The Most Important Debate This Year

Both candidates had their share of a grueling debate schedule this year.  McCain clocked in around 20, while Obama had over 26.  You would think they are both tired of talking.

Ha.  These are politicians, and they love to hear themselves talk.  More importantly, they love to hear themselves talk WELL.  As the old saying goes, in politics you need to have a big head and broad shoulders...and a loose-enough tongue.

The first presidential debate between Obama and McCain will be this Friday at 9pm EST.  The topic: Foreign Policy.  The importance: Huge! well, actually, it depends.  It could be huge, if somethings goes a certain way; it might end up being a non-factor and alter little more than Saturday morning's headlines.

For Obama this debate can propel him to the finish line.  Already with a slight lead in the national polls and (most importantly) in battleground state polls, Obama can use this debate as a slam dunk on McCain's pasty face (racial intonations intended).  If Obama can use, as the New York Times in a very interesting three-piece series analyzing the candidates' styles,  called his "facility with words, his wry detachment, his reasoning skills, his youthful cool", he could prickle McCain enough to make him snap.

Too bad the subject is foreign policy.

In a tricky twist of fate, the first topic to be debated, the first debate that could onset a snowball effect for either candidate deals with the very subject Obama has been doubted on the most and McCain presumptuously relishes.  

McCain is scrappy, deprecating, and often cutting in a way that can be both a strength and a potential rhetorical downfall.  He used this style best again Mitt Romney, the front runner by many accounts of the Republican primary.  He would make fun of, scandalize, and even lie about him to his face, all while smirking and winking.  McCain is not afraid to push in the rhetorical shiv.

So a cool, relaxed, and often winded Obama goes against smirking, mischievous McCain.  Who would win in a debate about Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, N. Korea, Iran, Russia, and our relation to all of the above?  It depends on who brings their best face and mouth forward.  If McCain is at ease throwing around anecdotes and little funny asides, while he disses and spits at Obama's face, it looks like McCain would win.  If Obama sticks to his talking points of equating McCain to Bush in terms of foreign policy, reminds everyone his many faux-pas toward Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and brushes off McCain's disses turning them into nasty misses, then Obama may light enough of a fire in Old Man Winter to let America see a nasty side of his many do not know of yet.

In other words, if Obama plays a charming, knowing Kennedy, he will make McCain look like a cranky, sweaty Nixon.

lhp