Gordon Brown calls in Obama team for help with television debate

www.timesonline.co.uk

Gordon Brown is reaching for help from President Obama’s Democrats as he prepares for the televised debates that could determine whether he remains Prime Minister after the general election.

As talks about the format of the three debates enter a crucial phase, The Times has learnt that Joel Benenson, a polling and strategy adviser who worked in the “prep team” that readied Mr Obama and Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, for their election debates, is already heavily involved in tactical planning.

All three main parties are studying videos of presidential debates as they step up preparations for events that will be new to British politics and which many believe will electrify the campaign. The Times understands that Birminghan, Manchester and Bristol have been earmarked as the venues for the BBC, ITV and Sky debates, which are likely to take place on a Thursday or Friday in each of the three full weeks of the campaign.

Mr Benenson has already advised Mr Brown’s inner circle that the team chosen to help him to rehearse for the debates must be “tight and focused”, each with a specified role. The view of Mr Benenson and David Axelrod, who was Mr Obama’s chief campaign consultant, is that “having a room full of people, all throwing in ideas does not work”, a senior Labour insider said.

“You need to have lines to take on every subject, but you also need an overall strategy and that requires careful planning, even though in the end the way Gordon responds to the unexpected could be decisive,” a minister said. Mr Benenson, 56, is retained as a consultant by Labour and will be a regular visitor to London over the coming weeks.

He is believed to have told the Labour team that the debates are vital to the chances of David Cameron, Mr Brown and Nick Clegg, particularly because of their novelty value. In a rare interview recently he said that the first presidential debate in the September before the US election showed that Mr Obama would win. “Senator Obama just won the debate hands-down. He was more presidential.” Read more…

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