The Presidential Debates

Rule Number One of politics is that there are no rules. For years, political scientists have been writing books about Americans dwindling interest in politics and the declining importance of the two major parties.

The election of 2004 has up-ended all those observations. Suddenly Americans care about politics again - and they have proven it by tuning into the presidential debates in record numbers: 61 million people watched at least some of the first presidential debate and viewership has remained unusually high for the second and third, and for the vice-presidential debate as well.

Many in the media ridicule these debates. Carefully negotiated rules forbid the candidates to interrupt, to ask one another questions, or even to speak directly to one another. Some journalists refuse to describe these events as "debates" at all - they call them "joint appearances," as if they were nothing more than a pair of side-by-side monologues.

This disdainful view is very much mistaken. There is much to be learned from these debates, both about the issues and about the candidates.

Start with George Bush. Many perceive George Bush as an amiable dunce, to borrow a phrase that the legendary Democratic statesman Clark Clifford once applied to Ronald Reagan. Viewers of these debates saw for themselves however that Bush is no dunce - and not always so amiable either.

In both the second and third debate, the president showed an impressive command of facts and figures on domestic policy. He cited statistics on the growth of federal aid to primary and higher education, homeland security spending, immigration enforcement, job growth, and other important policy matters in an easy, familiar way. Even in the president’s least successful performance, the first, he spoke knowledgeably and effectively about world problems and world leaders. (It’s true that he slipped in debate two and referred to "Sergio" Berlusconi - but he caught and corrected his mistake in another answer a few moments later.)

At the same time, the president frequently revealed the fiercer side of his personality: his intense emotions, his combativeness, and yes, his temper. In the first debate, he frequently scowled in anger as he listened to Sen. Kerry, and while he controlled his face better in debates two and three, viewers could easily see the strain of the struggle against his emotions.

Sen. Kerry’s emotional thermostat is set to a much cooler temperature than George Bush’s. This coolness served him well in the formal first and third debates, but disserved him in the second, a town hall format in which ordinary people asked questions of the candidates. Again and again, Kerry failed to make personal connections with the questioners and sometimes lapsed into the haughtiness and condescension that is his most serious weakness as a politician.

In that second debate, for example, Sen. Kerry said at one point that he could tell by looking at his St. Louis Missouri audience that nobody there except himself, the president, and the moderator would pay more tax as a result of Kerry’s plan to raise taxes on households and businesses earning more than $200,000 a year.

But how could he be so sure? Four percent of US households earn more than $200,000 and so do many small businesses. There were nearly 100 people in the room. It was as if the famously well-tailored senator took a look at this Midwestern audience’s clothes and hair and hastily decided that none of these yokels could possibly have any money.

Sen. Kerry was of course immensely verbally fluent and articulate in all three debates. Yet one of the real surprises of the debates was the revelation that he was less intellectually nimble than George Bush. Bush did not deliver his prepared statements nearly so well as Kerry. Yet Bush was quick to seize on mistakes and missteps by the senator; the senator by contrast again and again missed opportunities given him by the president.

In the first debate for example Sen. Kerry made his now notorious statement that American military actions must pass a "global test." The president understood immediately that the senator had made a political error and promptly drew the audience’s attention to it. Yet in that same debate the president made a mistake of his own, when he presented it as an achievement that Osama bin Laden had "been isolated." Senator Kerry pounced on this extraordinary opening - but not until fourteen days later, in the third debate. He missed it entirely at the time.

Most viewers of all three debates would probably award the palm of victory to the senator. But how much does rhetorical success mean in today’s political environment? In a focus group after the second debate, one participant said: "I guess Senator Kerry’s better at talking than the president. But I think the president is better at fighting." If that opinion is representative, President Bush can lose a lot of debates and still win this wartime election.

Originally published in La Stampa.