Tonight, the University of Mississippi--Ole Miss-- in Oxford is the site of the first Presidential Debate between candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.
The Commission on Presidential Debates--the organization hosting the debate--has organized the debates as follows:
"The first presidential debate will focus on foreign policy and national security; the third presidential debate will focus on domestic and economic policy. The second presidential (town meeting format) debate will include any issues raised by members of that audience and online, and the vice presidential debate will include foreign and domestic policy.
This first debate is on foreign policy and national security--a topic that Barack Obama has absolutely no real experience in with only four years in the Senate. Joe Biden won't be here to protect him on this one so he's on his own. Apparently, he's been going through ten days of "debate camp," so we'll see if it pays off.
John McCain, however, has a great deal of experience with both issues. While this is a topic Republicans have typically owned in the past, McCain needs to be careful of previous mis-statements and great ease with which he can be aligned with George W. Bush on these issues. McCain also needs to avoid seeming aloof or out of touch with the current events.
Here are a few things running through my mind regarding what each candidate needs to do in order to call the night a "success." (Keeping in mind that "success" is a completely subjective term in debate-speak.)
McCain needs to come out from his opening answer and just punch Obama square in the jaw--figuratively--and establish dominance on the issue. He needs to highlight Obama's weakness and inexperience and throw him off his game--enough so that people wonder what a President Obama would be like if he had to deal with our enemies when he couldn't even stand up to John McCain in a simple debate.
Mac also needs to avoid looking like the old guy down the street who yells at kids to get off his lawn. This will be a difficult task. Think back to the Nixon/Kennedy debates--Nixon clearly won on substance but the general perception was that Kennedy won because he looked youthful, dashing and...well...had a good amount of make-up on. McCain is up against this same problem.
Stage presence is everything in these debates and, let's face it, Obama has it and McCain doesn't. Obama looks better than McCain and it's highly likely that we'll hear the Nixon/Kennedy-McCain/Obama parallels drawn by Corporate Media tonight. That's a battle McCain can't and won't win.
John McCain needs to stick to his mantra: Country First--but it needs to be substantive and more than a slogan. He needs to hammer national security and a strong foreign policy to offset Obama's desire to negotiate with anyone without pre-conditions. (Which, by the way, isn't a foreign policy.)
If McCain can start strong, he stands a good chance.
Obama, however, doesn't have to do nearly as much for the night to be a success--and that's only because people perceive him as being a "great speaker." The bar is a little lower for Obama, even though it shouldn't be. Sure, he speaks great when he's reading from a teleprompter--but when he's left to form his own sentences he stammers. That's something McCain is hoping to capitalize on.
Obama also needs to avoid the "Hope" and "Change" mantra. This debate is about national security and foreign policy and, despite how many times he wants to talk about doing things differently, he's going to have to be specific in order to not look less knowledgeable than McCain.
Barack Obama also needs to come across as something he's not: tough on national security. This is a tall order for him. In order to appeal to somebody other than his base, he's going to have to know how to keep this country safe. Given he's only been in the Senate four years (and two years of that has been spent campaigning for President), I don't think he'll pull that off. He can't just pull a John Kerry and say "I have a plan and you can find it on BarackObama.com."
Obama will charge McCain with not being truthful. He'll bring up the "we'll be in Iraq for 100 years" comment. He'll grasp at straws and make the debate about McCain because he can't debate on substance. Where as McCain is going to have to punch Obama figuratively in the mouth, Obama will try to figuratively punch McCain in the "junk." That's a strategy that will fail.
Either way, expectations for this debate should be extremely low. We do not have two great debaters on this stage and this certainly won't be "one for the ages."
Corporate Media will score it for Obama, of course.
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