The goal when surrogates face off with their parties’ standard-bearers is to “crush,” said Steve Schmidt, a campaign veteran and senior adviser to the 2008 McCain campaign. “I want him to hear how tough it’s going to be, how good his opponent can be, so he or she works extra hard to put on the best debate performance they can.” “When I’m playing my candidate’s opponent, I want to beat him bad,” Eckart said. “That the words their opponent in the debate utters, they’ve heard before, arguments they’ve heard before.”įor candidates, getting to that point sometimes requires painful practice, he said.

Dennis Eckart, who served as a surrogate playing vice presidential hopeful Dan Quayle in debate prep with Lloyd Bentsen. “Your goal is to make sure your candidate, when he or she walks out on that national stage for the debate, for them to feel like they’ve been there before,” said former Ohio Rep. John Kerry (playing Romney in mock debates with Obama) and Rob Portman (in the role of the president in practice sessions with Romney) are tasked with preparing their teams for just about every occurrence that could unfold on that stage in Denver. They want you to be able to react to it in an emotional way, in a defensive way, get it all out of the system, so at the debates, you have the right tone, the right response.” “Everything possible is out on the table. “You have the full amount of the toughest questions asked about you” during practice rounds, she said. Granholm, who channeled Palin in the mock session with Biden by wearing a red suit and sporting glasses, said she tried to throw the then-Delaware senator “off his game.”

Do not hesitate show no mercy