All of these things must be judged in context. What is the American public looking for when it judges the platform performance of a president or a candidate for president? We too easily make the assumption that the American public sees the world the way we conservatives do. They do not. As a matter of fact they think we are obsessive. We are at a rare moment in history when the American people are aroused and engaged. Normally they look at a candidate only to see if he is plausible in the role and then say, yes he fits or, no he does not fit. They are not there to grade him on his grammar, they are there to grade him on his sincerity and his grasp of the material. In short, is he acting presidential.
Obama clearly passed these tests. Remember, the tests are not tests of fidelity to conservative principles. Does he look presidential?
In support of this I offer two previous posts that I wrote at the time of the McCain/Obama debates:
I agree with everything you say, McCain was absolutely brilliant. His answers were crisp and clear and could not have been more conservative or more forthright. His anecdotes were compelling. He had the audience in his hand from the beginning.
Obama, on the other hand, sounded like he was dictating into my Dragon Naturally Speaking software. He was stilted, hesitant, and too calculating by half. If one asks the question who did the better job, the answer is undeniable: McCain.
But if one asks who won the evening, that is not so easy to answer. The problem is that the two men had different tasks. McCain performed his task, he had to appear compelling. But Obama was not tasked with the same burden. Because this is a Democrat year for all the reasons we all know, Obama's job was merely to look like he could be a president.
Consider the debate in 1980 between Carter and Reagan. Reagan had merely to show the world that he did not have two heads because he was a conservative and the people, who were itching to get rid of Jimmy Carter anyway said, "okay, Reagan looks like he could be a president and that's what we wanted to know." End of story for Jimmy Carter.
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John McCain lost the debate because Barak Obama did not lose it.
As you pointed out the debate was a draw. The problem with the draw is that McCain had to win or, more precisely, Obama had to lose. Obama had to betray himself as somehow unqualified for the world's greatest job by virtue of experience, character, or radicalism. He need not have failed so miserably as Sarah Palin did in the Katy Couric interview, but it was necessary that somewhere Obama betray a deficiency which validated the rap against him. That simply did not happen.
Therefore I think that McCain candidacy is in very serious trouble.
The people who are going to decide this election, the undecideds, have a very limited exposure to the issues before the country. They form general impressions and vote on them. The general impression they take away from this debate is that it is a draw. Therefore, Obama falls within the acceptable range of a candidate who could plausibly serve in the oval office.
If you do not think that that is the test which the candidates faced tonight, then you probably will come to a different conclusion. You can argue that the undecideds had no preconceptions about the state of the economy and the state of the nation going into the debate. You can argue that they were not concerned, and I mean terribly concerned, about the financial crisis or looming international threats. In that case, these undecideds are not looking for a man who can lead them on a new course, having decided that the old course was lurching toward peril. If they believe the country desperately needs to change course, they will vote for Obama providing he is not otherwise disqualified.
If the undecideds are not concerned about our state of affairs to the degree that they are looking to change course, then they can engage in fine distinctions between the candidates. If they do that, I think McCain wins on experience and earnestness.
But behind my personal view of the debate is a whole body of knowledge acquired here on Free Republic that tells me that Obama is a stealthy and dangerous radical. The independents who will decide this election are virtually wholly uninformed about Obama's radicalism. To the degree that they are informed, they largely discount it as the normal flak of an election campaign.
I just cannot believe that the people are interested in such fine distinctions. They want to set a course for the country. They don't give a damn about constitutional principles and they certainly don't give a damn about conservative principles. They do not share our background of knowledge about Obama's biography. I think they are very scared and want to try something new. You might say, they are scared enough to want a steady hand guided by a head with gray hair at the tiller but I'm inclined to think that they are yearning to see a bright new Hope.
If they judge that the face of hope, comes without grave risk, they will go for hope over experience. I say again, they do not know or they discount Obama's baggage.
We political junkies must always guard against the fatal assumption that the rest of the world thinks the way we do.
All that having been said, it is also true that the world is beginning to have very serious concerns about Obama's policies and this in turn will make their judgments of his forensic performance much less forgiving.
