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Stakes High For Obama, McCain In Friday's Debate

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By BILLY HOUSE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON - John McCain and Barack Obama meet Friday at the University of Mississippi for their first of three 90-minute debates -- showdowns that experts say could be their last best chances to move undecided voters.

As Obama hunkers down this week with advisers in Pinellas County and McCain also prepares privately, history provides no hard-and-fast rules to gauge the importance of presidential debates.

But the delivery during a debate of a memorable line, or expectations not met, or gaffes committed can and have set the tone for the stretch runs of some past campaigns.

"The race is so close, these could be the most important debates we've seen in several [election] cycles," says Allan Louden, a campaign rhetoric and political communications expert at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, N.C.

"Typically, the first debate is the one most watched," adds Alan Schroeder, author of Presidential Debates: 50 Years of High-Risk TV, who predicts viewers could top 70 million, despite its Friday night scheduling.

The audience for the first George Bush-John Kerry debate in 2004 was 62.4 million viewers. Schroeder, a Northeastern University professor, predicts that the influence of the Internet and real-time live streaming will lead to Friday's debate being watched more widely, while also allowing millions of Americans to add their own voices to the post-debate analysis and spin.

"Obviously, every debate has its own idiosyncracies; but you never know what you're going to get and what bombshells might occur," said David Lanoue, a University of Alabama political science professor.

The most memorable – and even devastating – lines or miscues in presidential debate history have run a gamut. Many are easily re-lived today through YouTube and other Internet video sites.

There was the first 1960 debate between Richard Nixon and JFK, which kicked-off the age of TV presidential debates. Nixon's "5 o'clock shadow" and his relative unease contrasted sharply for many viewers to Kennedy's tan, confident and well-rested demeanor. Those who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won it.

In 1976, President Ford claimed wrongly in a debate "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," a mistake that reinforced his image as a less-than-brainy chief executive.

Four years later, Carter found himself the target of two memorable debate lines after he asserted that Ronald Reagan would cut Medicare. Reagan responded, "There you go again," and then asked Americans during his closing remarks, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

In 1988, Democrat Michael Dukakis' dispassionate, unemotional response to whether his opposition to capital punishment would stand if his wife, Kitty, were raped and murdered seemed to rub many viewers the wrong way.

And in 2000, the shrugs and sighs of vice president Al Gore – in contrast to a folksy, likeable persona projected by George W. Bush -- became fodder for satire, including a memorable Saturday Night Live skit.

More recently, Kerry was able to turn what was a fairly persistent Bush lead in the polls in 2004 into a dead heat by shifting the focus of their debates on whether Bush had mishandled the war on terrorism.

This year, the debates will be the first ever in which neither candidate is a sitting president or vice president.

Recent national polls indicate exactly what may be at stake starting with Friday's debate on foreign policy, to be moderated by PBS' Jim Lehrer.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday in four key battleground states – Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin – showed that 22 percent to 26 percent of likely voters say that they are either likely, or somewhat likely, to change their minds because of the presidential debates.

The two other presidential showdowns are scheduled for Oct. 7 at Belmont University in Nashville (a town hall format with no specific topic) and Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. on domestic issues.

Almost as anticipated is a debate set for Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis between vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

The topic of Friday's opening debate at Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss., foreign affairs, is viewed by many as a strong suit for McCain, and shakier ground for Obama. But that provides a narrative that cuts both ways, say debate analysts.

McCain, a former fighter pilot, is seen as someone who has been around the foreign policy block and has more experience on national security issues. But that means expectations will be high for the 72-year-old McCain to shine, showing more of a mastery to a war-weary public of the issues regarding the war and other topics. Anything short of that could be a disappointment, said Lanoue.

McCain also has a track record of prickly zingers against opponents and other memorable sound bites. But, Lanoue said, "he's a bit of a wooden performer; a bit awkward out there." For example, he cited McCain's line during a Republican primary debate that he would follow Osama bin Laden "to the Gates of Hell," only to afterward flash a smile that seemed out of place.

The more youthful Obama, by comparison, will not only have to validate that has a sufficient grasp on foreign policy, he'll have to meet the expectations of many that he is a superior orator and debater, said Lanoue.

But during the Democratic presidential debates, said Wake Forest's Louden, the Harvard law graduate displayed a tendency "to pontificate too much and qualify his answers too much." There seemed little desire to nail down his comments to crisper sound bites – and that has made him a less effective debater, Schroeder said.

While a debate performance may not alter a candidate's standing in the polls by much, Lanoue said it can mean the difference of between 3 and 5 percentage points – a swing that could help decide races as close as this year's.

That's one reason why presidential candidates have taken to scheduling their debates at least 20 days before Election Day to correct errors or regroup from bad performances, the political equivalent of a lifetime.

Famous Debate Moments
Kennedy-Nixon Debate
Lloyd Bentson on Dan Quayle and JFK

Michael Dukakis' response to question on his wife and the death penalty
Gerald Ford: Poland and the Eastern Bloc
Ronald Reagan to Walter Mondale: "There you go again"
George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton on the recession

Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 662-7673 or bhouse@tampatrib.com.

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