Expectations Games
It is hard to overstate the degree to which Barack Obama's brilliant rhetorical skill, his lofty and elevated tone, and his sublime intellect were sold to the American public in 2008. A quick trawl through Google should make reporters feels the way one should about poetry written while in high school: uncomfortable, and vaguely sticky.
Barack Obama is a beautiful speaker. He is measured, and uses cadence, pace and timing to his perfect advantage. In his self-control, his intellectual froideur, his body language...he is the exemplar of the post-modern communicator: perfectly trained, unironically focused on his talking points, delivering horrendous divisiveness and the politics of envy with an even tone that plays to the secret fantasies of a generation of Sorkin-obsessed reporters.
Obama also brings a particular type of Ivy League intellectual superiority and hermetic smugness that doesn't only dismiss alternative viewpoints, but sees them as antithetical to any rational discourse.
He is extraordinarily skilled at the icy, demeaning putdown of conservative ideas and understands well the rhetorical tropes they've run through the sieve of a hundred focus groups. He wrestles strawmen by the platoon.
Which is why the pregame warmup to the debates has been filled with richly ironic expectations-game spin from the Obama campaign. They're playing up how busy he's been – governing, you know...locked in important meetings with Jay-Z and Beyonce on how to handle Libya, and sitting with the ladies of the View, trying to work out how QE-Infinity will affect the markets.
This gem from the Obama campaign's Jen Psaki is telling: “The president will have some time to prepare and he’s been doing some studying, but it is certainly less than we have anticipated because of events in the Middle East, because of his busy travel schedule — because of just the constraints of governing. So it is less than we originally planned.”
Let's be clear (to use a favorite Obamism), and bust up this meme before it starts: Mitt Romney needs to be at the very top of his game to hold his own against Barack Obama.
Because Obama, love him or hate him, is good in debates. Really, really good. In 2008, it was partly the contrast with McCain, but Obama's performances on their own mertis won raves from the commentariat.
“Mr. McCain fumbled his way through the economic portion of the debate, while Mr. Obama seemed clear and confident,” said the New York Times. George Stephanoplos weighed in with this balanced and objective point, “And overall, bottom line, the winner is Barack Obama. He comes into this race where the country wants change, his number one goal was to show that he belonged on that stage...he could hold his own on national security, he did that tonight, he gets the win.”
It wasn't just the pundits: Obama's masterful performances were reflected in the polling directly following the debates:
CNN Post-debate polls, 2008
Obama | McCain | |
September 28 | 51% | 38% |
October 7 | 54% | 43% |
October 15 | 58% | 31% |
CBS Post-debate polls, 2008
Obama | McCain | |
September 28 | 46% | 32% |
October 7 | 40% | 26% |
October 15 | 52% | 22% |
John McCain was portrayed – not entirely inaccurately – as a grumpy old man muttering into his soup, facing off against a man of surpassing intellectual depth, moral piety and perfectly creased trousers. The collective attitude of the media was that the doddering old geezer and his snowbilly VP nominee should've simply stayed home. But that wouldn't have sold it if Obama had blown it in the three debates...and he never did. He was relentlessly on message, relentlessly on the attack and as poised as could be imagined.
Which leads us to next week. Obama is an experienced, brilliant debater. Romney has been through the debate training by the best (the estimable Rob Portman), but he has never faced the human buzzsaw of Barack Obama on the debate stage. The very best Romney can hope for is to have his performance judged as as workmanlike, creditable, decent, and even respectable.
Naturally, our entirely clear-eyed, objective media will greet Obama's performance with one long orgasmic squeeeeee, as if New Direction has walked into an eighth-grade class at an all-girls school.
Their immediate reaction to Obama and the debates is so utterly and entirely predictable as to verge on silly. They will nitpick every word, tonal variation, pause, glance and every factoid in every word Romney speaks. But Barack Obama could stand on stage and say “The rain...in..uh....Spain. Falls...mainly uhhh on...the uh plain. That...uh...we...uh...inherited” and be greeted as a modern day Demosthenes.
The guy could read the phone book from the podium in response to the sharpest Romney question and reporters will write “Obama once again demonstrated how his intellect is so far beyond our understanding that entirely new branches of semiotics, linguistics and philosophy will need to be developed over hundreds of years for us to begin to grasp even the outer edges of his cosmic wisdom.”
Barack Obama is the greatest Presidential debater of the past 200 years. Count on it. Be ready. Which is exactly why they're trying so hard to lower expectations.
See what I did there?
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Comments:
Re: Expectations Games
May I just say, Rick, that I love your posts here on Ricochet? You're giving us an engrossing rolling seminar on the art of contemporary politics. Lord, you know a lot. Thanks for letting the rest of us in on your knowledge.
Sep '12
Re: Expectations Games
Average American Voter: Uh, sure... Obama is a better debater than... uh, the other guy, whatzizname, because the pretty people on TV tell us so. So I can watch reruns instead of the debates and then tell everyone in the unemployment line that I thought Obama won the debate, too. Yeah... you know, those unemployment checks are good; I like getting paid for doing nothing. And you know, those rich people aren't really paying their fair share, but they still want to take away birth control on orders of the Pope, er... or was that the Bilderburgers?
Edited on September 27, 2012 at 8:16pmJun '11
Re: Expectations Games
More good stuff from Mr. Wilson!
Jul '12
Re: Expectations Games
Mockery. That's what President Obama can't stand. If Romney pulls it off, then the President will have to improvise. That's when he tells what's really in his mind, and that's what everyone needs to hear. There is much to make fun of. His acceptance speech in 2008 is a target rich environment. Just let Romney contrast what was going to happen, and what's actually happened. And make it funny.
He said, for example, "If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things." That's quite a preview of his campaign four years later.
Edited on September 27, 2012 at 8:50pmMar '11
Re: Expectations Games
That's the best description of Mr Obama's speaking skills that I have read.
I agree that he likely to rings around Mr Romney in the debates - I am not sure if even Newt could compete with a magician.
One can only hope that the voters have seen past Mr Obama's rhetorical skills by now - if they are paying attention.
Re: Expectations Games
Thank you, Peter. I very much appreciate that.
May '11
Re: Expectations Games
Obama was passable in debates when he didn't have to say or defend anything.
Edited on September 27, 2012 at 10:03pmJun '11
Re: Expectations Games
You know, I watched a 2008 debate between Obama and McCain in which I quite clearly heard Obama call McCain by the wrong name, twice. I assumed it would be the most discussed part of the debate. But no discussion, liberal or conservative, ever said one word about it. From which I concluded that the entire country, except me, had been asleep.
Aug '12
Re: Expectations Games
Great post. The unbelievable fawning of the media over anything Obama says is just sickening. I work with teenagers daily and most of them sound more sensible than the so called journalists. But every so often you get a couple of girls giggling and oohing and aahing over some hot guy and it sounds just like the MSM talking about Obama.
Sep '11
Re: Expectations Games
Wow! I thought I was the only one who heard that!
May '11
Re: Expectations Games
Did you just raise expectations? You certainly got me worried!
Apr '12
Re: Expectations Games
Twelve years ago, I endured endless hosannas praising Al Gore's debate skills. Poor, stupid, bumbling George Bush was dooooommmmmed. We wound up with Gore wandering around the stage on national television. Brilliant verbiage is only effective to an American people who are fully employed with a paid up mortgage.
"Romney has been through the debate training by the best (the estimable Rob Portman), but he has never faced the human buzzsaw of Barack Obama on the debate stage."
I disagree. Mitt took on the human wood chipper Newt Gingrich, and won decisively. Like George Bush, Americans have been trained to expect Mitt to be a bumbling fool who'll insist that hobo's roasted bodies be used as a renewable fuel source. And like Bush, they'll be pleasantly surprised to hear an intelligent, caring man.
"The very best Romney can hope for is to have his performance judged as as workmanlike, creditable, decent, and even respectable."
No, the very best Romney can hope for is to show that Obama is an aloof, incompetent fool who doesn't tolerate different opinions. Just how far will the President's sneer take him while getting hammered about the economy?
Edited on September 28, 2012 at 4:37pm