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| Today's voice belongs to Contributing Editor Ken Marks |
It isn't often that we can turn on the TV and watch our future unfurl before our eyes. But that's the kind of rarity we'll witness tonight: a presidential debate in which the election hangs in the balance. How could the long campaign have reached a fateful moment like this? I think there are three parts to the explanation:
- Throughout the campaign, Romney painted Obama as ineffectual—inept at reviving the economy and forming political consensus, without vigor and resolve in conducting foreign policy. The first debate reinforced his portrait. Obama lacked passion. He failed to confront lies with truths. So it was hard to fault viewers for concluding, "My God, Romney was right about Obama all along!" Among many independent voters, that has become their working hypothesis.
- There was a different kind of shock among the Democrats who saw Obama as their champion. It's human nature to attach our hopes and self-esteem to champions and common for this phenomenon to occur in politics, especially when people—like the 99%, the jobless, the dispossessed—badly need a champion. In the first debate, the defeat of the People's Champion was ignominious. It wasn't a defeat of blow and counterblow, giving way to exhaustion. It was pretty much a defeat by concession. The Obama faithful are counting on their champion to rise again.
- The presidential debates belong to an indispensable staple of American pop culture: reality TV. Performance trumps substance. No sighing, no smirking, no eye-rolling, no looking at your watch, no condescension, no perspiration. But by all means lay on the enthusiasm and conviction (truth optional). If possible, throw in one or two well-calculated catchphrases. It's a spectacle that reminds me very much of "trial by combat," a medieval method of settling a dispute between two parties. In a perversion of justice, the winning combatant was declared to be in the right. We've refined the concept into a more civilized test: "trial by performance." In this case, the winner can stake a credible claim to the presidency!
If I were coaching Romney tonight, I'd say, "Obama can't handle lies because he can't handle the anger that lies provoke. Every one is a pie in the face that leaves him stunned and humiliated. Therefore, your strategy tonight is to carpet-bomb the auditorium with distortions, false accusations, and Etch-A-Sketching." If I were coaching Obama, I'd say, "We both know that Romney has been a repugnant weasel for his entire career in politics. That won't change tonight. Your challenge is to break through your revulsion and call him out in a strong, clear voice. You've been a teacher. When he asserts something preposterous, step in and 'grade his paper'." If Obama can apply that advice, he'll move the needle a tick and win narrowly in November. If not, nothing will arrest the momentum that will carry Romney to victory.
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Copyright © 2012 by Ken Marks
I agree entirely. What Obama must do is reverse the terms of the debate. Even George W. Bush was able to successfully tag his opponent as a "flip-flopper." If Obama can do something similar (with proof) he casts doubt on what Romney stands for, if anything. He needs to make Romney defend his (multiple) positions and thus reclaim the title of champion.
ReplyDeletePost-debate... Delighted that Obama came to play. He did indeed "grade Romney's paper." The difficulty that remains is that the 1st debate has more impact than the 2nd (which has more than the 3rd). So a 2nd debate victory does not cancel out a 1st debate loss. However, it should be enough to stop the Romney Express. The net, as I see it, is that Obama will re-establish a small edge among likely voters.
ReplyDeleteKen, thanks for following up, in addition to "running up." I didn't have the heart to watch the debate, apprehensive that weak and vulnerable from having stayed up two hours beyond my routine bedtime to witness it, I'd have suffered doubly by another bad showing from the President.
ReplyDeleteFrom accounts so far, including debate clips on NPR this morning, it appears that I would have suffered only singly, from the loss of sleep itself.
In the clips, Mr. Obama's "fighting" voice sounded to me to have risen perhaps an octave, indicating someone, as you (and Laurence Tribe and Will Burns, in a "fish" last Friday) said, who is not comfortable in a debate.
Did you gather the same impression? Perhaps a trained musical ear can comment on whether his pitch seemed that much higher than it did on October 3. André, did you watch the debate or listen to any of the clips? Neophyte? Chuck?
Romney's voice, by contrast, seemed reliably "board room," like a man who was used to being in control, who laid down the law and expected to be listened to because he was in charge, he did the firing, he did the exporting. "I'm talking; wait your turn." He's a scary "type"—a person like the "three white ladies" who expects that position commands respect and obedience, no matter the dishonesty of the person holding it.
I hope that the undecided (the disconcerting citizens who somehow hadn't figured this out about Romney already) were listening carefully and heard this.
Yes, there was something tonally different about Obama's delivery. In everyday speechifying, he relies on tonal shifts more than most speakers. It may have been that the stress of the event pushed him into a higher key as well.
DeleteI see Romney much as you do. It's clear that he's never been denied anything. The opportunity to speak belongs to him, debate rules be damned. The last word belongs to him. The presidency belongs to him.
Ken, Do you think it's realistic to hope that those disconcerting yet-to-decide voters can see Romney this way too?
DeleteOr even that previously decided ones can start to see him this way and reconsider? Now, that could help the second debate cancel out the first, and possibly then some.
But that would start perhaps to sound like prayerful hope disengaged from reality?
I'm afraid I didn't watch the debates (indeed I never have.) They are theater, not substance: nothing new will emerge about the candidates' character or positions. I'm not qualified to judge who put on the most persuasive performance: I can't take performance art, or those who use it as a substitute for thought, seriously enough.
DeleteWe can only hope that those who believe in style over substance were appropriately persuaded.
Thanks, Chuck. As I figured, you feel the same way about the debates as we members of Moristotle's editorial staff do, although Ken has, as part of his research, watched all three debates so far. He has more stomach than I do.
DeleteThere's no denying that the debates are theater, but that says nothing about substance. We're not dealing with a dichotomy. I've seen many a play that was fraught with substance. In the debates, the substance is largely who the candidates are, who their constituency is, and what they're prepared to do to gratify that constituency. Whether we find the debates appealing or not, we have to concede that they matter, especially in a close election.
DeleteMorris, I think Obama will pick up enough support to brake Romney's momentum and stake out a small lead. That's realistic to hope for. But he'll never again see the 4% or 5% lead that he had before the first debate.
Yes, unfortunately, the debates are important, in the sense that influencing voters is important. But I read books such as "Mistakes Were Made" to try to understand the people so influenced. I'm not sure I want to understand them, important as it is.
DeleteHere is an example of the sort of debate question that might make the show matter:
"It is clear that the cost of medical care has surpassed our ability to pay, as a country, regardless of how we manage the details. Is it possible to solve this problem without the insurers simply refusing to pay for necessary but pricy procedures? If so, how? If not, how would you decide who lives and dies?"
Now that would be a debate. One that actually needs to happen.