Before Thursday’s U.S. presidential debate, every indicator suggested that the event might be the worst in recent memory. For starters, we had two candidates in John Kerry and George W. Bush who are, to put it lightly, not known as great orators. President Bush can be painfully inarticulate at times, while the notoriously longwinded Senator Kerry exudes no real charm or charisma.
Worst of all was the format of the debate itself: the moderator would pose questions and follow-ups, but no direct interaction between the candidates would take place. Indeed, as many analysts observed, this was not a true debate at all, but more like two parallel press-conferences. In short, viewers had every reason to approach the debate with incredibly low expectations.
It is all the more remarkable, then, that the debate we got was perhaps the most substantive and evenly matched test of presidential contenders in decades. There were no great one-liners or classic “ten-word answers” that typically define presidential debates, nor embarrassing verbal slip-ups that can depth-charge even the most successful campaign. It was simply 90 minutes in which, for the first time, the president and his opponent advanced their arguments about the war in Iraq, terrorism, and the future of American foreign policy side by side on the same stage.
For those of us who have been following these highly scripted campaigns for months, there was nothing “new” to find in this debate: both candidates stayed on-message throughout, repeating tried and tested lines and sticking to established themes. From Bush, we heard that Kerry was a flip-flopper, that his positions were unclear and constantly changing. Kerry did his best to combat this image by presenting himself as sure and principled, maintaining that he had always had the same position on the war in Iraq: that there was a “right way and a wrong way to disarm Saddam Hussein”, and that the President had chosen the wrong way. Kerry also went after the president for “misleading” the country into war in Iraq, and asserting that the situation there was getting worse and not better.
John Kerry managed to make some very serious attacks against the president, jumping on Bush’s assertion in reference to September 11 that “the enemy attacked us” by pointing out that it was Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, who had attacked the United States. Kerry argued that the war in Iraq has diverted attention from the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and accused the president of “outsourcing” the job of finding the terrorist leader to Afghan warlords.
Kerry probably accomplished more in style and personality during the debate than he did in substantial arguments. He came across as poised, coherent, and even presidential in a way that he has not previously done. Bush, on the other hand, seemed tired, impatient, and sometimes exasperated with his opponent. Performance-wise, Kerry was the winner, if by a slim margin.
However, the night was certainly not a loss for Bush. Perhaps the best moment of the debate came when the President nailed Sen. Kerry on the first point of his plan for Iraq: the claim that he would bring more international allies to the table to share the burden of rebuilding Iraq. Bush contrasted this claim against Kerry’s repeated pessimism about and opposition to the war in Iraq, suggesting that you cannot hope to attract allies when you call Iraq “the wrong war at the wrong time”.
Kerry also stumbled when he stated that the President had the right to take preemptive action, but that military action should be subject to a “global test” to establish its legitimacy. This line is certain to haunt Sen. Kerry in the coming weeks, since Americans don’t like being told their security is subject to the approval of foreign governments-the idea has already made its way into Bush campaign ads.
In the end, both candidates outperformed their expectations. Bush was clear and articulate throughout, and presented his vision of success in Iraq as a central part of the war on terrorism convincingly. Kerry was a strong and confident challenger who kept the president on his toes with pointed criticism.
However, lacking a truly decisive winner, it will ultimately be the media who decides who won the debate. In that regard Kerry is at a distinct advantage in appealing to the left-wing slant of the mainstream news. Whether or not he won on the stage, Kerry will likely be declared the winner in the pages of the New York Times, where it really counts.
Two more debates are left: one in which the candidates take questions from a town hall audience, and another moderated debate on the economy and domestic issues. While neither will be as widely watched or scrutinized as the first debate, there is still ample chance for both candidates to set themselves apart and seize the lead before November.
