Candidates' words all about wooing the voters who swing
Tim Goodman
Friday, October 1, 2004
SF Chronicle
The pundits say presidential and vice presidential debates are strictly for swing voters -- those who remain undecided deep into the 11th hour. Given Thursday night's set-to between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, there must have been raucous joy for those on the fence because both men came out swinging.
And yet, it's foolish (and invites unwanted e-mails) to even hint at a winner. That's because other pundits -- they occupy the television landscape like rats -- say that debates are meaningless in a clearly divided country. Bush fans will say he won, Kerry fans will say he won, and those claiming to be "undecided" will continue to lie out loud because by doing that they become media darlings.
"Excuse me sir, are you undecided about how you'll vote? Yes? Great, let's get a camera on you."
Tossing aside that great Media Lie (No. 436 if you're keeping track at home) and assuming, probably correctly, that everybody's got their man chosen, how then to get a sense of how Thursday's punch-counterpunch affected the other's ripe melon? Go to the opposition.
Given that Republicans tend to see The Chronicle and San Francisco in general as tilting, um, toward that place where Barry Bonds plays, perhaps in the interest of being fair and balanced it's better to check in with the folks at Fox News -- as opposed to the Che Guevara T-shirt-wearing communists at
CNN.
First, note this: No anchor on Thursday night better parsed the debate's multitude of talking points than Fox News anchor Brit Hume. For clarity, a salient summation of the proceedings and -- yes -- fairness, nobody else was even close. At MSNBC there was a complete loss of dignity -- it's not a tailgate party, gents, it's news analysis. CNN seemed ill-equipped to trust its own people and instead let partisan mouthpieces say exactly what everyone expected them to say.
The network news? Forgot they existed. Sorry.
Anyway, an interesting series of events took place at Fox News. There was a sense from the mostly conservative commentators that Bush had missed his chance at a knock-out punch and Kerry had done pretty swell.
"John Kerry did better than I expected," said Fred Barnes, a Fox pundit. William Kristol, the influential editor of the Weekly Standard, said "Kerry did pretty well tonight." He said Kerry was "forceful and articulate." Kristol, an even-tempered, thoughtful and feared voice of the right, seemed to set the tone on the Fox News set. "If you're a Kerry supporter, you're heartened," he said.
Hume, working the post-debate analysis deftly, touched on how Fox News (and others) broke the rules of the debate by showing reaction shots and split- screen views during the debate. This, as anyone who's ever watched television much less worked in television knows, is absolutely essential to drama and telling the complete story. How Bush reacted to Kerry and vice-versa had to be seen. And it was.
Hume correctly pointed out that Al Gore's patronizing facial expressions and faux-weary sighing during his debate with Bush in 2000 had backfired. And he wondered if Kerry had learned from that lesson (apparently) while Bush, showing far more emotion, may have suffered from it.
"He looked annoyed," Hume said. "He looked tired," said Roll Call's Morton Kondracke.
That's not to say anyone on Fox News came out and said the president got his head handed to him. In fact, there was talk that Bush's simplified and relentless message bleating (Kerry flip-flops, troops need a dedicated commander in chief, and the country needs to be on the offensive, not kowtow to international opinion) probably played to his loyal supporters.
And yes, Kerry -- known in some quarters as Anybody But Bush -- probably made his supporters feel hopeful, too.
Which leaves us nowhere, definitively. At least we should all be able to agree that Jim Lehrer is a no-nonsense stud. He got those rowdy Florida students to hush up, did he not? No partisan screams. No audible hissing. It was as if, just moments before the debate, someone told the crowd there were free pot brownies and nude Twister next door.
In the undecided category -- the lighting system in the little box atop the lectern. If it's green -- 30 seconds left. Yellow -- 15 seconds. Red - - five seconds. Three red light violations and a loud horn was going to sound. Fox News reported that, while practicing, the horn went off on Bush and he was visibly startled.
So both men beat the buzzer like Ken Jennings on a "Jeopardy!" bender.
Future debates could be uglier and less civilized. (This would only encourage the egregious use of boxing metaphors, an occurrence Thursday night on so many TV channels they could have cut and shut your left eye.)
But after a slow start on Thursday, when both men finally relaxed, you'd have to say it was a pretty cool reminder of democracy and a free press (hey, no hissing in the back, you heard Lehrer!).
Not as fun as "Survivor" but essential to the Republic.
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