Presidential Debate Number One

Presidential Debates.

I don’t watch Presidential debates for the same reason I don’t like going to children’s plays, amateur theatricals and school assemblies: they are not particularly entertaining and I get no pleasure watching people embarrass themselves.

Their ostensible purpose is risible. If you can’t figure out which candidate you support based on your understanding of the issues, debates will not provide an answer. Debates favor the liar over the truth teller. They favor the facile over the thoughtful and the handsome over the homely. Debates are – in many ways – less truthful that paid political ads since how things are said in a debate often has more of an impact than what is said.

That does not mean that I have not paid any attention to the first debate of this campaign. I have given the impact of the debate an opportunity to percolate, to be spun by the spinmeisters and to be dissected by the various interest groups. And here is my conclusion;

1) The first reaction of most of those who watched the debates is that Kerry won on style. To paraphrase one commentator, it sounded as if Bush came to a 90 minute debate with 30 minutes of material.

2) The second reaction of most commentators is that neither candidate delivered a knockout punch. No one exploded. No minds were changed.

3) The Democrats are using outtakes from the debate to illustrate Bush’s facial expressions when Kerry was speaking.

4) The Republicans are using outtakes from the debate to show Kerry flip-flopping.

The bottom line is this; the effect of debates is almost always to provide a story for the days and weeks after the debate. The Kerry camp’s only ammunition from debate number 1 are Bush facial expressions. The Bush camp is using Kerry’s words from the debate to reinforce his flip-flops, and is beginning to use both his nuclear disarmament comments and his “global test” comments as new ammo against him.

The Democrat response is weak and content-less. It will reinforce Bush haters but will not persuade the uncommitted. The Republicans came away with more ammunition to fire at Kerry. Most Americans have no problems with our nuclear arsenal and few want our foreign policy to pass a “global test.”

The early conventional wisdom is wrong. The winner of the debate is Team Bush.