Obama and McCain on a debate

After a marathon session in which he viewed all 47 debates from both the Democratic and Republican primaries, the Atlantic's James Fallows has handicapped the fall debating season. In a general sense, here are the important conclusions one can draw from the piece:

First, the candidates' desire for exposure and the news media's desire for ratings created a viscious circle that created a carnivalesque atmosphere. Because neither party had an incumbent or an "heir apparent"—who would have both the incentive and the authority to keep primary debates to a minimum—all of the candidates in both parties were scrambling to get into as many forums as possible, both on network and cable news and on less traditional stages like Logo. And because there were so many competing programs, the journalists who served as debate moderators constantly had to push the envelope in their questions. Money quote:

The amazing part of this process was the sheer indignity of it. All eight of these people [the Democratic candidates] had been public officials. Odds were that one among them would be the next president of the United States. Yet they compliantly held up their hands like grade-schoolers or contestants on Fear Factor. While candidates are subjected to almost everything during a long primary season and are used to skepticism and outright hostility from the press, serving as game-show props represented something new.

Second, while Obama is a far weaker debater than he is an orator—“You’ve got to remember, he is a constitutional-law professor” says Newton Minow, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who had once hired Obama as a summer associate while a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin—he can get better and sharper given enough time. Indeed, Fallows points to 2004, in which Obama was relaxed and sharp during his Senate race against Alan Keyes, as showing Obama's potential. Money quote:

The Obama of 2004 didn’t spend much time on his now-familiar “new age of politics” theme (or need to). If asked about steel-industry jobs, tax rates, or the death penalty, he would address the specifics of those issues, without bothering to stress the need for Americans to bridge their partisan divides. Every now and then, he would make those larger points—after all, this was six weeks after his famous speech at the Democratic convention about moving past red states and blue states, to the United States of America. But they seemed incidental rather than central.

That previous Obama also sounded very little like a professor. With dismissive ease, he reeled off rebuttal points and identified errors as if he had been working in a courtroom rather than a classroom all his life. Keyes had said that Jesus Christ would not have voted for Obama. Obama was asked for his response: “Well, you know, my first reaction was, I actually wanted to find out who Mr. Keyes’s pollster was, because if I had the opportunity to talk to Jesus Christ, I’d be asking something much more important than this Senate race. I’d want to know whether I was going up, or down.”

All in all, Obama seemed in his element and having fun—two things no one has detected about his debate performances this past year.

Third, the presidential debates seem to be as much about style as they are about the ability to make arguments. This is a subtle point that Fallows seems to miss. Both George W. Bush and Obama made significant changes to their debating style when they entered the presidential race. Fallows notes that Bush was a "silver-tongued Texas politician" as governor who, as president, seemed to be afflicted by some sort of aphasia, in which he seemed to be consciously dumbing-down his debating style, perhaps to make his far-more skilled opponents look arrogant and elitist in the eyes of his working-class, Christian base. Similarly, Obama's debating has become much more serious as a presidential candidate, perhaps because he has framed his candidacy in such a serious, civic republican way.

Fallows believes that Obama has to come out like the relaxed firebrand that he was in 2004 to succeed in this year's debates, but this may backfire because it would play against his "brand." It may be better for him to play it cool, find ways to sharpen his answers, and rely on the fact that McCain is probably going to fare worse in the debates than he will.