This New York Times story from yesterday tells of the fog of the 24 hour modern news cycle. With so much information being pumped into the political debate at all times, it is virtually impossible to control a message outside of an accompanying major news event. By and large, people are tuning out political messages because they don’t trust any of them. Thus, “news events” can lay down a line of fire that prevents messages from germinating or implants them for good. It’s a good read.
The story quotes former Bush political advisor Matthew Dowd saying, aptly, that this year’s presidential election will hinge on the candidates’ performance in the debates. I would add that grassroots organizing is also important along the margins in key states, but I agree that the debates are for all the marbles this time. And, given the spotty debate performances in the past year by both candidates (I like Obama, but debating is not his thing, nor is it McCain’s), the outcome is especially malleable.
As a speech teacher, I talk about debate tactics. You can throw all those out for presidential debates. Those operate on an entirely different frequency. Gore “lost” the debates in 2000 because the public saw him as condescending and Bush as a regular guy. Kerry “won” the debates in 2004, turning what was looking to be a huge electoral loss into a small one because the public grew weary of the Bush shrugging and swaggering. This year, the climate favors the Democrats but Barack Obama is widely misunderstood in vast parts of the country. John McCain is deeply unpredictable when cornered (sometimes responding well and other times responding horribly) and Obama’s #1 task is to corner him on his ties to Bush policies. The result will be fascinating, but I couldn’t predict it.
So, forget these polls until after the debates. The short sprint from the debates to the election will belong to grassroots campaigning. The rest will be history. For real. This one will be studied closely in the future.
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