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Bush, Kerry set to take debate stage
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by Ryan Masse
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry left Wisconsin for Florida Wednesday, fresh off three days of rest and ready to debate tonight at the University of Miami.
At a university best known for terrorizing opponents on the football field, Kerry will meet no Hurricanes. But he will confront an equally daunting foe, one whose prowess in debates, many say, is no small secret: President Bush.
Some, including those in the Kerry campaign, say Bush has won every debate in which he has participated during his political career.
“George Bush has never lost a debate in his life,” George Twigg, Kerry’s Wisconsin communications director, said Wednesday.
“The mistake often made that we are not going to make is that people always underestimate George Bush,” Twigg continued. “He’s a very talented debater.”
Bush’s quintessential debating moment, according to University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin, was his showdown with former Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994.
“Ann Richards thought that she would just mop him up and make him look like a lightweight,” Franklin said. “But he looked remarkably good, and she looked flustered.”
A similar fate befell Al Gore in the first presidential debate in 2000, Franklin said.
Although preliminary reaction to Gore’s debate with Bush was favorable, pundits later noted the former vice president’s constant sighs and awkward stage presence, while Bush appeared at ease in conveying his stances.
It’s the ability to articulate his views clearly that makes Bush an effective debater, former UW political science professor Charles Jones said.
“The point in these debates is not to defeat your opponent, but rather to express clearly your own ideas,” Jones said. “And Bush is straightforward in doing so. Bush’s strength is not as a debater, but in being himself.”
Kerry, however, is no slouch himself, Twigg said.
“John Kerry is going to be going out there and very clearly laying out his vision for … improving the situation in Iraq,” Twigg said.
Still, Kerry will have to overcome several obstacles, Franklin said, starting with the charge he flip-flops on the issues.
“Kerry really has to sell to the public that he has a clear position. Bush will push the flip flop position — that’s a really hard problem for Kerry because it’s really hard to argue, especially in Iraq, that he hasn’t changed his position,” Franklin said.
Franklin suggested Kerry might benefit from turning the flip-flop allegation back at Bush by commenting on the president’s changing justifications for going to war, from WMDs to ousting Saddam Hussein to starting democracy.
Tonight’s debate, which will focus exclusively on foreign policy, is the first in a series of four organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The next debate will pit vice president Dick Cheney against Democratic vice president nominee John Edwards in Cleveland Oct. 5. Bush and Kerry will then hold two more debates, Oct. 8 in St. Louis and Oct. 13 in Tempe, Ariz.
Whether either candidate scores a victory tonight will come down to the American public, Jones said.
“The judges of a debate are not debate judgers, per se; it’s the American people,” he said.
