Yeah, I know. Same-day debate commentary is exactly the sort of blogging I claim to eschew, and yet here I am. So sue me.

I actually haven't watched the debate yet. I had an errand to run this evening instead. I wasn't planning to follow the debate live at all, but I happened to catch about five minutes near the beginning on television and about ten minutes at the end on the radio while driving home. Now I've got the VCR running taping the rerun off C-Span, which I'll watch later.

But I noticed something in that first five minutes. Granted, I'm wonkier than the average viewer. Kerry's advisors have studied debate strategy far more than I have and I'm sure they considered this, so probably they're right and I'm wrong. Even so, it sure looked to me like Kerry passed up a huge tactical opportunity right there at the beginning.

Barely ten minutes into the debate, the first question posed to George Bush was: "Do you believe the election of Sen Kerry on November 2 would increase the chances of the U.S. being hit by another 9/11-type terrorist attack?" The point of the question is obvious. Bush can hardly say yes, and if he says no that defuses the innuendo by Cheney and others that electing Kerry makes the country unsafe. Not surprisingly, Bush dodged the question altogether, and not even very subtly. He said he doesn't think Kerry will be elected at all, because the American people know that ... and off he went onto his prepared script. Part of the little speech that followed was a recurring Bush theme, "People out there listening know what I believe."

To me this looks like a first-pitch fastball over the middle of the plate, and Kerry just watched it go by. He could have said, "The president says that people out there listening know what he believes. On many issues that's true, but one topic on which the people don't know what the president believes is the question that was just asked. What Jim asked was if the President truly believes that America will be more vulnerable to a 9/11-like attack if I am elected. Does he believe that or not? I don't know. He didn't say.

"Now if the president thinks it's a trick question and he'd rather dodge it, I understand that. But if he's going to base his candidacy on the idea that Americans know where he stands, it'll be interesting to see how many more times in this debate and the others he responds by dodging the question and changing the subject."

Instead, Kerry went into his own prepared script about how he too is strong but Bush made "colossal errors in judgment", blah blah blah. OK, sure, I understand that he wants to get his talking points in, but come on. The debate is still young. He'll have plenty of opportunity for that on his own questions. Here was an opportunity to change the landscape of the entire debate right on the very first question.

Dodging the question and changing the subject is, of course, an age-old debating tactic which both candidates use. Still, due to the nature of the positions and the men's individual debating skills, it's much more useful to Bush than it is to Kerry. Neutralizing the tactic for the rest of the debate would have been greatly to Kerry's advantage, because it forces both candidates to rely more on impromptu debating, which Kerry does much better than Bush. Any time Bush is faced with a question he prefers not to address, he would be less able to divert it. If he does divert it, Kerry can then introduce his rebuttal with: "Once again, the President has dodged the question. What Jim asked was [paraphrase]. The President didn't answer the question, but I will" and on from there -- or alternatively "but since the President changed the subject to [topic x] instead, I'd like to respond to that."

The advantage would have lingered even after the debates. That the people know where he stands is one of Bush's strongest campaign themes. To have made a memorable incident out of questioning that would have weakened that theme for the rest of the campaign.

But political campaigns, like baseball games, are full of missed opportunities. At least the A's won today. They've been missing opportunities all month, but somehow they're still in the race.

Three more to go.

9:31:08 PM  [permalink]  comment []