"Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next 10 words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next 10 words. How are we going to do it? Give me 10 after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while ... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for 10 words."
Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet
"The West Wing" (Episode: "Game On")
Tonight is the final presidential debate of 2008. The election itself is 20 days away.
This is the last chance for Barack Obama and John McCain to make their appeals to the electorate in this setting.
Briefly, let's review where things stand:
- The latest public opinion surveys, fueled by economic concerns, show Obama in front by varying margins.
For example, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll says Obama leads, 50% to 41%. The Times also advises both candidates that whoever wins the election must "bridge partisan divides."
That sounds vaguely reminiscent of Richard Nixon's 1968 post-election claim to have seen a young girl holding a sign that said "Bring us together" during the campaign — a declaration that could have been every bit as fictitious as Nixon's pledge to have a "secret plan" for ending the war in Vietnam.
Of course, even if Nixon's claim was bogus, that didn't mean the sentiment wasn't valid. It is. Just as it is today. - Since tonight's debate is scheduled to be about domestic matters, it would be nice to have in-depth discussions about issues that are important to the American people, like
- the economy and its myriad of sub-issues (Brent Budowsky writes, in The Hill, that "[w]e need sweeping reforms of Wall Street to protect the integrity of markets, restore the integrity of credit rating agencies and bring stability and fiduciary trust back to banking and investing.")
- health care,
- energy (the Los Angeles Times says it is "doubly disappointing" that neither candidate has a "responsible" energy plan),
- education,
- the environment
- and so many others.
- However, I won't be surprised if McCain does connect the dots — and often — between Obama and Bill Ayers. The Boston Herald tells readers it is likely that McCain will bring up the subject. I agree.
But that doesn't mean I believe it's a good idea — and neither, apparently, does Thomas Frank of the Wall Street Journal, who writes that the Republicans' use of the Ayers issue is their "vilest hour."
(Personally, I don't think it's quite as vile as the Republicans' smear campaign against Georgia Sen. Max Cleland in 2002 — but it's close.) - But McCain appears to disagree with his advisers, including his running mate, over whether he should bring up the subject of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, according to Mike Allen in Politico.
To his credit, McCain has resisted inserting Wright into the dialogue, believing (correctly, in my opinion) he would be reintroducing racism.
But the Miami Herald warns against expecting depth in the debate.
An economics professor from Ole Miss (which hosted the first debate nearly three weeks ago) told the Herald, "I've been very disappointed in both of them for the lack of vision."
That, regretfully, reflects an idealistic approach to a modern political debate.
Realistically, however, the ultimate objective in a debate is to deliver at least one memorable "sound bite" — a "You're no Jack Kennedy" or "There you go again."
A mind-numbing litany of statistics isn't going to be played endlessly on the TV news.
A professor of governmental operations at New York University reminds USA Today that "[w]e tend to remember that first 100 days" of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, when the Congress and the administration pushed through a flurry of economic legislation.
"But that transition went on for six or seven years — trying new things, trying to get the economy restarted, all sorts of maneuvering, and then finally things started to turn around. It was brutal."
No one is suggesting that it will take six or seven years to resolve this financial crisis, but no sound bite can adequately prepare voters for the experimentation they will have to endure while an answer is sought.
In a debate, viewers are looking for what Martin Sheen called, in his debate on "The West Wing," the "10-word answer." Unfortunately, the world is too complex to find solutions in 10 words.
There's not much reason that I can see for the candidates to change their approach in a single debate.
Obama believes he has the lead and, like a quarterback protecting a lead, he will be inclined to play it safe.
McCain, believing his team is trailing, may be more inclined to make bold moves to try to regain lost ground in a hurry.
I think he may be likely to repeatedly emphasize that he is not George W. Bush — without identifying the issues on which he and the president differ.
It's worth remembering that Hubert Humphrey began to make rapid gains on Nixon in the polls in 1968 when he finally began to distance himself from Lyndon Johnson.
But there is a crucial difference. As Johnson's vice president, Humphrey was intimately connected to the administration's policies. McCain, as a senator, is perceived as being more independent than that, even though he is the nominee of the president's party.
Don't expect McCain to connect the dots for you.
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