There is another reason that debates rarely shift voting coalitions, and that is the way the media covers them. Last night’s debate is a perfect example. John McCain made two significant and highly controversial policy proposals and both were buried in the stories on the debate reported in the NYTimes and the Washington Post. The first was his repeat of his suggestion from the first debate to impose an across-the-board governmental spending freeze except on military-related expenditures. Obama countered, effectively I thought, by likening it to using an axe instead of a scalpel on the federal budget. But at this point I’ve not seen any follow up on the budgetary implications of McCain’s budget freeze, nor any detailed analysis of Obama’s budget prescriptions.
More significantly, I think, is the utter failure – beginning with Brokaw last night – to follow up on McCain’s proposal for the government to buy up mortgage loans that are on the brink of default and reissue them to homeowners on more favorable terms. This is a hugely expensive proposition but one that also gets to the heart of the effort to ease the credit crunch. I think I first heard it proposed by Hillary Clinton (I need to check this), and it was resurrected in the debate in Congress on how to ease the credit crunch. It has not, however, to my knowledge ever been advanced as a serious proposal by either of the two major candidates. As such, it deserves serious debate, but the reporters covering this story – following Brokaw’s lead – have, as far as I can see, simply buried it. Note the Washington Post title to their article on the debate: “For the New Contagion, the Same Old Prescriptions”. In fact, we didn’t hear the same prescriptions – we heard new ones. Rather than address the details of a potentially significant policy proposal, however, the media has focused instead on parsing body language, McCain’s use of the phrase “that one”, and why McCain and Cindy left the post-debate scene so quickly. Now, it may be that McCain’s campaign shares some of the blame for failing to tease this policy proposal in the lead up to the debate. But it deserves more analysis than it has so far received and certainly merits more discussion than McCain’s description of Obama as “that one.”
I am very committed to a candidate. I watched the debate, as I have all of the debates- since Nixon/Kennedy 1960, and what I saw were missed opportunities, by Brokaw to select really relevant questions and by both candidates to move beyond their stump speeches.
The country and the world faces a real economic upheaval and we really do not know anything more about what either of these people will actually do to address that- and neither acknowledged the limits of the government to have any actual effect either. Perhaps McCain’s directive to to Treasury to buy nonperforming mortgages, a $300,000,000,000 new program might have elicited some followup or comment but incredibly it went unanswered. Did he really mean that the Fed government would bail out the entire home loan industry? Why was this not discussed?
Perhaps because both of these candidates were only interested in delivering their stump speeches and Brokaw was asleep at the switch.
Very disappointing.
I think that this debate is the best argument for shorter campaigns. Both of these guys have been running for years and have become tone deaf. Yesterday they each were confronted with the 800 pound gorilla in the room more than once and just ignored it- and Brokaw allowed it- apparently more interested in trying to keep them on schedule.
The signature example of that was the very good question;
“Why should we trust either party to get us out of the mess that you both got us into?”
Why should we? Neither candidate articulated any reason that I heard.
Jim Morrison ( Sr)
Thanks for including me in your very thoughtful blog by the way.
There were opportunities
Professor Dickinson,
There is less than a month left in the campaign. Since last night seems like it will have a pretty weak impact on the race, what sort of opportunities are left for McCain to close the gap?
There is one more debate, but if the last 2 (three if we include the VP one) are any indication, it doesn’t seem like we will see any fireworks there. Plus, with the topic turning fully to the economy in the third debate, it doesn’t appear that McCain will have a chance to change focus to one of the policy areas in which he might have more advantages.
Aside from the remaining debate, McCain’s options seem limited. His new ad campaigns may try to paint Obama in a bad light, but Obama has much more money to spend accross the country to defend his record and/or go after McCain.
The phrase “game changer” is being thrown around a lot in the national media and for good reason: McCain needs it badly. Short of a massively important foreign policy event – such as the capture of Bin Ladin – I don’t see much potential for it happening.
The only other question I have relates to Obama’s election record, at least in the primaries. Many pollsters noted that late voters tended to break for Clinton during the final days leading up to the democratic primaries. Is there any chance of a late surge for McCain, given that he, like Clinton, is (or may be) the more familiar candidate?
I question McCain’s strategy of announcing a policy plan during the debate, especially the (pseudo) town hall format. Perhaps the plan was to catch Obama off-guard and unable to respond, but these debates are always dueling talking points so the lack of a response was typical. But for McCain to really present the policy & hype it, he’d have to blow-off the questioners from the audience, which would be counter-productive. So the only way to deal with his mortgage plan is to treat it like a talking point and move on. Brokaw could have pressed on it, but he had his “zingers” he wanted to feature (none of which zinged or presented any real insight).
As for the “that one” meta-discussion, I think it plays into one of the key frames for viewing McCain: an old man of privilege with contempt for this new, young and “different” politician stealing his spotlight. Watching debates on TV is so much about getting an emotional read on the candidates, and McCain has come across as condescending, grumpy, and contemptuous – “that one” fits that profile, so it fits the coverage narratives. Major policy proposals do not (and I think they shouldn’t if they are revealed via a soundbite in a debate rather than actually presented with substance).
Just a quick clarification point: the “Jim Morrison” above is my esteemed father. He’s also something of a political scientist (teaching in the Univ of Wisconsin College system).
Politically, we’re not always on the same page; but we do both love the “Presidential Power” blog!
Prof James Morrison
Middlebury College