WASHINGTON — Like generals preparing the field for battle, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump sent their key aides and vice presidential candidates forth on Sunday to try to manage the public’s expectations of how the highly anticipated first debate will unfold.
Trump’s campaign aides said he was eager to display a knowledge of policy, with his campaign manager even asserting that the brash businessman “is like the Babe Ruth of debating.” But given Trump’s erratic campaign style, the Clinton campaign made the case that her opponent — with an assist from media coverage — has such a low bar to clear that it would make it easy for him to exceed expectations.
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“I’m very concerned that Donald Trump will be graded . . . on a curve,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said on CNN. “Just because he doesn’t fly off the handle in the middle of this debate doesn’t mean that he’s prepared to be president of the United States.”
Trump and Clinton are slated to face off on Monday at 9 p.m., for 90 uninterrupted minutes at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. It is one of the most anticipated political events in decades, one that pits two very different candidates against each other amid an atmosphere of intensifying anxiety and frustration among voters.
Polling released on Sunday illustrated how close the race is. A Washington Post-ABC News poll has Clinton ahead by two points nationally.
Some 34 percent of registered voters said the debates were important in helping them decide which candidate to back, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
While both candidates are well-known — and generally disliked by the American public — the debate, with an audience that could reach Super Bowl-level viewership, is an opportunity to show their strengths, expose their opponent’s weaknesses, and come across as more likable.
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In the days leading up the debate, nearly as much attention has been paid to who would be sitting in the debate hall than to the candidates on the stage.
Trump’s campaign on Sunday denied reports — stoked by Trump himself — that he would have as his guest at the debate Gennifer Flowers, whose affair with Bill Clinton in the 1970s became an issue during his 1992 presidential campaign.
The suggestion arose on Saturday when Trump tweeted that he had considering asking Flowers to sit in the front row. He was responding to Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who said that he was coming to the debate as Clinton’s guest and that he looked forward to seeing Trump defeated, as part of what he called “Humbling at Hofstra.”
Flowers then chimed in to say that she did plan to attend, writing on Twitter, “Hi Donald. You know I’m in your corner and will definitely be at the debate!”
Later, however, Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, both said Flowers would not be a guest at the debate. Conway said that Trump’s comment about Flowers had been an attempt to “remind people that he’s a great counterpuncher.”
“Donald was using the tweet yesterday really to mock an effort by Hillary Clinton and her campaign to really distract attention” from the other issues, added Pence on Fox News.
Meanwhile, Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, elaborated on the Clinton campaign’s concern Trump would be judged by “a different standard” in the debate, But, he told “Face the Nation,’’ the debate format also has the ability to expose Trump’s weaknesses: his lack of policy specifics; unanswered questions about his finances; and his lack of truthfulness.
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The Clinton campaign also released an ad on Sunday that contends Trump’s unwillingness to release his taxes could be because of business ties to Russians.
Both campaigns were also working the refs. The Trump campaign has continued to maintain that it shouldn’t be up to the moderators to fact-check during the debate, that such claims should have to be checked only by the candidates themselves. The Clinton campaign has pointed to Trump’s propensity to bend the truth, saying he should be checked on stage, in real time, for his falsehoods.
“In a 90-minute format, not 20-second sound bites, there’s a real opportunity to hear somebody say something and then get into, ‘Is that actually true or not?’” Kaine said on “Face the Nation.” “So . . . let it be an even standard for both,” adding that “checking people on truthfulness — that’s going to be very important.”
The candidates on Sunday also met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in New York attending the UN General Assembly meetings. Trump had appeared in an ad supporting Netanyahu during his reelection campaign in 2013, while Clinton has been part of the Obama administration’s tense relationship with the longtime ally.
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Matt Viser can be reached at matt.viser@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mviser.