BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, October 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Tonight marks a turning point in the presidential campaign--when the challengers must defend their post-debate gains. The vice presidential candidates will square off in Cleveland, in their only head-on debate of the campaign. Typically debates favor challengers, by putting them on equal footing with incumbents. But after a strong performance last Thursday, the Kerry team must be wondering if it would have been better off with only one debate. Having achieved near parity with Bush-Cheney, can Kerry-Edwards now live up to expectations in the remaining debates?
Last week John Kerry earned himself a nice little bounce and tightened the polls, party by brilliantly playing the expectations game. Despite a 30-plus year reputation as a skilled debater, the hype surrounding Mr. Kerry was that he would be lucky not to be crushed in the first debate. After all, foreign policy--the focus of the face off--was supposed to be President Bush's strong suit. The red lights that would flash when a candidate overran his allotted time were also supposed to put the long-winded Mr. Kerry at a disadvantage--and his campaign made a point of complaining about them on the morning of the debate. After it was over, Mr. Kerry hadn't spoken any more directly than he normally does, but he was disciplined enough to not overrun the little red flashing light. The impression he left with much of the audience--who usually tune out the policy details anyway--is that he didn't beat around the bush. Actually, it was a masterful political maneuver.
That's a move the Democrats can only play once, however. Tonight John Edwards emerges from weeks of hiding out in small media markets. He must overcome his nice-boy image from the primaries and attack Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney has the easier task, because his negatives are already about as high as they could get--the one benefit of being painted by the media as the "Darth Vader" figure of the race. The most recent line on him is that he "relishes" his role as attack dog. He will likely be able to beat predebate expectations simply by not kicking any puppies.
Of course, both men are skilled speakers and quick on their feet. As moderator Bernard Shaw found out in the 2000 vice presidential debate, it's hard to catch Mr. Cheney off guard, and when given the chance he can connect pretty well with the audience. Mr. Cheney put this on display when Mr. Shaw asked him to answer from the perspective of a black man how he would feel about racial profiling. Mr. Cheney had the wit to first step back from the question before answering: "I'd like to answer your question to the best of my ability, but I don't think I can understand fully what it would be like. I try hard to put myself in that position and imagine what it would have been like, but of course, I've always been a part of the majority. I've never been part of a minority group, but it has to be a horrible experience. It's the sense of anger and frustration and rage that would go with knowing that the only reason you were stopped, the only reason you were arrested, was because of your color of your skin; it would make me extraordinarily angry. And I'm not sure how--how I would respond."
For his part, Mr. Edward learned his debating skills in the courtroom, delivering withering attacks on corporate America while winning juries over. Look for him to couch his attacks in his folksy, Southern drawl on everything from Halliburton and prewar intelligence in Iraq to health care, education and jobs. Unlike Mr. Kerry, Mr. Edwards doesn't need to call the Iraq war "the wrong war at the wrong time." Instead, look for him to say something like where I come from, we expect our leaders to tell us the truth.
Lacking his running mate's charm, Mr. Kerry has a different but similarly steep hill to climb on Friday, when he next goes head to head with President Bush. The town-hall style format is better suited for the president's down-to-earth demeanor. What Mr. Kerry must now guard against is a moment that allows President Bush to break through to the audience, as Ronald Reagan was able to do in the second presidential debate in 1984.
Like President Bush this year, in 1984 Reagan was running for re-election and turned in a lackluster performance in the first debate. Reagan did so poorly, in fact, that serious questions were raised about whether he was too old, at 73, to continue to function as president. We now know that Reagan's poor showing was partly due to overpreparation--something similar to what we're hearing about Mr. Bush spending most of last Thursday touring hurricane damage in Florida instead of resting up for the debate. At the second debate Reagan was asked about his age and he turned it around on his opponent, 56-year-old Walter Mondale: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." Even Mr. Mondale smiled broadly.
Unless Mr. Kerry can show that kind of charm, he is in the unenviable position of having to defend his highest poll performance in weeks with his same old policy arguments. Mr. Kerry may surprise us yet again. But how many surprises can a candidate who has held every conceivable position have left?
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
