As we point out in our book Armageddon: How Trump Can Beat Hillary, there is a fundamental flaw in Hillary’s campaign approach and the debate coming up on Monday, September 26th should make it evident.

Hillary and the Democrats have based their campaign on demonizing Donald, calling him dangerous, unpredictable, racist, Islamophobic, demagogic, sexist, lacking in temperament and judgment, bombastic, jingoistic and a litany of other names.  His supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables.”  It is a campaign conducted by a speechwriter with a well-thumbed thesaurus.

Against Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972, such a strategy of name-calling could and did work.  But now we have televised debates. (There were none in ’64 or ’72).

We will meet Donald Trump and will see that he is none of the things Hillary says he is.  Before he takes a single stand on a single issue, it will be evident that he is not the diabolic candidate Hillary paints.

In some cases, the road has is coming up to meet him.  The problems he has focused on have become so serious that his formerly extreme rhetoric now makes sense. How can we look at the mayhem caused by an Afghani immigrant without thinking about stopping more from coming in?

In other cases, his rhetoric has toned down.  He still wants to build a wall, just like Bill Clinton did in 1993.  Bill’s stretched 300 miles along the California/Mexico border — and still stands.  Trump’s wall would be longer.  But he no longer calls Mexicans drug dealers and criminals and has abandoned the idea of a Gestapo-style roundup of illegals for deportation.

All Trump needs to do is to lay out positive proposals and avoid ratifying Hillary’s accusations.  Donald’s constructive programs on taxes, national security, immigration, the economy, and child care form a basis for projecting a national image that will simply sweep aside Hillary’s campaign.

For her part, Hillary has to look healthy and energetic.  A modulated, laid back performance will destroy her claim that she is well enough to be president.

Tactically, we would suggest (as we do in our book):

• He should attack Bill’s record on bank regulation, making clear that his decision to deregulate banks as he left office opened the door to the ’07 and ’08 crash.
• He should challenge her to close down the Clinton Foundation so there can be no pay for play deals involving a president.
• In his outreach to African-Americans, he has stressed school choice — a chapter in our book.  He can outflank Hillary on education and make strong inroads into the ranks of black women.
• He needs to show a balanced approach to the recent police shootings and make clear that he will be sure that police violence against unarmed minority boys has to end.
• Trump should hang ObamaCare around Hillary’s neck.  The issue has been almost absent from the campaign so far and it represents Obama’s and Hillary’s biggest failure on the national stage.

Everything is tending Trump’s way as he enters the debate.  A strong performance will catapult Trump ahead of Hillary, perhaps to stay.