Dick Polman: Defining moments and lingering impressions

[babylonsister]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/americandebate/Defining_moments_and_lingering_impressions.html

Dick Polman: Defining moments and lingering impressions
Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A boxer, or a ruminator? (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)


The debate season is nearly upon us - it starts this Friday evening, and ends on Oct. 15 - and it's not hyperbole to suggest that the outcome of this presidential election could hinge on a few defining moments or lingering impressions. Substance takes second priority, as we have generally seen before.

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Assuming, for the moment, that issues do matter, Obama on Friday night can be expected to build on some of the lines he delivered in his nomination acceptance speech - about how, in his view, McCain is a George W. Bush clone who has screwed up the war on terror, and potentially made America weaker, by cheerleading from the outset for the money-draining, military-straining debacle in Iraq. Obama needs to paint McCain as a bellicose and reckless guy with no foreign-policy vision (it would be a bonus if he can get McCain ticked off, thus leaving the impression that McCain lacks the requisite temperament for the job), and he needs to make this stick - because McCain will surely try to paint him as an inexperienced Bambi who doesn't know the dangers of the forest. Indeed, McCain will bang Obama for not supporting the Iraq "surge," for refusing to admit that his initial pessimism was wrong - and McCain will try to frame this episode as proof that Obama is insufficiently seasoned to lead. McCain's basic take on foreign policy is visceral, and hence ideal for TV: we gotta win, bad guys gotta lose. Obama's basic take - diplomacy, other incentives, military as last resort - is less suited for instant home consumption; he'll need to do his nuance while avoiding McCain's efforts to tag him with the Democratic wimp stereotype.

But, as I signaled earlier, the way they communicate their points is arguably more important than the points themselves. Obama - who I don't believe was particularly impressive in many of the Democratic primary season debates - will need to tame his penchant for ruminating at circuitous length before he gets around to addressing a question. He needs to be a boxer, not a law professor. He needs to deliver short punchy responses that sting his opponent. McCain's challenge is almost the reverse. He already speaks bluntly and declaratively, so he'll need to avoid leaving the impression that he sees the world as simplistically black and white. He'd probably also do well to avoid delivering his attacks with the frozen sneer-grimace that is supposed to pass for a smile, but instead makes it appear that he is undergoing a rectal exam.

One other factor: Even though the topic is foreign policy, the domestic economic woes will surely come into play. Both candidates, presumably, will find an opportunity to feel the pain of the viewers at home; somebody will find a way to argue that America's strength abroad begins with being strong at home, and take it from there. All told, the Friday night debate is ultimately about leaving a good first impression with the prospective voters who are new to the contest; it's all about projecting empathy, toughness, judgment, temperament, and the kind of indefinable aura that would make the person welcome on the kitchen counter TV for the next eight years.

And that's how it was when the debate era dawned in 1960. Which is why, by election day, virtually nobody remembered a single word of the lengthy, substantive debate between Kennedy and Nixon over the future status of Quemoy and Matsu.