Final Debate Hangover

First, let me second Patrick Belton: "MY GUT, and it's only my gut, is that this was a knockout win for Kerry." I agree; Kerry won clearly. In fact, as the Republican aides seem to acknowledge every time they're asked about how the debates went ("Well, of course, the president isn't quite as articulate a debater as Senator Kerry"), it would be pretty difficult to imagine a situation in which Bush actually out-debates Kerry. The best Bush could do in theory is fight Kerry to a draw. But having to defend a record of profound failure domestically and internationally is such a huge disadvantage that, truth be told, Bush never had a prayer going into the debates.

So the best he could have done, for practical purposes, was either his performance last night or his performance during the second debate. (I thought the second-debate-Bush was better, but I'm a man, and apparently women didn't like Rambo Bush.) Has anyone else noticed the ghost of Al Gore looming over these debates? In 2000, Gore's performance in the first debate, which was undoubtedly the truest expression of his personality, was so widely ridiculed that he kept switching personas in the next two debates, probably costing himself the election with his decision to take whatever sedative his handlers gave him before the second debate.

This year, we got to see the true Bush---the unprepared, unwilling-to-take-criticism, pissy, out-of-his-depth, ad-absurdum-reductionist, emperor-has-no-clothes-Bush---in the first debate. True-Bush (as I'll call the man who showed up in Miami) cuts so embarrassing a presidential figure that Karl Rove and Karen Hughes were foreced to scramble to find a new personality for their guy. And like Gore, Bush never really found the right mask to wear. Not only did he present himself in three debates as three distinct personalities, but he seemed to suffer mood swings throughout each debate. Kerry wins on substance because he knows a lot more than Bush does, and has the deductive and inductive machinery that one needs to synthesize concepts towards proving an argument. But more importantly (unfortunately), Kerry wins on non-substance because he has been the same guy in every debate. Constant, smart, a bit boring, and composed---in toto, Kerry has looked and sounded the part of a sitting president, whereas Bush has come off as a challenger flailing around trying to get a purchase on his opponent.

Where does the race stand now? Let me put it this way: After the Republican National Convention, when most of my friends were inconsolably pessimistic, I said:

I'll hazard a prediction about the coming months of the campaign. The Swift Boat Veterans For "Truth" controversy produced an artificial swing in Bush's favor through August. As a result, he peaked too early. The Republican convention is not going to produce any significant bounce, and the momentum will shift back to Kerry in the coming weeks, in all likelihood permanently. The remaining X-factor is the debate series.

I was wrong that the convention would produce no bounce. The convention itself might not have spiked Bush's numbers, but it established a clear narrative for the remainder of the campaign that would have ended, if not for Bush's meltdown in the first debate, in Bush's re-election. Now it's clear that Bush's previous lead was precarious and shallow. The substructural motion of the campaign, near-sclerotic though it is, is pointing in Kerry's direction. I think he's going to win.