Campaign Diaries

This was the last presidential debate, the last time McCain had the undivided attention of tens of millions of Americans, and his last obvious opportunity to knock Obama off-balance. He did not do that, and the GOP will now have to come up with emergency measures to stop Obama’s momentum.

McCain scored some points tonight, and that were as much due to Obama’s shaky performance as to the fiery passion McCain brought to the first thirty minutes. In the opening segments, McCain displayed a determination that we had not seen in their previous two encounters. Obama, by contrast, was not focused, his answers dragged on and he let himself be boxed in a corner. He was struggling to answer McCain’s invocation of “Joe the plumber,” and that proved an obstacle to Obama scoring points on the economy. Obama soon recovered and delivered more steady responses, but they were not as powerful and emphatic as in the first two debates.

That McCain was not able to use that opening to score a clear victory tells us a lot about his failings as a candidate - and it serves as a perfect metaphor for the dynamics of the past 6 months.

Ten days ago, I faulted McCain’s lack of a coherent offensive message and his inability to identify a core attack. And tonight, McCain only aggravated this glaring problem in what was his last opportunity to disqualify his opponent. He attacked Obama on so many different issues it became hard to keep track of what he wanted the audience to think about. McCain should have relentlessly attempted to brush a vivid and coherent portrait of the risky Obama the GOP so desperately wants voters to see. Instead, what we got was a potpourri of unrelated charges strung together by a series of non sequiturs.

Instead of sticking to lines of attack that were working, McCain constantly changed gears. He shifted from taxes to socialism to spending to Ayers to ACORN to taxes again to Obama’s present votes in the Illinois State Senate to his “extreme” record on abortion to his unilateralism to his anti-trade positions and to his naive dealings with world leaders. What is the overall picture that emerges out of those attacks, what is McCain’s overarching case

If McCain is simply trying to say that Obama is a big government liberal, that is not a charge that is resonating this year - not after eight years of Bush, not when voters want the Democratic Party to be in power. McCain needs to give voters a reason to not vote for this particular Democrat and, if anything, painting him as yet another congressional liberal who wants more spending and more taxes makes him more familiar to voters. But if McCain wants to make the case that Obama is too much of a risk by invoking Ayers & Co, why spend so much time blasting Obama for just being an old style Democrat?

McCain’s failure to push any line of attack to its end was most evident in what was surely the most eagerly awaited exchange of the night - Bill Ayers. The character was McCain’s opportunity to unsettle Obama. Instead, it was McCain who looked unsettled. At first, he refused to bring up Ayers, instead sounding deeply hurt by John Lewis’s comments and accusing Obama of running a negative campaign; then, a follow-up question led McCain to unload on Obama’s “long association” with Ayers before almost immediately pivoting to declaring that his campaign was focused on getting the economy back on track.

Once McCain chose to go after Ayers without being prompted to do so, he had to go all the way and push the Illinois Senator to try to rattle Obama and obtain some sort of defensive answer. If he was not willing to do so, he should have stuck to other topics and let Ayers go. The middle ground he adopted was the worst of both worlds. If anything, he gave Obama a platform to explain to viewers his version of the Ayers story, point out calmly, for instance, that there were a number of Republicans on that board and then still have time to blame McCain for seeking to not talk about issues and about the economy.

McCain’s chaotic stream of contradictions neutralized his most forceful attacks. Another poorly prepared McCain attack that set up a strong response for Obama was the Republican’s assertion that the Democrat had never stood up to leaders of his own party. Obama calmly countered with a list of examples (some of which substantive, like teacher pay) that elicited more counter-productive mumblings by McCain (”an overwhelming vote”).

Another puzzling moment was McCain’s answer on abortion. Obama himself took the dangerous path of voluntarily talking at length about a topic that a Democrat usually wants to stay away from - even more so when the electoral battle is now being waged on red turf. But McCain chose to appeal solely to the base on a question that is important to many independent female voters. He launched into a powerful diatribe against abortion that extended beyond hitting Obama on partial-birth abortion: McCain also denounced “health provisions,” which he described as part of the “extreme” agenda and taking the risk of turning off some undecided women voters.

All of this only concerns the substance of McCain’s attacks - their tone is an entirely different story. McCain once again let his visceral dislike for Obama shine through, and that was his undoing for the third straight debate. The fire behind his initial references to Joe the Plumber soon gave way to a sense of gimmickry; he was finally on the offensive, but his inability to not use a personal tone undercut even his most effective charges as it made him look more emotional than forceful. While listening to Obama, McCain looked angry, then content,  then annoyed, then exasperated; he sighed, sneered, rolled his eyes and cast stunned and wide-eyed looks on his opponent. When on the attack, he was alternatively fiery, angry, passionate and mean. And then there was the sarcasm, so much sarcasm, constant sarcasm - and can attacks voiced in a tone dripping with contempt ever prove effective?

In short, McCain went through an entire palette of emotions in the span of 90 minutes - and the resulting visuals were atrocious for the Arizona Senator.

This has been the story of the past few months. Just when McCain appears to be making progress, he undermined himself. He picked Sarah Palin and gave up on the experience argument that had been working or him in August; he allowed his campaign to bring up Ayers, mentioned him himself before backing down; his allowed gimmicky routines like his campaign suspension to get in the way of the urgent need for McCain to articulate an economic agenda and distinguish himself from President Bush.

McCain might not have lost tonight, but he did not win either - and that was a self-inflicted wound.

Update: The snap polls give Obama a clear victory, and while this could change as impressions set in the snap polls of the first two debates were confirmed by subsequent numbers. CNN’s poll has Obama winning the debate 58% to 31%;CBS’s poll of uncommitted voters had Obama 53% winning to 22%. Politico/Insider Advantage’s poll of undecided voters has a much smaller margin, 49% to 46% for Obama.

Two down, one to go - and John McCain has made no progress in his uphill quest to close the gap.

Obama delivered a superior performance that should help him solidify his lead. This might not have been a runaway victory for the Illinois Senator, but then again he was not attempting to score a knockout.

Neither candidate, in fact, landed a deadly blow, nor did they even try to. But the burden was on McCain to make some sort of move tonight; instead, he barely laid a glove on his opponent. He went on the offensive with some biting criticism, but he unveiled no new line of attack and renounced any references to Ayers and Rezko. Yet, McCain still managed to look like the aggressor and it did not suit him well.

To be fair to the Arizona Senator, his failings were due to the debate’s rules as much as to his performance. McCain derives his almost proverbial strength in this format from his spontaneous interactions with the questioner, but this was not enough of a town-hall to give McCain an opening to connect with the audience. The panel’s questions were strikingly impersonal, and Tom Brokaw’s own queries took as much time if not more than those coming from undecided voters. Despite rules that stated that candidates could not engage one another, this encounter contained more direct exchanges than the previous one - making it more like a conventional debate in which candidates primarily address each other and the moderator.

Perhaps most importantly, the debate was overwhelmingly about the economy - and this has been a pattern outside of McCain’s control that has been hurting his candidacy for three weeks now. Only an hour into the night did the conversation shift to foreign policy, and a full third of the remaining time was used to discuss peace-keeping and humanitarian missions - not the terrain on which McCain is hoping to make a mark.

On the other hand, Obama’s edge did arise out of the two candidates’ performances. To the extent that this was a town-hall, the candidates’ body language became more important and Obama’s calm demeanor came across better than McCain’s agitated pacing. For the second debate in a row, Obama looked steady, forceful and precise on the issues while McCain once again let his disdain for his opponent get the better of him and often seemed on the defensive.

For one, and unlike in the first debate, one moment could come to encapsulate this encounter and play into the narrative of McCain’s unrestrained disdain: his addressing Obama as “that one” is the type of line that can define a debate and that the press could run away with. McCain has been losing control of his public image over the past few weeks, and the last thing he needed was yet another cringe-inducing snide comment. (Ben Smith suggests that some Republicans are happy with that moment!) And while McCain controlled his condescension far better than he did ten days ago, the night was full of snide comments - most of which were entirely unnecessary.

It is one thing for a candidate to go on the attack, but McCain again and again wasted his time hurling jibes that only political junkies will pick up on. Take, for instance, the very first sentence McCain uttered tonight, taking a hit at Obama’s refusal to join him in town halls - few undecided voters are likely to get that reference, most will probably just be left wondering why such a simple sentence sounded snide. Perhaps most importantly, why is no one telling McCain to stop referencing figures from the past - Tip O’Neil and Teddy Roosevelt, for instance. McCain even spent time attacking Herbert Hoover’s protectionism!

Meanwhile, Obama delivered some particularly sharp responses. He was predictably stronger when answering economic questions, which gave him yet another opportunity to channel middle-class anxieties. Overall, his improvement over some of his debate performances in the summer and fall of 2007 is remarkable. Whereas 12 months ago Obama might have sounded too professorial, he is now able to talk about his policies without drowning the viewer in numbers that few people can follow. When Obama was allowed a rebuttal on taxes, for instance, he offered a deliberately slow - and crisp - description of his tax plan that helped him immune himself against McCain’s attacks.

But Obama dominated no segment as much as the lengthy discussion on health care. These few minutes could very well remembered among those moments that helped Obama cement his lead. Any Democrat will have an edge when the conversation turns to health care, but McCain was particularly weak in his response. Obama, on the other hand, looked eminently comfortable discussing the specifics of his own plan while delivering one of his most emphatic responses in his mention of his dying mother and forcefully attacking McCain’s proposals (this is, after all, one of the main topics on which Obama has been going after his opponent over the past few days).

Most devastating were Obama’s responses to McCain’s health care attacks. When the Republican nominee hit his opponent for looking to bring in government to solve the crisis, Obama effectively embraced government’s role in cracking up insurance companies. And when McCain focused on Obama’s support for mandates, the Democrat pointed out that he supported mandates for children and hit McCain for having voted against SHIP - a winning issue for Democrats that the congressional committees tried to play up last year at the time of the vote. (For anyone who remembers - and misses! - the debates between Clinton and Obama, seeing Obama accused of privileging mandates was truly a sight to behold.)

Perhaps most surprising was that Obama performed as well in the foreign policy segment as he did in the first hour. Very little time was devoted to McCain’s favorite topic - the surge - and Obama himself brought up the issue Republicans like to hit him on the most (his willingness to meet with the leaders of Iran and North Korea) to blast McCain as a continuation of Bush’s policies. When McCain blasted Obama for wanting to warn Pakistan of America’s military plans, the Illinois Senator unleashed one of his sharpest counters of the night, hitting McCain for having sung “bomb Iran” and for publicly pressing for the invasion of Baghdad. “That’s not speaking softly,” he said. Obama also artfully turned the table on McCain’s charge that he “does not understand” national security.

John McCain has 27 more days to change the tide, and only one more debate. For Republicans, it’s now a race against time - and that will probably lead to an increase in their attacks. For Democrats, it’s a matter of running out the clock, and at the very least Obama did that tonight.

Update: A number of instant snap polls and focus groups seem to give Obama the win, particularly CNN’s survey that has Obama winning the debate 54% to 30%. Respondents also found Obama was the strongest leader, an important measure for the Illinois Senator. CBS’s poll of undecided voters gave it to Obama 40% to 26%. And SUSA’s two polls from Washington and from California gave the win to Obama by huge margins. It is true that those are blue states, but independents preferred Obama by very significant margins as well in both states. And judging by some early write-ups in the press, it looks like we will hear a lot about “that one.”

When the time comes to casting their ballot, voters will not be thinking about who will be number two, so it is very unlikely a vice-presidential candidate ends up convincing undecided voters. But a VP contender can become a distraction and undercut a campaign, making it their one and only goal to do no harm.

A month ago, the GOP had high hopes that Sarah Palin would defy that rule and truly transform the campaign in McCain’s favor, but a disastrous September for the Alaska Governor undercut that possibility. After that Couric interview, Palin was threatening to become a national laughingstock. Tonight, she had to look qualified enough to remove herself from the political conversation - and that’s exactly what she did.

Only rarely did she look like the Palin of the Couric interviews. She was able to offer coherent answers and, for the first half of the debate, repeatedly put Biden on the defensive. One crucial improvement in her performance was her new-found ability to pivot. When facing Gibson and Couric, Palin was answering every question directly, and that made for an awkward collection of badly phrased talking points. Tonight, Palin ignored most of the questions that were aimed her way, especially in the economic segments, and she immediately pivoted most of her answers to tax cuts and energy, tax cuts and energy.

That might have been too transparent at times; her frequent - and often times explicit - refusal to consider the question hat was being put to her undercut her claim of offering straight-talk and it prevented her to make the most of her early aggressiveness. But that strategy made for an infinitely better performance than that of her recent interviews. Yes, she was often delivering talking points - but she was doing it well, unlike earlier attempts.

That said, a few of Palin’s answers, particularly the one on climate change and nuclear proliferation, were nonsensical (”I don’t wanna argue about the causes,” she said on global warming). Her answers on vice-presidential prerogatives and on Iran/Pakistan were very weak, and she did not say a word about Darfur when asked about it - in fact, she expressed pride in her inability to do so. She got the name of the commander of the Afghan forces wrong. She sometimes seemed at a loss of words when asked to follow-up on an issue for the second time, most noticeably in that awkward pause followed by the poorly-delivered and childish-sounding “white flag of surrender in Iraq” line.

As the debate went on, Palin increasingly and noticeably fell back on her talking points. But the feistiness she exhibited for the first forty minutes guaranteed that she exceeded expectations. Simply put, no stumbles of hers will emerge as the story of the night. Palin took care of those voters (if there were any) who were looking to support McCain but were reluctant to do so because of Palin’s presence on the ticket.

To a lesser degree, the Obama campaign was worried that Joe Biden might give a condescending-sounding answer that the GOP would immediately spin as sexist. That did not happen - far from it. Biden was careful to sound respectful, and he aimed all of his shots at “John” without looking like was ignoring his opponent.

Biden did not perform strongly throughout the debate. Only in the second half did he seem to find his rhythm, and for a while he seemed off-balance, unable to connect to viewers the way Palin was doing. But it is precisely on connectivity that Biden transformed himself. In the last 50 minutes, he found more gravitas as he discussed foreign policy and his Senate record (”I went to Chad,” he exclaimed, echoing McCain’s travel stories from the first presidential debate) and looked like a far more emphatic figure than most viewers were probably expecting. Some of Biden’s late answers were simply superb - particularly his emotional description of single parenthood and the way he transformed the question about a Biden Administration into a powerful recitation of Obama’s priorities.

Joe Biden and Sarah Palin effectively neutralized each other and themselves tonight, and neither is likely to matter much from now on. But to the extent that Republicans were much more fearful going into tonight than Democrats were, this is first and foremost a huge relief for the McCain campaign.

But there is a second metric in which the debate should be judged: Who made the more forceful argument that will impact the way voters think about the top of the ticket? Both debaters tonight were aware of this question, and both stayed relentlessly on message. In fact, they often complimented each other but relentlessly attacked “John” and “Barack.”

And here, it is Biden’s performance that should prove more effective than Palin’s. The Alaska Governor forcefully attacked Obama, blaming him in particular for voting to cut funding for the troops and for wanting to meet with “downright dangerous” dictators. But she failed to give her attacks a coherent theme: No overall picture of Obama emerged out of her comments, only a collection of negative tidbits.

This is precisely what the McCain campaign has not been able to do over the past few months: disqualify Obama. The Illinois Senator is leading in the polls, his favorability ratings are high. Unless they are given a reason to not vote for him, it now looks like many voters are perfectly willing to settle on him, if for no other reason than they want a Democrat in the White House. Palin could not make the readiness argument against Obama (an attack the McCain campaign appears to have stunningly abandoned in recent weeks), and she was reduced to arguing that he was too extreme, too liberal. She accused the Democratic ticket of favoring “redistribution of wealth,” for instance, to which Biden answered that he called it “fairness.”

On the other hand, Biden had the easier task of tying John McCain to President Bush. “The issue is how different is John McCain’s [policy] going to be than George Bush’s,” he said at one point. In his answers on Iraq, he effectively and repeatedly tied McCain with Vice President Cheney, and he offered consistent explanations of why McCain was no maverick. Biden often sounded almost comically on message, but that is the life of a vice-presidential candidate. Overall, Biden as attack-dog was crisp and he was systematic - and that made for a devastating combination.

Palin defended McCain’s independence. And she had a strong line when she acknowledged that “there’ve been huge blunders throughout this administration, as there are in every administration” and specifically cited the handling of the war. But she did not offer specific and evocative instances of disagreement, which is an area I have long argued McCain could offer more. She also protested Biden’s constant referrals to Bush - “for a ticket that wants to talk about change and look into the future, there’s just too much finger pointing” - but that certainly did not get Biden to shy away from them. In fact, Palin helped him by choosing to inexplicably rush to Cheney’s rescue.

Coming out of a debate, voters are more likely to be thinking about John McCain’s ties to George Bush than they are to be thinking about Barack Obama’s lack of qualifications or radical politics. That’s probably not enough to seal the deal with most undecided voters, but the best Biden could have hoped for tonight was to lay the groundwork of Obama’s future attacks.

In short, Sarah Palin performed well but McCain was the night’s clearest loser - and that’s ultimately all Democrats care about.

We have gone five months since the last debate - quite a long stretch to go through for those of us who remember the time early in 2008 where there seemingly were more debates than election nights.

Barack Obama is in the position he was in for his last two debates with Hillary Clinton: He is ahead, and his primary duty is to not commit an unforced error that could jeopardize his lead. At the January 6th debate, Obama looked headed to a decisive victory in New Hampshire but a poor performance and the infamous “you’re likable enough” line contributed to Hillary’s stunning comeback.

That is not to say that Obama can afford staying passive, because that is the surest way for him to end up on the defensive, taking McCain’s blows. And this is another area in which his debates with Hillary have prepared him for tonight: He learned how to deliver hard punches. Throughout 2007, he was criticized for shying away from attacks - but he proved in the South Carolina debate that he could match every one of Clinton’s blow.

And that Obama has an advantage does not mean he does not have to prove himself: Democrats continue to enjoy a strong generic advantage, and the electorate is still yearning to vote for a Democrat - but many independents and conservative Democrats aren’t comfortable with Obama yet. That is part of the reason Obama has been unable to open a decisive lead, and Democrats believe that a strong debate performance could do to Obama what it did to Reagan in 1980 - make voters who want to feel Democratic but unsure about Obama more comfortable about voting for him.

McCain, on the other hand, is in a trickier position because of the simple fact that he is trailing and therefore has more to accomplish. He needs this debate to move numbers, whereas it would suit Obama if the two candidates were to neutralize each other. McCain thus has to be more aggressive - and with aggression comes the risk of overplaying your hand.

It is especially important for McCain to have a strong night since this is the foreign policy debate - the topic he is supposed to be strongest in. Jim Lehrer will surely ask questions about the economy given the financial crisis, and that will already take over some of the time McCain would rather spend talking about the surge, Iran and pursuing Bin Laden to the gates of hell. It is incumbent on McCain to show voters why he would be a more effective commander-in-chief while attacking Obama enough to destabilize the Democrat and prevent him from correcting voters’ fears that he would be a weak one.

But the beauty of a debate, of course, is that it is impossible to predict what might happen - or even what the questions will be. How much time will Jim Lehrer spend discussing the bailout? Will he spend more time asking about on the surge, or more time asking about the initial decision to go to war?

Even if Obama has a brilliant performance, one deadly one-liner by McCain could make everything I just outlined moot; even if McCain accumulates a forceful and steady answers, one Obama comeback could annihilate all his efforts. Cable news will replay soundbites over and over again, and a few moments are likely to overshadow carefully crafted two minute answers.

And complicating the task for both Obama and McCain is that neither is a strong debater. They are both solid enough, but they have had plenty of low points. Obama looked tired and long-winded in a number of Democratic debates, while McCain only survived the series of encouters between the GOP candidates because his rivals never went after him, even when McCain became the clear front runner. That is what makes McCain and Obama’s debates unpredictable - and fun to follow.

Those of you who were already reading Campaign Diaries in the spring know that I do not blog debates - but check but after for a full analysis.

On ABC yesterday, the debate moderators clearly took the low road. Not only did they aim tough question after tough question to Barack Obama, but the type of issues they raised (Ayers, the flag pin, Wright’s patriotism) had no place in a presidential debate. Disguising the questions under the clock of electability was clearly hypocritical and disgraceful. I said all of this in my original debate analysis.

Yet, given the extent of the anti-ABC protests, I believe it is important to regain some perspective. Obama might have received an unfair treatment, but the debate certainly did not reach the level of outrageousness many people are describing today, not enough to call it the “worst debate” in years, to herald this as the illustration of the high odds Obama is facing and to circulate tasteless YouTube videos announcing the death of Stephanopoulous.

The outrage that is being leveled at the ABC debate is fully justifiable — but only if we reserve the same exact outrage to the moderation of other equally absurd debates we have seen this cycle (particularly those moderated by Tim Russert). My argument here is not that yesterday’s debates were legitimate because Obama has to go through some sort of vetting process, but rather that it is absurd to isolate this last debate as particularly nasty when this is an opportunity to blame the way debates are being conducted these days, hurting both candidates.

For instance, my account of the Feb. 26th Ohio debate is very similar to the one I wrote yesterday; only the roles are reversed. That day, Tim Russert and Brian Williams grilled Clinton despite the fact that Obama was a week away from clinching the nod. Russert’s “Medvedev” trap was reserved to Clinton; the “technical” mix-ups of wrong videos were being shown also happened to hurt Clinton; and Brian Williams giving Obama free reign to respond to Clinton (”How were her comments about you unfair?”) was strikingly similar to the way in which Stephanopoulous repeatedly turn to Clinton to ask her to make her case against Obama yesterday. And has everyone forgotten the truly absurd trap Russert laid for Clinton at the Dartmouth debate in September?

The Clinton campaign had been complaining for nearly a year that their candidate was receiving a disproportionate share of the tough questions — and they were doing so justifiably. Front-runners receive the roughest treatment, but that does not justify disproportionately one-sided and uncommonly nasty questioning, with no substantive issues was addressed in the first 45 minutes.

The Philadelphia debate was gotcha politics. But then again so was the Ohio debate.

In Raleigh today, Obama addressed yesterday’s debate and Clinton’s behavior:

I will tell you it does not get more fun than these debates. They are inspiring debates. I think last night we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people…

Now, I don’t blame Washington for this because that’s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversies and getting us to play gotcha games and getting us to attack each other. And I’ve got to say Sen. Clinton looked in her element. She was taking every opportunity to, you know, get a dig in there…. That’s all right, that’s her right, that’s her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit….

Look, I understand though, because that’s the textbook Washington campaign, because that’s the politics that’s been taught to be played, that’s the lesson that she had heard when the Republicans were doing the same things to her back in the 1990s.

This response is strikingly similar to that the Clinton campaign trumpeted after the debates in which Hillary was harassed by all sides; “the boys” after after her, the campaign claimed, blaming the media’s bias in Obama’s favor. Today, Obama is doing exactly the same thing: Questioning the moderation by presenting it as an example of the type of politics he is trying to fight.

This is not to say that Clinton and Obama’s criticisms are not legitimate and that they are merely spinning. In fact, I believe they are both very much legitimate, and that too many debates this cycle were poorly handled and moderated. But it is important to keep some perspective. No, yesterday’s debate was not an example of the establishment fighting Obama — but of the media seeking to create the most entertaining narrative on the back of the democratic process.

Yesterday’s debate was also an example of the caricature of Democrats the media relays. Even beyond the first 45 minutes, candidates were asked about issues which the Right eagerly promotes to fracture Democrats — gun control, affirmative action, patriotism, … In fact, the closest parallel to yesterday’s debate might be the GOP anger over the YouTube debate in which CNN selected caricaturally Republican questions.