75% chance of it being a draw, 25% chance for a slight Edwards win.
Why? Both men are skilled debaters and politicians (Cheney did serve in public office in a past life, remember), so I wouldn’t expect either of them to have any Bush-esque “unprepared and clueless” gaffes. Edwards, however, has charm oozing from his folicles, while Cheney is most reknown for his perpetual scowl. Cheney’s going to try to look more jovial and likeable tonight, but if Edwards can get his facade to slip, that’s going to repel folks the same way Bush’s funny faces did last Tuesday.
I expect Cheney is going to look like the grumpy bulldog he always looks like, and he won’t try to hide it. What he WILL try to do is turn Edwards into a yappy terrier puppy.
In other words, his central message of the evening will be, “Look, you can have a sexy little slick-talker in office if that’s what you want. But if you want some serious protection from the bad guys out there, I’m your man. I may not be pretty, but I’m experienced. I may be a mean sumbitch, but I’m your mean sumbitch, and you want a mean sumbitch to be standing between you and the terrorists.”
I give this message a pretty good chance of working. It’s a fundamentally dishonest message, but it’s got a resonance to it.
But the checkmate to that argument is so easy! If Cheney claims they’re the ones to keep America safe, all you have to do is point out how they’ve left the ports unprotected, stood by and done nothing while the craziest nation on the planet acquired nuclear weapons, failed to secure the nation’s nuclear and chemical facilities, ignored and/or underfunded the intelligence assets necessary to stop terrorist attacks, ignored the hunt for Bin Laden, and tied down our armed forces in that damn fool war instead of protecting the nation from actual threats. Bush-Cheney will say anything to get elected, but their actions repudiate their empty words.
Imagine the cutest puppy with the cutest puppy eyes you have ever seen, with a big red bow on his collar and a little wagging tail. Now imagine a giant fuckin’ Tyrannosaurus rex come and grab that puppy by its neck and shake it like a rag doll until the life has unequivocally drained out of it, then swallow it in one gulp.
That’s what I see for tonight. And I’m a Kerry/Edwards supporter.
Cheney will play his positions in 4 White Houses for every inch it’s worth and he will try to draw a comparison to a first term senator. This stands to be retribution for the Bentsen/Quayle 1988 debate, in which Bentsen uttered the famous JFK quip. Edwards will need every inch of his lawyer-mojo to avoid that trap. In the environment of post-9/11 and the cognitive dissonance that we allow, I don’t think it will even matter, because the media will let it slide that the VP position means next-to-nothing (legally), especially given the supposed power-reversals between the VP and president the last 4 years have given us. So when Cheney tears Edwards a new one tonight, it will be spun as the death of the KE’04 campaign. Even though in previous years it basically meant nothing.
This administration needs the American public too shit-scared to think right. My prediction: Tonight will be an episode in fear mongering which will proverbially dig the spurs in and spike up that level of fear. I predict a 6 point bounce for BC’04.
Bremer has given Edwards some ammo in stating that there were never enough troops in Iraq to maintain order. Ditto Rumsfeld for stating that Iraq and alQaeda were not related. It was a day for damage control for the Bush White House, as will be tomorrow for the post-debate wrangling. For tonight, it’s Dennis the Menace vs. Mr. Wilson.
Agreed. But what are Americans more likely to digest- that paragraph or “flip-flop”, even if untrue?
If Edwards tries to focus the debate on “Evil Cheney”, with endless references to Halliburton and no-bid contracts, he will lose. Cheney is prepared for this issue like no other, and he knows more about it than anybody. If Edwards can deny Cheney the opportunity to use any of his carefully honed defense of the Halliburton issue, Edwards can destroy Cheney on the real issues.
If Edwards makes the failures of the Bush administration in Iraq and the economy the focus of the debate, he will win. If he must refer to Halliburton, it should be brief and dismissive, something like, “I will let my good friend and colleague, the honorable Senator from Vermont Patrick Leahy, debate the Vice President on the his relationship with Halliburton.” Then pound away on the war, the war, the war, with a few right jabs on the economy. If Edwards can resist the temptation to make Cheney the issue, he can do real damage to George Bush.
Not how many mintutes into this, and Edwards is already making stuff up? The ‘Northern Alliance’ was not allied with OBL ‘a few weeks’ before we went in.
I feel like I’m watching college students taking constant notes. So far, they’re parroting their masters.
Boring so far, they’ve obviously both learned from Bush’s mistakes in the first one and know that the camera is always on.
Oops, slight drumming of fingers by Cheney on the Tora Bora thing.
I’m a northern gal who is skeptical of slick oozing Southern charm. I liked Clinton but never loved him, detecting a used-car-salesman desperation from him at times. But so far, Edwards looks OK.
