Expectations, shmeckspectations. If Kerry wipes the floor with W, they won't make a difference. And he very well could. The metaphor has been overplayed, but Kerry is now turning his boat right at the enemy. And just like that hapless Viet Cong who Kerry cut down 30 odd years ago, Bush has been flushed out of his hiding place and is on the run. Last week, the Kerry campaign played their cards perfectly, seizing on any contradiction, flip-flop, or inconsistency to hammer Bush on Iraq. And there is plenty of fuel for next few days, courtesy of Colin Powell, who
admitted that the insurgency is worsening and, of all people,
Bill O'Reilly.
O'Reilly's gift is threefold. Apparently, Bush sat down for an extended interview with O'Reilly in the run-up to the debates. People forget, O'Reilly had become an Iraqoskeptic at one point. I'm guessing he asked Bush some not-quite-Foxian questions. What resulted were three more meaty targets for Kerry-Edwards et al.:
- "President Bush said he had no regrets about donning a flight suit to give his "Mission Accomplished" speech on Iraq in May 2003 and would do it all over again if he had the chance..."
- "Bush said he also did not regret the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the rebel stronghold of Falluja earlier this year because he believed the conflict there could have jeopardized the June handover of sovereignty to Iraqis."
- "Also in the interview, the president was noncommittal about whether his top political aide, Karl Rove, knew in advance about ads by the group, "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" which attacked Kerry's military service in Vietnam. Bush himself did not serve in Vietnam.
On the issue of whether he knew ahead of time about the Swift Boat ads, Bush said "no," but replied "I don't think so" when questioned whether Rove had advance knowledge of them."
I have no doubt, if the last few days of prompt rapid responses are an indication, that Kerry and company will capitalize on each and every one of these openings. And this is exactly what needs to be done to rattle Bush. Because, as the Washington Post points out today, Bush only wins debates when he is the challenger, not when he's the incumbent.
The lesson that Richards and Gore both learned, however, is that debate skills alone are not enough to shake Bush. Kerry must latch on to something more. And he may find clues in the two debates in which Bush has not done well. They have something in common: Bush was not playing the role of challenger.
In 1998, as the incumbent governor of Texas, Bush met Democrat Garry Mauro in a single debate. He was uncharacteristically "nervous and defensive," in the view of Austin political reporter Dave McNeely. In 2000, Bush's weakest performance came in a primary season face-off against surging underdog Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"Bush seems to be more comfortable portraying himself as the outsider, but he can't do that anymore," said Bill Benoit, a professor of communication at the University of Missouri who has extensively studied presidential debates. As the outsider, Bush has freedom to stay on the broad, thematic level, above the thicket of details.
"He used the idea that he was on the outside to say, 'Don't pigeonhole me,' " said Benoit. As the outsider, Bush has been able to strike appealing chords -- a promise to be "different" from other leaders, a promise to be "a compassionate conservative," a promise to be "a uniter, not a divider" -- while allowing viewers to convert those chords into music of their own liking.
That won't be so easy this time. "Who is more insider than the president of the United States?" Benoit asked.
When he has to defend what he's done in real time, Bush has shown time and again that he is at his absolute worst. Just remember Meet the Press back in February and the "can you name one mistake" news conference.
Of course, Bush will not lack weapons, the most reliable of which is the flip-flop charge. Here is what I really, really hope Kerry will do: quote himself.
As even smarty-pants Chris Suellentrop at Slate has had to admit, Kerry has actually been dead consistent when it comes to his Iraq vote. He quotes Kerry as follows:
"The vote that I will give to the president is for one reason and one reason only, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint conference with our allies." Kerry added of President Bush, "I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council ... and to 'act with our allies at our side' if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force.' " Four days later, Kerry said, "What's happened is every single member of the United States Senate moved to take it to the U.N. with a willingness to enforce through the United Nations if that is the will of the international community. ... There is no justification whatsoever for sending Americans for the first time in American history as the belligerent, as the initiator of it, as a matter of first instance, without a showing of an imminent threat to our country." Walter Shapiro's chronicle of the early stages of the 2004 campaign,
One-Car Caravan, confirms this point. Shapiro hears Kerry say in October 2002, "My vote was cast in a way that made it very clear, Mr. President, I'm voting for you to do what you said you're going to do, which is to go through the U.N. and do this through an international process. If you go unilaterally, without having exhausted these remedies, I'm not supporting you. And if you decide that this is just a matter of straight pre-emptive doctrine for regime-change purposes without regard to the imminence of the threat, I'm not going to support you."
Disagree with Kerry's reasoning if you want, call him ambivalent or even unclear, but you can't say that he's been inconsistent or that he flip-flopped.
So, when the inevitable flip-flop charge comes out ("I'm not sure which of his 9 positions on the war in Iraq the Senator is talking about"), Kerry simply says something like, "You've heard a lot from the president's campaign misrepresenting my position on the war. Let me read to you what I said when I voted on the IWRA in 2002..."
If he could pull this off, it would be a double reverse judo slam dunk hat trick inside the park homerun, and I'll be waking up Friday morning tempted to pity Bush rather than loathe him.