Jim Fallows has an excellent piece in this month’s Atlantic, evaluating the 26 debates that took place during the Democratic Party’s primary process and, less successfully, predicting how Obama will fare against McCain–and, should Obama win, fare as President. The villains of the piece are the TV anchors who “moderated” the debates in such unhelpful fashion this year, particularly–and sadly–my old pal Tim Russert. (Rick Warren certainly had an agenda on Saturday at CamelbackSaddleback, but he seemed more interested in eliciting information from the candidates than the too-knowing ‘pros’ and–blissfully–he seemed entirely uninterested in playing gotcha.)
Fallows makes a telling observation about Hillary Clinton: that she was effective in every debate, but kept changing personas, wobbling between the Hillary who thought Obama was too inexperienced to be President and the one who was so “honored” to be on the same stage with the guy. As for Obama, Fallows isn’t overly impressed: way too cautious, especially compared to the quick, witty Obama who debated Alan Keyes in the 2004 Senate campaign.
Fallows has such a terrific eye and ear that you wish he would have devoted similar attention to the Republicans, but he seems quite bored them–and who wouldn’t, with their robotic God and Reagan fetishes? As a result, we don’t find out too much about McCain’s debate style. My recollection is that he wasn’t bad but, then again, he wasn’t facing an opponent nearly as formidable as Hillary Clinton.