One of the most fascinating moments in last night’s final US presidental debate was when Donald Trump called out Hillary Clinton for using a “pivot”.
You won’t find it in Wikipedia, but a pivot in this sense means using a particular word or phrase to change the direction of the conversation – one of those classic politicians’ tricks that voters find irritating.
Here’s how it went in Las Vegas.
Clinton was under attack because of a remark on “open borders” she had made in a private speech, which was leaked by Wikileaks and, according to her, the Kremlin. So she answered the question on borders and then, without pausing, continued:
“You are very clearly quoting from Wikileaks. And what’s really important about Wikileaks is…” and she went on to attack Trump for his alleged warm relationship with President Vladimir Putin.
Trump, for once, wasn’t to be distracted.
“That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders, OK? How did we get onto Putin?” he protested.
Indeed it was. Clinton’s pivot had been spotted and exposed. And Trump was able to get the debate back to border control, a subject deemed to be favourable to him.
But Trump, as he has done before in this campaign, gave away his advantage by switching back to Putin, an area of debate more advantageous to Clinton, a few sentences later.
Technically, Clinton was using textbook bridging technique. She Answered the question, Bridged via the source of the allegation, and Communicated her message that Trump was a pawn of the Russians. Classic A-B-C. (Acknowledge, Bridge, Communicate/Core Message)
The problem was that in the highly-charged atmosphere of a US presidential debate, the change in direction was too extreme, too obvious. Everyone could see that Clinton was changing the subject.
Bridging is a key part of our training at MediaTrain. But a good bridge has to be credible. If you try to change direction too abruptly, it will jar on the audience. Try to make it seem that the message you are giving is a natural sequitur from the original question.
Ultimately the difference is that a pivot is extreme and obvious, a bridge is subtle and seems natural. So negotiate the corner with a gentle turn of the steering wheel, rather than a handbrake turn.
Oliver Wates