Both presidential candidates had something to prove last Thursday night.
President Bush had to show that he was aware of the immense difficulties in his troubled occupation of Iraq; and that he had the command of fact and argument to win the war there and calm Americans’ fraying nerves. Senator Kerry, by contrast, had to show that he was presidential timber, that he was not the stereotype of the waffler, flip-flopper and peacenik that the Bush campaign has so shrewdly conjured up in its ads and rhetoric.
Before the debate, the president had clear polling daylight between him and his challenger; and Kerry was fighting for his political life. Bush, in other words, could afford to fail; and he did. Kerry had no choice but to succeed; and he did. By any fair assessment, Kerry won easily. The race, in short, is back on.
And Kerry did it the traditionally Republican way: he won on style. On points, the president presented as good a case as the facts now allow.
But from the beginning Kerry achieved something else. In tone and bearing, he seemed calm, authoritative, and, yes, presidential.
Viewing the debate on a split screen, the difference was palpable. In stark contrast to the Bush-Gore debates, when Gore sighed and shrugged and fidgeted while his opponent spoke, this time it was Bush who was furrowing his brow, almost rolling his eyes and at the beginning looking snippy and peevish.
He seemed — in a word — defensive, and his impatience gave the impression of a man who hasn’t had anyone talk back to him in a long time. The cocoon of unreality that has sealed him off for well over a year was suddenly visible. Worse, he seemed physically smaller and more mobile than Kerry — if more emotionally alive.
Their voices were contrasts, too. I can see now for the first time why Kerry has a good reputation as a debater. It wasn’t because he argued well. In fact, he parried poorly. He failed time and again to go in for obvious kills, failed to do what he really should have done, which is skewer Bush’s conduct of the war, not his decision to launch it in the first place. But his tone was strong, clear, unwavering. In presidential debates, manner is often as important as meat.
In this debate, Kerry’s strong voice and demeanour was particularly important because, by itself, it helped undermine Bush’s central argument that Kerry is unclear, wavering and unreliable. For Bush-lovers and Kerry fans, this doesn’t really matter. But for the undecided and ill-informed, for people who have heard of Kerry only from Bush’s attack ads or droning soundbites, it will be the first time that Kerry seems strong. In fact, he seemed stronger than Bush. Who would have predicted that?
Both men displayed their flaws in full. I winced whenever Kerry mentioned the favoured Halliburton corporation being awarded Iraq contracts and cringed when he went back to Vietnam. The notion peddled by the Democrat that all America’s problems in Iraq will be over if only we have a summit is ludicrous. The pathetic isolationist strains — about spending money in Iraq that would be better spent at home — were depressingly off-key.
Kerry’s best line was in asserting clearly that he has had one position on Iraq all along; that Saddam was a threat and that there was a right way and a wrong way to remove him; and the president chose the wrong way. Yes, that’s highly debatable. But it was rhetorically effective as a self-defence.
His culminating assertion that weapons proliferation was the main threat to the US was, on the other hand, very convincing — and by that point of the debate, the president was reduced to echoing him. In fact, Kerry was strongest, it seemed to me, at the beginning, when his stature rose merely by being there, and at the end, when he seemed commanding. He had the best closer.
What to say about Bush? Let’s get the compliments out of the way. When asked to skewer Kerry’s character, he took the high road. He caught Kerry easily on the senator’s opportunistic vote last winter to deny $87 billion in funding for the war. He also kicked Kerry’s elegant Brahmin behind on the breadth of the coalition in Iraq, reminding him that Poland exists.
The few laugh-out-loud Bushisms — at one point, he opined that the Iraqi insurgents were fighting “vociferously” — were worth the price of admission. And then there was his offhand quip that sometimes he wanted to put his own wayward daughters on a leash. No president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever say he wants to put anyone on a leash.
But he had to reassure and he didn’t. Just read the following passage: “In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work. It’s incredibly hard. It’s — and it’s hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it’s necessary work. We’re making progress. It is hard work.” Feel better now?
In fact, his constant repetition of tired campaign phrases suggested that he was indeed out of touch with reality in Iraq. When Kerry rightly pointed out the failure of Bush to revamp the CIA or to secure Soviet nuclear material, Bush simply and sadly responded that every morning some guy comes in and briefs him on national security. Sorry, Mr President. We know that already. And you don’t want to be the president who is forced to say: “Of course I know Osama Bin Laden attacked us.”
Moreover, his fundamental critique of Kerry — that by criticising the war, he had made himself unworthy to be commander-in-chief — was dumb and borderline offensive. It implies that if you’ve ever criticised the president’s war conduct, you cannot succeed him in office. Huh? By that logic, the only credible alternative to Bush is someone who has agreed with him every inch of the way. Memo to Bush: we live in a democracy.
And that democracy is still making up its mind. The critical thing is that most Americans know who Bush is. And they’re worried. They’re looking for an alternative. So Bush’s campaign has been based on denigrating Kerry, in telling the undecided voter that, whatever qualms they have about the president, Kerry is too risky to contemplate.
But the last thing you felt about Kerry from Thursday’s performance was that he was risky. He seemed, if anything, dull and safe. He came across as the conservative candidate. That’s the only way he’ll win. Suddenly, it’s conceivable — if still unlikely — that he will.
