Mass debate

A note about tonight's debate: expectations are everything.

Bush has made an entire LIFE by not doing anything genuinely impressive, but simply surpassing ridiculously low expectations. He has even said so himself: "I'm the master of low expectations."

Kerry was seen as largely wiping the floor with Bush in the first debate. But this was only partially because he actually DID wipe the floor with him. The other part came from the fact that Bush, for once, had reasonably high expectations for the debate, since he had debated decently in the past, and since the debate was on foreign policy, which the idiots in the press had scripted to be Bush's strength.

In the second debate, Bush was seen as doing considerably better, largely because the first debate had severely lowered expectations for him. In my opinion, the first half of the second debate was every bit as much of a mismatch as the first. But Bush DID hold his own decently in the second half - domestic policy - and he benefitted from his usual low expectations.

So. The third debate will be problematic. Expectations for Bush against Kerry are now VERY low - he won't have to do much to clear them. And Bush DID hold his own in the second half of the last debate - the domestic policy half, which is the subject of tonight's debate also. And contrary to conventional wisdom, foreign policy is Bush's weakness and domestic policy his strength - at least for the purposes of the election. On foreign policy, Bush has to spin televised beheadings into a positive. But on domestic issues, he can talk about abortion, gay marriage, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and on and on - issues that resonate as hot buttons with many conservative voters, and which Bush is genuinely comfortable talking about. Yes, the economy sucks, and healthcare sucks and social security sucks, but those things involve a whole bunch of numbers. They are very wonkish, and they are subjects where it is VERY easy to pass the buck, since no one watching actually knows how they works anyway. On the economy, Bush can pretty much say anything and get away with it.

UNfortunately - and I certainly hope I'm wrong - I expect Bush to do pretty well in this debate. He is very comfortable talking about the "social" issues, but I don't think John Kerry is. I can easily see Kerry doing lots and lots of hairsplitting on those issues, and people losing patience with it. In the second debate, when Kerry discussed Partial Birth Abortion and parental notification, he was correct but his presentation wasn't that great. And if Bush simply holds his own the So-Called-Liberal-Media will try to spin it into a stunning victory.

The key to winning this debate is in the after-the-debate fact check. Bush, we all know, is going to lie his ass off. Especially when he talks about the economy. Kerry will correct him, but in the context of the debate the viewer will have no way of knowing who's right - one guy says X, the other guy says Y.

But after the debate, it will be the job of the press - egged on by politically motivated viewers - to actually present the genuine facts. If the press can only be persuaded to DO that job.

Bush is SURE to claim that the recession started when Clinton was President. It will be up to us to DEMAND that the press point out that that isn't true - it started in March 2001, and Bush entered office touting the health of the economy as the original excuse for his tax cut. Bush will claim that he has created jobs, when he has lost them. He will claim that Kerry wants a government takeover of health-care, when he doesn't.

One possibly devastating shot Kerry has is when Bush asks him how he is going to pay for his social programs, which he certainly will. Kerry can tell Bush that he will pay for them by reversing the Bush policies that caused the deficit in the first place - and then demand that President Deficit explain how HE is paying for stuff RIGHT NOW. Bush seems to think that only OTHER people have to explain where money is coming from, and Kerry should point this out, and point out that Bush has increased spending more than any President in history.

But, Bush will claim that the moon is made of green cheese, if necessary, and the press will actually treat that as a reasonable possibility. The press corps is notoriously lazy, and will do NO work at all if they can get away with it.

After this debate, pressure has GOT to be placed on the press to not merely do a fact-check, but to MAKE A RUNNING STORY out of a candidate's blatantly falsifying the facts. To rewrite the script so that the conventional press wisdom becomes "George W. Bush doesn't tell the truth."