There are plenty of undecideds out there who just don’t pay attention until the debates. All they know until then is what they might have heard in an attack ad. That will change with the debates, and Kerry stands to gain if he can convince these under-informed voters that he is worthy of the office.
Unless Kerry commits a gaffe that winds up in in the newsroom feedback loop, he will get a bounce from the debates.
But then:
Kerry wins there, 5 to 4 - the same margin Bush had in 2000, coincidentally.
You worded them perfectly. But there’s a p**sy ass rule that says they can’t question each other.
How can they even call this a debate?!?
He can still say those things, perhaps he’d have to change the word “you” to “he” or “him” where appropriate. Or he can ask a direct question anyway- what they gonna do, throw him out?
How you figure that? Four letters in “Bush,” four letters in “Gore.”
I did a GD thread on that: “Why not a “Lincoln-Douglas”-style debate?” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=276345
Good thread, that. 'Specially since I posted innit. 
BG, I was referring to the Supreme Court vote - perhaps too indirectly.
:smack:
In my completely unauthoritative opinion:
This first debate will be Kerry’s last chance to turn the undecided voters (and yes, they’re out there in significant numbers, and no, they’re not a given for either candidate). It is the most important debate, not only because the first debate usually gets the largest viewership and cements the public perceptions (right or wrong) of the candidates, but also because it is focused on the issue which most American voters perceive as the most important in this election.
Unfortunately for Kerry, it will be of absolutely zero help for him to present a clearly articulated, nuanced and sensible foreign policy or national security policy. (Even Kerry’s backers, for the most part, remain blithely ignorant of his consistency and prescience in national security matters, just as they largely ignore the published details of his domestic policies.) His only politically ept strategy for this debate is to try and crush Bush in the one area where public perception holds the President to be the strongest candidate.
Working against Kerry is the fact that despite the manifest failures of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq, Kerry cannot score an election-winning knockout on the issue simply because Mr. Bush is far too well protected by the insular layers between the Oval office and implementation of policy on the ground. However, Kerry must attempt to put the President on the mat on the issue of Iraq policy itself, following up on his recent sound-bite accusations that Bush is not “coming clean” with the American people and is living in a world of denial.
More importantly, John Kerry must take charge of the inevitable one-liners the President will punch out while defining himself as the “War President”, make those one-liners his own straight lines and show how Bush’s actions actually undermine those goals:[ul][li]In contrast to Bush’s oft-touted moral clarity (“fightin’ against evil”), Kerry must spotlight the solicitation of legal justifications for torture, the deal-making with strong-arm oppressive dictators such as Niyazov of Turkmenistan or Karimov of Uzbekistan, and the no bid contracts to Cheney’s Haliburton.[]In contrast to forceful anti-terror leadership (“Amerca’s safer now, see”), show the do-nothing approach to real threats such as North Korea and the apathy over internal security measures such as cargo container inspections and funding for first responder infrastructures.[]In contrast to hard-headed realism (“in a choice between believin’ a dictator or protectin’ America, I protected America…”), review Bush’s faith-based expectations of flowers and kisses in Iraq, and how it was exacerbated by the adminstration’s pronounced disdain for the opinions of field commanders and career diplomats.In response to the charge of flip-flopping (“My opponent could prolly debate himself for 90 minutes.”) illuminate Bush’s own reversals on Homeland Security and the 9/11 Commission, and then contrast his own consistent positions on both of those issues and on Iraq.[/ul][/li]
The Bush team has for the past three years worked unceasingly to build up the image of the President as a strong, decisive and effective protector of the American people. If Kerry doesn’t -or can’t- counter that persistently delivered ersatz image of Bush, he’ll likely lose this election regardless of his performance in the later debates, and regardless of how he’s otherwise presented himself.
-One caveat (and a private hope of mine) is this: if Kerry, by pushing mightily on the incompetence angle or the myriad failures of judgement, is able to provoke Bush’s natural and almost indignant inability to admit error… if he’s able to cut through the President’s thin skin and expose his bone-deep arrogance (revealing that mean child of privelege who once casually sneered to a protestor “Who cares what you think?”), then Kerry might come out ahead even if he hasn’t scored a knock-down on any of the security issues.
You think? Remember the famous sign on Truman’s desk: “The buck stops here.” Isn’t that how the people see it?
Well, let’s run down the list of all the failures and fuckups for which this President has had to take responsibility, and then let’s list all the senior -and hell, why not; all the mid-level- Executive Branch officials he’s had to fire over those f&f’s:
They weren’t fired because GWB saw no reason why he had to fire them. Because nobody could make him. Because firing them might be construed as admitting he made a mistake hiring them in the first place, and GWB never admits mistakes. (Unlike Carter, who had the balls to change out his Cabinet near the end of his term because it seemed necessary at the time, knowing it might cost him votes in the impending election.) Because he’s been governing with a Republican, and rather hard-line Republican, majority in both houses of Congress, and he’s never been held accountable to anybody. Until now, when he’s accountable to the voters.
That’s a fair point, and I hope you’re right. His base seems to be very forgiving though, and it’s a pretty large bloc of voters…
They don’t matter. The point of these debates is to swing the undecided voters. And there’s a lot of them.
But… those undecideds don’t seem to find Bush’s lack of accountability for Iraq all that pressing, either, otherwise the Mesopotamian disaster would’ve decided their vote already.
Kerry could so easily turn that into a counter-punch/joke: something along the lines of “I probably could. And it would be a more informative debate: twice as much straight-talk, 100% less spin”…like that. But I’m not holding out hope that the Kerry camp thought of it.
Blatantly stolen from Democratic Underground:
Don’t be surprised! Here’s how the media will cover Kerry’s and Chimp’s debate performance:
Kerry:
If he’s serious, they’ll say he’s glum, gloomy, pessimistic, and uninspiring.
If he’s jovial, they’ll say he’s phony and trying too hard.
Bush:
If he’s serious, he’s, presidential, the war-time commander in chief.
If he’s jovial, everybody wants to have a beer with him.
Kerry:
If he’s forceful, they’ll say he’s too aggressive, mean, negative, desperate.
If he’s calm, they’ll say he’s weak, unsteady, dull, lacks energy.
Bush:
If he’s forceful, he’s strong, resolute, unwavering.
If he’s calm, he’s prepared, on-message, disciplined, reserved.
Kerry:
If he’s specific, they’ll say he’s wonkish, presenting “laundry lists,” being overly-intellectual, show-offy, and nobody likes the smart kid.
If he’s not specific, they’ll say he’s vague, criticizing but not offering solutions, not addressing the issues, and nobody knows who he is.
Bush:
If he’s specific, he “lays out his plan” and “makes his case.”
If he’s not specific, he’s spanning the issues, giving a global presentation, painting a broad outline of his plans.
Kerry:
If he jokes, they’ll say he lacks gravitas, trivializes important issues, doesn’t understand troops are in harm’s way, nation’s at war, disrespects the president, etc.
If he doesn’t joke, they’ll say he needs to lighten up, he’s too stoney, he’s wooden.
Bush:
If he jokes, he’s a man of the people, a regular guy, people relate to him.
If he doesn’t joke, he truly cares about the American people and his sincerity resonates with voters in this difficult time.
Plus, if he finds his podium and doesn’t trip on his way to it, he’s surpassed all expectations. (Extra points for correct pronunciation of “Abu Ghraib” or “nuclear.”)
Dang! Beaten to the punch by AirBlairxxx! 
(Not that it makes the list any less valid, though… )
i’m still unable to find a cite for this, but i just saw on headline news that pre-debate expectations are very much in kerry’s favor. i’m quoting the numbers from memory here, but i believe 52% of those polled (cnn/gallup) thought the president would perform better in the debates, and only 38% thought kerry would.
while this does seem to follow the trend in each candidate’s popularity recently, it would seem that the kerry campaign has actually accomplished something significant, convincing the american people that the man who can’t pronounce “abu ghraib” or can’t decide which state says “fool me once…you can’t get fooled again” is going to be the master debator. sorry.
The debates hardly deserve the term. Here’s the Memorandum of Understanding [PDF] the campaigns agreed to to set up the debates.
Heaven forbid that anything unplanned, unscripted, honest, or real should happen during the debates!
Unlike the debates we saw before 1988, which were arranged by the non-partisan League of Women Voters, and which were designed to inform the public, today’s debates are arranged by the Commission for Presidential Debates, a corporation set up by the Democratic and Republican parties to exclude third parties and to make sure that the candidates are not embarrassed, asked hard questions, or otherwise expected to confront anything unexpected or unrehearsed. They’re a sham. (Oh, and naturally, the Commission takes millions in tax-deductible contributions from major corporations to sponsor the debates.)
See this site for a more full expose on the problem of these scripted, fake debates.