Nobody who plans to watch tonight’s debate is thinking, “I wonder what this Donald Trump character is like.” That’s true even if they are wondering how he will comport himself tonight. They know the range of possibilities. They know what they think of him.
Some viewers will, however, be forming new impressions of Kamala Harris. The conclusion that seems to me to follow pretty obviously is that both candidates should be making the debate about her as much as possible — with her allaying public concerns and his adding to them.
To the extent that she “prosecutes the case against Trump,” as many are telling her to do, the point should be less to persuade people that he’s bad news than to persuade them that she’s a tough, smart prosecutor. The people telling him to lay off the personal insults, meanwhile, would probably be better off from a campaign-strategy perspective telling him to make sure that any insults are in the service of the message about Harris that he wants viewers to come away with — and probably the critique that makes political sense is that she is dangerously left-wing.