Friday, October 01, 2004

The Real Question 

Surely no one who has actually heard Bush and Kerry handle the press corps believed that Bush would "win" the debate. Given that, the issue isn't who won, it's "Did Bush beat the spread?"

Though the pundits are primarily too politicized to tell us much, it's my sense that Kerry seems to have surpassed expectations, brought clarity and focus to a lopsided match without getting nasty.

Bush was a caricature of himself. Unfortunately, it's exactly that kind of iconographic and oversimplified personality which comes across well in the mass mind. Fortunately, however, it made for a great game of debate Bingo.

In general, though, the debates will have little to no effect. CNN reports that the "zingers" and sound byte quotient last night was relatively light, with both candidates dwelling more on previously stated opponent sound bytes in an attempt to ridicule. A shame for both candidates, that -- it's the zingers that tend to "stick" in the public mind, and thus affect electability.

But don't pity the politicians. If little good (for either party) comes out of the debates, the candidates have no one to blame but themselves: everyone knows they stacked their own deck against significance. The debate format was so prescriptive that many news outlets web-published (and then withdrew) apparently psychic-authored debate reviews, couched in past tense and everything, as much as four hours before the debate even began. Too, life imitates satire in our nobrow culture: rumor has it Jon Stewart was able to do the same "psychic debate result breakdown." (Anyone got a link for this?)

posted by boyhowdy | 8:51 AM |

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