Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Friday's Debate

Wednesday September 24, 2008

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From New York City

The first of three Presidential debates will be Friday night from Oxford, Mississippi. It will be moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS and is supposed to center on foreign affairs.

Guess what. The Congress is in the throes of working on a TRILLION DOLLAR bail-out of the financial system. That is likely to come up during the course of the 90-minute debate.

The issue before the group is: What does each of the candidates have to do to "win" the debate.

These debates are important. They really do matter. Friday's debate will draw a huge television audience and a large number of "soft" supporters of either Obama or McCain will begin to harden (or change) their positions.

First Obama.

Senator Barack Obama doesn't know squat about almost everything. Everyone knows that. Even his most ardent supporters.

Half the electorate appears to be willing to roll the dice with a guy who two years ago was totally unknown and, through two minutes ago has been totally untested.

Nevertheless he's a good looking guy (remember that his Vice-Presidential running mate once describe him as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean") who certainly does have an ability to draw a crowd.

One of the things which my recent three-month stint as a senate staffer reminded me was the amount of stuff you learn just by hanging around.

Obama has been a Senator but he hasn't been hanging around there much, so he hasn't had the opportunity to absorb things by osmosis, which really does happen.

Whatever he knows, he knows because some advisor or another - or some writer or another - has taught him.

One of the reasons that, even after a horrible week by the McCain campaign on the bailout stuff, Obama is ahead in two tracking polls, behind in one and tied in another, is that people don't think he knows what to do about things like a melt-down of the financial system of the planet.

So, his challenge on Friday night is to convince the soft voters that he really does know stuff. Not that he can regurgitate facts and figures; but he has to convince people that he KNOWS what he is talking about.

That is a high hill to climb. Good for him that Jim Lehrer is not known as a barracuda in the sea of interviewers.

Next McCain.

John McCain is 374 years old. Everyone knows that. His challenge is to convince soft voters that he has the strength and vigor to handle the job.

McCain's worst debate performance in the primary season was the debate in Dearborn, Michigan. It was an MSNBC debate and it stands out in my mind because it was the first GOP primary debate in which Fred Thompson (for whom I was senior advisor) participated.

McCain was there, but he didn't show up. His campaign had overscheduled and had him making a major speech at the Detroit Economic Club earlier in the day and McCain was exhausted.

Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee and Thompson carried the show. McCain did not do well.

The parallel would be the first debate between President Ronald Reagan and the Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. Reagan's handlers (he was also 374 years old at the time) were so concerned that he prove he was totally engaged in the business of government that they filled him with facts 'n figures to the point that it had the opposite of the desired effect.

Rather than looking like he had his hand on the tiller of the ship of state, Reagan looked confused and out-of-touch.

In the second debate (with the cries of "let Reagan be Reagan" ringing in the campaign's ears) Reagan did his stuff, buried Mondale, and was on his way to a 49-state win.

Counter-intuitive as it may seem, the worse things get, the better for McCain because the electorate will take a chance on an Obama when things are going well, but will not be willing to play pick-up-sticks with the future of the world when they are not.

But, McCain has to show he has the physical strength for the job.

If he does - notwithstanding the parsing of every phrase in every sentence in which the post-debate deconstructors will engage - McCain will win.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to CNN's coverage of Biden calling Obama "clean"; a Mullfoto which is even stranger than usual, and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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