Who won tomorrow's debate? (Are newly registered voters the Ewoks?)

[troublemaker]

The data points of events can be hung on almost any dramatic framework. In the competition for viewers and readers media tend to chose those narrative frameworks that audiences find most satisfying. Whatever the reality, wars, campaigns, trials and even celebrity careers end up being presented as classical drama because that’s what keeps people watching.

These debates are a trilogy or a three act play. The scene is set, then complicated, then resolved. That form requires that by the end of the second debate everything will be complicated and uncertain--poised on a dramatic knife’s edge. So the media path of least resistance (and highest ratings) is for Bush to roar back into the game while throwing out new charges that cast doubt on the entire landscape. This is THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and the media will want Kerry to lose his sword hand or be frozen and turned-over to a bounty hunter. (Given the odd comparative shortage of 9/11 references in debate #1, Bush will try his best to make it THE TWO TOWERS)

I am not saying this is what will happen in debate #2. But this is the narrative path of least resistance—the story the media are primed to tell.

Our job is to frustrate that narrative.

[troublemaker]

1. PS

Nader is Gollum and Clinton is Gandalf, soon to return from surgery as Bubba the White. (Kidding on the square)