Something to be Cautiously Optimistic About

Say that, like me, you've decided to hold your nose and pull the donkey's tail in the voting booth this November. Or maybe you're one of those insufferable Dem loyalists---in which case fuck you. Or maybe you're an even more irritating upper-middle-class ex-Howard-Dean-fellator/fellatrix who's decided to go with the new JFK instead of ol'-lazy-eyes-Nader. If you belong to any of these categories, James Fallows' debate preview in the August Atlantic should give you something to smile about if not pop a champagne bottle to.

According to Fallows, the "asymmetric" debating styles of the two candidates gives a major advantage to Kerry. Bush, Fallows writes, has succeeded in winning just about every debate in his political career through a combination of simple presentation, relentless on-messagism, and several brilliantly orchestrated efforts to lower expectations on him. Note that Fallows is aware that the real rubric of determining victory in a campaign debate has nothing to do with actually winning the debate (on points). In fact, by that criterion, Al Gore trounced Bush in the first and third debates in 2000, although he was compliant and probably on drugs in the second debate---and of course, even on points, tie goes to the Bush. Rather, the winner of the campaign debate is the candidate that is better able to generate a positive PR buzz around his performance. In the first debate, Gore's sighing---which I actually admired, as a kind of sublimated way of letting the people know how fucking stupid they were for considering this guy---plus his condescending swagger (he is, let's face it, a douchebag), plus the SNL parodies, tipped the debate to Bush. By the second and third debates, all Bush had to do was not slip and break his nose in order to win. In the third debate, interestingly, Gore finally found something approximating the right tone, and if that had been the only debate of the campaign, or perhaps the first of several more, Gore might well have won in the PR-stakes.

Now, the media have already decided that Kerry's campaign persona will be someone who looks stiff compared with the Al Gore of 2000 (forget the Himmler-Gore of recent months). And there's no denying that Kerry's style is what Andrew Sullivan calls "pandescendering"---an anathematizing combination of condescending and pandering to every voting bloc. But Kerry is at his best speaking off the cuff---when he isn't given enough time to edit his remarks into snore-inducing boredom. In fact, Kerry was not only president of the Yale Political Union (at a time when it was a prestigious debating society), but, as Fallows records, one of the more prolific debaters among elite college students in that era. Fallows points to Kerry's debate victories over William Weld, himself a popular figure and accomplished debater, occasions on which Kerry demonstrated an ability to connect to voters through the "tough guy Democrat" (think liberal OSS) aspect of his personality that has made him a successful politician.

What does this add up to? Privately, at least, I don't think many Republicans would deny that on average, Bush's public speaking abilities have degenerated precipitously over the last few years. (The decline actually stretches farther back; more on that later.) At the time of Bush's February Meet the Press appearance, for example, the years of Rovian lowballing tactics seemed to have run their course, and Bush's performance was almost universally panned. (The on-messagism was totally incongruous with the spontaneous nature of Russert's questioning, and rendered Bush's body-language attempts to demonstrate sympathy for the relatives of dead soldiers absolutely hollow and phony-looking.)

So when the presidential debates finally begin, the following factors will be in play:

1)Bush's inability to admit mistakes, a predictable consequence of his refusal ever to depart from the script in campaigning or at press conferences, is beginning to be a major liability, with all polls showing huge public distaste for his economic and foreign policies (this is especially true of the crucial independent voters).

2) Bush has been president for nearly four years now, which, when combined with his public efforts to portray himself as the political heir to Jesus Christ/Ronald Reagan, renders any potential efforts on the part of his campaign to lowball expectations of his performance very counterproductive. In other words, he is either a strong leader in difficult times, or he is an amiable lightweight of whom not too much should be expected. These are public projections which undermine each other, and if the Bushies try the lowballing again, the most likely result will be that people begin to view him as a lightweight posing as a strong leader in difficult times.

3) Kerry, on the other hand will be the unlikely beneficiary of lowered expectations. The media---and I'd like to thank FNC in particular for this---will have people expecting an elitist stiff. Now if, and the "if" bears repeating, Kerry can perform at his highest capability, what people will instead find is a tough, knowledgeable, competent, and even personable candidate---exactly what the Bushies had hoped to convey about their man. In the worst case for Kerry, the jockeying over expectations will have a neutralizing effect, and under even those maximally unfavorable circumstances, Kerry is still up against a man who is by far his inferior at debating, on even terms. Keep reading.

4) So Kerry goes into the debates either with a major structural advantage or else with the even playing field Gore did not have.
Ultimately, Gore still had the skills to rout Bush in the debates---but failed to do so because of his array of insecurities and discomfort within his own skin. Kerry has none of those liabilities. Even if his standard stump speeches are more snoozing-prone than Gore's were, no one would claim that Kerry is anything but supremely self-confident, and through training that probably began in grammar school, extraordinarily polished. (Incidentally, Kerry's self-confidence---or, if you like, egotism---and Gore's monomania represent the two poles between which all politicians-from-birth must somewhere lie.)

5) Thus, provided the above hypotheses are right---and that assumption involves a fair number of inductive jumps---Kerry goes into the debates with an essentially mathematical expectation of victory. Let me liken this to poker terms. If two players are head-to-head with even stacks, and one has vastly superior skills, then barring some incredible run of short term luck, that player will win. If the same two players sit down at a table, and the superior player also has a large advantage in chips, then his opponent's victory is a practically impossible outcome. Kerry loses only if he fails to play the game at his optimal skill level, or allows himself to be dragged down to Bush's level, or...

6)...the Bushies are able to negotiate (or otherwise acquire) a debate format that negates Kerry's advantages. The more predictable the questions, the better Bush will be prepared, and the smaller the gap between his and Kerry's performance. (Perception is everything; remember: the media will turn a small defeat for Bush into a tie, and a tie for Bush is a victory.) If Bush is again fortunate to have a cooperative moderator---recall Jim Lehrer's checklist of foreign policy initiatives (support or not, Mr. Vice President?) for Gore, as if foreign policy competence could be demonstrated through a methodology simpler than grading the waitresses as Friendly's---he might win a debate simply by not mispronouncing words and reiterating what everyone already knows his positions are. If I were advising Kerry, I would tell him to let the Bushies get some of what they want on formatting, so that he could insist on moderators who will ask incisive questions and refuse to merely accept Bush's reassurances and generalizations.