA agent checking in three lines of people, yelled out, “THIS is why people are supporting Donald Trump!” (Yes, that really happened.)

She’s right.

You’re not going to beat that with a typical political response that validates everything Trump says about you. You beat human with human. So, time to start acting and speaking like one.

2) People are looking for leadership. Don’t let him define it. Show them a better brand.

This is part of the Trump appeal. He’s the no-nonsense, won’t get bogged down by political correctness, successful businessman who can get things done. The rest of you are political hacks who are part of the problem. You’re so caught up in the ways of Washington that you’ve forgotten about the regular person. You’re not fighting for them. He will. That’s the kind of leadership people want. Or so his theory goes.

He’s not wrong. People do want results. They do want someone who will wake up every day and fight for them. They want leadership.

That’s undeniable. So why is he the only one talking about it?

They’re not looking for the most “experienced” candidate — sorry Jeb! and Kaisch. They’re not impressed with “new” — sorry Rubio. They’re not keeping a scorecard of the most “conservative” — sorry Cruz, Santorum, Huckabee, etc etc.

They want a fighter who gets results.

But I also believe that people are tired of fighting. They’re tired of divisiveness. They’re tired of hate.

I don’t think most people agree that Mexicans are rapists. I don’t believe they’re OK with a candidate who attacks women’s looks or attributes their professional behavior to their menstrual cycles. (At least I hope that’s the case!)

But elections are all competitions. They have to be given a choice. And in the absence of any other alternative demonstration of leadership, it appears some Republican voters are willing to accept Trump’s brand — warts and all.

So… stop laying down. Stop worrying about offending his voters. Stop being weak and timid.

Stand up and offer real leadership. It’s a problem when you show more outrage over his party switch than you do over his mysoginy. Stand up to him the way Carly Fiorina has stood up to him. It’s working for her.

Imagine, for example, if Marco Rubio had turned to Donald Trump after his exchange with Megyn Kelly in the first debate and said:

“Mr. Trump — we’re both fathers of daughters. If someone ever said to my daughters what you’ve said about women, I’d want to pop them in the nose. I suspect you’d feel the same way. That’s not being politically correct. That’s being decent. And that’s the problem with Washington today. Not enough decency. That’s part of the challenge of our party today — too many Americans feel we don’t treat them with basic decency. I know better. Most of us in this room know better. But we can’t convince the American people that we can govern, if people like you keep attacking them and then blaming them for feeling bad.”

If I had heard that, he would have gotten my attention. Hell, he’d have gotten my respect. That would tell me something about him — about his vision and the kind of leader he’d be. A statement like that from a candidate would tell me so much more about him/her and the kind of President he/she would be, than anything he/she might say about Trump’s party loyalty.

If I had heard that, I wouldn’t have reacted as a former DNC or Hillary Clinton spokesman. I’d have reacted as the dad of a little girl. I’d have had a human reaction — something that only Trump is getting on the Republican side right now.

I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. This advice isn’t poll-tested.

But the poll-tested advice the candidates are getting about Trump isn’t working for them. So maybe they can ignore it for a night and just react like humans.

They’re not going to do any worse.