one big event remains on the general-election calendar<u+2014>marking perhaps the last occasion when something dramatic could alter the contours of the race<u+2014>and that is the final presidential debate on wednesday night in las vegas. it<u+2019>s not unusual for a debate to take on such meaning. what is unusual is the stark contrast in the strategic choices and motivations facing the two candidates heading into the same event. for republican donald trump, the question is whether the kind of scorched-earth tactics he has employed in the last week<u+2014>full-bore attacks on his opponent and on the legitimacy of the very system by which presidents are chosen<u+2014>really translate to his benefit in a debate format. for democrat hillary clinton, the question is whether to engage in the fight with mr. trump as she did in the last debate , or instead pivot beyond attacks and counterattacks to try to occupy some higher ground in the closing chapter of the campaign. each, in short, faces a big decision in how to close out an exceptionally ugly campaign. logic would suggest they might move in different directions. mr. trump appears to have laid a bet that the only tactic remaining for him is to activate and energize his core supporters by emphatically telling them what they already are inclined to believe: mrs. clinton is corrupt, the national media are enabling her and he alone is prepared to fight the establishment on every front. it<u+2019>s a strategy designed explicitly to generate maximum excitement among his supporters and drive wavering voters away from mrs. clinton<u+2014>and a strategy that doesn<u+2019>t particularly depend on pleasing people who don<u+2019>t like his style or message as it is. because he<u+2019>s invested heavily in that approach and not prospered in the polls as a result, mr. trump may decide to return to his core economic arguments about a trade and economic system tilted against average americans. on the other hand, nasty debates sometimes suppress turnout by turning off uncommitted voters, and it appears mr. trump would be fine with such an outcome on the calculation that casual voters driven away now likely would otherwise be clinton voters. he has a choice to make. for mrs. clinton, the equation appears more complicated. far from shying away from engaging mr. trump directly on his terms in the first two debates<u+2014>whether the subject was his treatment of women, his comments about hispanics or his business and tax records<u+2014>she has proven equally willing to go on the attack. it<u+2019>s hard to argue that hasn<u+2019>t worked. she began moving out to a bigger lead after the first debate, and a new wall street journal/nbc news poll shows more voters say the first two debates made them likely to back her than said the debates made them likely to back mr. trump. yet her brand was supposed to be different. she is supposed to be the policy egghead, not a trash-talker. it<u+2019>s not clear that she continues to benefit from being in that game blow-for-blow with mr. trump. if his goal is to make marginal and undecided voters feel bad about voting for her, and perhaps to simply stay home as a result, then it<u+2019>s entirely possible that her slugging it out further with him will have that effect. the one great danger still facing her campaign is low intensity and weak turnout , so her incentive may be to give more voters more positive incentive to show up. in short, she will need to decide whether to make good on the <u+201c> when they go low, we go high <u+201d> mantra she has borrowed from first lady michelle obama. there<u+2019>s a feeling among some in her campaign that her lead now allows her to go more upbeat, which might have the added benefit of starting to create a broader mandate to govern should she win. odds are that there are plenty of voters who would love to find something even moderately uplifting to take away from this dumpster-fire of a campaign. beyond such calculations, one of the dangers facing both candidates, and perhaps mr. trump in particular, is that the swirl of insults, charges of assaulting women and accusations of a <u+201c> rigged <u+201d> system will obscure the actual, legitimate reasons many voters were drawn to the trump message in the first place. many americans<u+2014>more than the hated <u+201c>establishment<u+201d> realized<u+2014>do think that the economic and political systems don<u+2019>t work for them right now, that international trade has hurt their chances in the new economy, and that illegal immigration is changing the culture and the economy in ways they don<u+2019>t like. both candidates and both parties would do well to remember that. the tragedy of the trump campaign is that the messenger has proven so flawed. but the message still deserves some substantive attention at wednesday night<u+2019>s debate. write to gerald f. seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
donald trump and hillary clinton take different tacks as final debate nears - wsj
gerald f. seib