Col. Ollie and I watched the debate tonight, and the Col. was ready to jump off a cliff when I left. At the time I left, Ollie was watching Chris Matthews, so I fully suspect that by morning I'll have learned that he really did jump off a cliff, or, at the very least, bounce his head off his basement wall a good half dozen times.
As for me, I'm disappointed in Bush's performance tonight. I had this feeling that Rove and/or Hughes reigned him in, telling him to play safe, and putting certain things off the table. I'm a believer that style wins debates more often than substance. Kerry came off calm, confident, and assertive. Pay no attention to the fact that he did nothing to dispell the belief that he is a vague flip flopper. It's all about perception. Ollie and I have a one man focus group. We can predict the polls by how this person's opinions change. I suspect that we will come to find that this person will come away convinced Kerry is back in the driver's seat, and with that, the polls will go back to about even.
When it comes to substance, Bush "stayed the course", pushing his core message that he is a reliable leader. He did it very uneloquently most of the time, however. Kerry's message was riddled with opportunities for Bush to destroy him, and Bush rarely seized the opportunity. For example, Bush had a prime chance to eviscerate Kerry when Bush talked about the 5 party talks in North Korea, and Kerry took the position of bilateral talks. Right there, Bush should have responded with something along the lines of, "I don't understand my oponent. He says that I do not do enough to build coalitions, and now he wants to tear down one of my most effective coalitions, requiring us to go it alone in talks, which we'd prefer not to do." I turned to Col. Ollie and mentioned this, and he was thinking the exact same thing. Holes opened up in Kerry's defenses several times, and Bush did not capitalize on them. Another opening was when Kerry twice said we guarded the oil ministry in Baghdad, but not the nuclear facilities. What in God's name was he talking about? Iraq does not have nuclear energy facilities, so that could only mean that he was referring to nuclear weapons facilities. What nuclear weapons facility? That one may have been difficult for Bush to jump on, but a pithy statement may have worked.
As for Kerry, his words will fall apart upon further scrutiny. The problem for Bush is that by that time, it won't matter. When you get passed his confident, forceful style, you see that he said nothing of substance. In fact, the administration should be able to make cannon fodder of Kerry with his own words. The perception is reality, though, and this campaign just tightened back up.
2 comments:
I don't worry about the debate or how the candidate performed. Frankly, I think the format guarantees that nothing is said of any importance. The questions were positively stupid. Sounded as if they had been written by a psch major.
I listened on radio. Kerry sounded smug and disingenious. The "I have a Plan." sounded like Nixonian meglomania. As for Bush, his strong point isn't verbal. But then Clinton's was and we all know what a great ass he was. If I had to a choice, it would be substance over slickness any day. I can trust substance.
Debates are a major marketing exercise. It shows how much homework the campaign has done. It also shows how a person can handle pressure and how he can respond to fingers being pointed at him.
Obviously Sen Kerry has had a good background in debating. He needs to, because he is a born leader. Leaders should know how to debate, and how to speak. Not prepared speeches (which surprisingly, our current Pres still somehow cannot deliver well), but impromptu deliveries of inspirational talks.
I don't think this debate is going to turn the momentum at all. I wish, but I know it is not going to be. Middle America is too naive to understand what happened. They are still in awe of the wartime President who is apparently leading well.
Wish more intelligent people voted. That way at least the two parties' marketing machines would not be able to influence anything. For a politician, the past performance should be clear indicator of whether he deserves to come back or not. Our current Pres has had a pretty bad past - including and most importantly, going to war. He needs to be demoted.
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