10:56 PDT September 30, 2004

Snap Analysis - The First Presidential Debate of Election 2004

President George W. Bush v. Senator John Kerry

Who was the winner? My first impulse is to say the makers of highly caffeinated beverages. This “debate” did nothing to enlighten us on the views of either candidate, did nothing to give us a sense of how they compared with each other and gave us no more a sense of who they are than has this entire highly scripted, choreographed election. It was in a word, boring. It was also (predictably) unsatisfying. In sum, those who hate Bush saw exactly what they hated. Likewise, those who are have misgivings about Kerry will find much to support that view in this debate.

Ultimately, it was not a debate but rather as Newsday columnist Ellis Henican described it, a joint press conference. I defy anyone to pick out one sentence that has not been said before by either candidate. The famously controlled format and the very nature of this year’s media focused campaign made spontaneity impossible.

Nevertheless, there were a few items of interest…

John Kerry was complicated, slightly on the defensive but perfection as an orator. Perhaps too perfect. In spite of the fact that his arguments were sound and his delivery was flawless, he failed to “connect” with audiences. While his responses were blessedly briefer than normal; they still lacked the clear subject-verb-object simplicity that Bush has mastered. Almost all of Kerry’s answers were superior in argument and illustration but they tended to contain more than one message in each response. In today’s world of attention deficit voters, this may have hurt him.

He also came across as being extremely smart but in an antiseptic cerebral manner that made him oddly distant. He also lacks animation in his face, whether from bo-tox or extraordinary discipline, I don’t know, but there was never a sense that he cared passionately about what he was talking about. We know for a fact that he has tremendous feeling for many of the topics he talked about. It is his great misfortune that he can’t convey that to the audience.

He also missed some opportunities to score much needed “personal” points with the audience. In response to moderator Jim Leher’s question “Are the over 1000 deaths in Iraq worth it?” he began strongly by calling on his own gut knowledge of what it’s like to lose people under his command. Then he diluted the impact of this by launching into a wonkish discussion of a four-part plan to get out of Iraq. We need to hear the plan, but this was not the right moment. Let the emotion sink in. This was the question he was born to answer and he botched it.

Bush, on the other hand, was folksy and flawed but tenaciously on message and never wavered from the simple and enthusiastic delivery of one core theme: Everything he has done and will continue to do is to protect America. He was clearly Kerry’s inferior as an orator but this imperfection may actually work in his favor. The rules of presidential rhetoric are changing even as we speak. What worked twenty years ago doesn’t cut it today. Today, we need to like our President more than admire and respect him. In light of this new paradigm, Bush’s flubs made him seem more real, more likeable. He also benefited from the low expectations game; a dynamic I predict will work to his advantage for the whole of his political career.

What may hurt Bush if the media seizes on it are the expressions he was making while Kerry was speaking. One of the stipulations of the 32 page Memorandum of Understanding was that no camera would be allowed to shoot either candidate while the other was speaking. I think I now know which side insisted on this oddity. All the networks clearly stated early on they would not honor this and thus we were treated to possibly the one truly interesting component of the debate, a cavalcade of Bush’s blinks, lip licks, jaw moves, grimaces, and smirks. At times he appeared to be chewing cud, other times he looked petulant, exasperated or just plain uncomfortable. Jon Stewart and the folks at Saturday Night Live are going to have a field day. If Bush loses the debate (and we won’t really know until the polls settle down in a few days time) it will be because of the ridicule surrounding these comical and unfortunate tics.

However, at this early stage of the game, I still feel Bush came out ahead. Not because he “won” the debate but because Kerry had to hit a home run to pull ahead. He didn’t strike out but neither did Bush. I’d call it a “tie” but that would be acknowledging that this was a debate, which it of course, wasn’t.

LeeAundra's televised analysis of the debate

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