{"id":2350,"date":"2004-08-17T11:13:06","date_gmt":"2004-08-17T16:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2350.html"},"modified":"2004-08-17T11:13:06","modified_gmt":"2004-08-17T16:13:06","slug":"managing-debate-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/managing-debate-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing debate expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you didn’t already know better, you’d think Bush doesn’t want to talk about debating John Kerry.<\/p>\n

In March, Kerry proposed<\/a> monthly “issue” debates. Bush balked. Kerry tried again<\/a> in April, to no avail.<\/p>\n

In July, the Commission on Presidential Debates released a schedule of four debates (three presidential, one vice presidential), their dates, and locations. Kerry accepted the schedule immediately<\/a>; Bush aides said they’d think about it.<\/p>\n

Last week, as The Gadflyer’s Paul Waldman explained<\/a>, Larry King tried to pin Bush down<\/a> and have him acknowledge on the air that he’ll abide by the Commission’s schedule. Bush refused.<\/p>\n

KING: You can pick the dates and times, but last I heard, the White House hadn’t signed off yet? Sign off tonight.<\/p>\n

G. BUSH: I’ll be there to debate.<\/p>\n

KING: Sign off, you’ll show up.<\/p>\n

G. BUSH: Well, I don’t have — frankly, to be honest with you, I don’t have any idea what the dates are. But I’m confident we’ll have the debates.<\/p>\n

KING: The three debates and the vice presidential.<\/p>\n

G. BUSH: There will be debates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bush is, once again, managing expectations. Waldman saw through this scheme<\/a> perfectly.
\n<\/p>\n

So what did it tell us? That Bush doesn’t want to debate? Hardly. Rather, it tells us that Bush wants people to think he doesn’t want to debate. <\/p>\n

Here’s how the strategy works:<\/p>\n

1. Drag out the negotiations over the terms of the debates in order to convince reporters that you’re terrified you’re going to lose the debates.<\/p>\n

2. Propose fewer debates than the other side wants, in order to convince reporters that you’re terrified you’re going to lose the debates.<\/p>\n

3. Start talking about what a mediocre debater your guy is.<\/p>\n

4. In progressively ridiculous terms, talk about how great a debater your opponent is. <\/p>\n

It worked in 2000, so why wouldn’t it work again?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, this is already happening. Bush is hedging on whether he’ll agree to the Commission’s schedule, making it appear that he’s scared. The negotiations will happen behind closed doors, but Bush aides will leak word about a counterproposal that would limit the number of debates to, say, two.<\/p>\n

And as for Waldman’s fourth point, it’s already begun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, told CNN earlier this month that Kerry and Edwards were “two of the probably best debaters on one ticket maybe in the history of the country.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course this is transparent nonsense, but the GOP sure does know how to develop a campaign plan and stick to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you didn’t already know better, you’d think Bush doesn’t want to talk about debating John Kerry. In March, Kerry proposed monthly “issue” debates. Bush balked. Kerry tried again in April, to no avail. In July, the Commission on Presidential Debates released a schedule of four debates (three presidential, one vice presidential), their dates, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}