Forget about it, especially four weeks before Election Day.Moderator Tom Brokaw lost control of tonight's debate early on. Truth is, he probably never had a chance -- the candidates knew what they wanted to do and did it. The "town hall" format, along with Mr. Brokaw pleading for compliance with agreed-on rules, made for a bumpy 90-minute ride.
Most of what we heard tonight was recycled from stump speeches and campaign talking points -- so once again, we learned virtually nothing of substance. A disappointment, but not a surprise.
Neither candidate was shy about attacking the other, usually at the expense of answering the question asked. Provoked or unprovoked, punch and counter-punch, an adversarial thread ran throughout the debate. The audience wasn't allowed to settle on what the two might have in common -- it was all about differences, such as they are.
The town-hall format was believed to favor Sen. McCain's familiar, guy-next-door style. A chair was set up for each candidate, presumably to give the on-deck person a place to light while the other spoke. Sen. Obama followed that etiquette, but more than once, Sen. McCain actually stalked his opponent around the stage.
It was at once embarrassing and hilarious to see the Republican, wearing that inimitable grin of his, shadow the Democrat while he was answering a question. In all my years working around public speakers and on-stage events, I've never seen anything like it.
As I did for the first two debates, I tuned-in to CNN with its real-time "dial tester" graphs. Again I watched the reactions of men vs. women, 25 undecided Central Ohioans, and I found their responses far more interesting than the debate itself.
Even when Sen. McCain "hit all the right notes," positive reactions were slow to build and seldom matched the highs achieved repeatedly by Sen. Obama's answers. Negative attacks and look-what-I've-done rhetoric cost the Republican quickly and more dearly than they did the Democrat. In both cases, I suspect that Sen. McCain's struggles trace to the economic crisis and the negative tone set by the GOP ticket over the last several days.
Most viewers will judge that Sen. Obama won this debate, and that's a reasonable conclusion. Sen. McCain, for all his experience in town-hall meetings, never found his game tonight. Even if he'd debated his opponent to a draw, it still would've been a battle lost -- he needed a win, not a standoff.
