THE ICONOCLAST
A little too much repetition in debate?THE PRESIDENTIAL Debate Commission announced today that the second and third of this year's scheduled debates will no longer be necessary since both President Bush and Senator Kerry have already reached the limit of permitted repetitions. According to official transcripts of last Thursday's debate, the president several times referred to Kerry's "mixed messages" and alleged inconsistencies, but most often repeated the warning that one cannot lead while telling US allies, American troops, and the Iraqi people that this is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," a caution he repeated, by actual count, 4,217 times. Senator Kerry was slightly more reserved, offering his own specific program -- "we can do better" -- 3,812 times.
There was no reported plan to cancel the one scheduled debate between Vice President Cheney and Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, but debate sponsors, assuming similar inclinations, are considering making that debate a mini-series that will run for five consecutive nights, beginning Tuesday. You saw it here first. Well, maybe not first, but at least you saw it here: The president can get snippy. Granted, it can be annoying when somebody is standing up there suggesting that you should have done things you think are nutty (substituting one-on-one talks with North Korea for broader multi-nation pressures, including heavy-duty involvement by China) but whatever W was doing behind closed doors at Yale, it didn't involve the kind of baseball one plays at a kitchen table with treys, fours, and nines wild. Senator Kerry may not have the perfect poker face himself (do the French play poker?), but compared to George Bush, whose every annoyance registered on Geiger counters across the planet, Kerry was a block of stone. So I'll repeat it. Mr. President, you gotta cool your jets. Remember what I've told you? Your asset is that people like you; but being testy isn't the way to keep that love comin'. Kerry, as Kerry does, gave you some things you could hit out of the park, and sometimes you did, but you can also do that calmly, Mr. President. Calmly. Those of us whose views are more closely in line with yours than with Kerry's are more likely to think that you sounded more presidential (because that must mean that our thinking, too, is more presidential) but the other guy looked more presidential. Kerry was forceful, but he didn't get flustered, didn't pound his fist or jab his finger into the offending air, didn't turn red or keep raising his finger for recognition. Work on it, Mr. President; you started pulling away in the polls because people seem to like your clarity and sense of purpose. But that'll flip on you if they begin to see you as Mr. Angry Man. Kerry's got a lot of work to do to convince voters he's a better alternative: Don't help him. A gift for John. Senator, I'm going to send you a copy of the Constitution. You said on Thursday that the president always has a right to wage preemptive war. Whoa! Help me out here: Where in the Constitution did you find that one? Mine (an old version, perhaps) says only Congress can declare war. Does your friend Arthur Schlesinger Jr. know you lust for an Imperial Presidency? Remember Hubert Humphrey. Ah, the joys of the past month. Missouri, once a tossup state, swinging heavily to Bush; Ohio, too. Safe-for-Kerry New Jersey now Scary-for-Kerry. Women voters moving toward Bush. W on a roll. Here's a cliche to ponder, Mr. President. One should start counting his or her chickens when, exactly? Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968, but if the election had been held a week later, we might be debating how good a president Hubert Humphrey had been; he was closing fast in those last days. Another cliche: It ain't over till it's over. And it's not over yet. This campaign might have been expected to be a referendum on you, Mr. President. But the Dems did you a favor and nominated John Kerry, and so the election has become a referendum on him instead. But if he wins that referendum -- it's a low bar, Mr. President; all he has to do is prove that he's up to the job and not scary -- and this race will be a tossup again. Remember: An undecided voter is a voter who has decided that he or she is willing to consider tossing you overboard. Don't give them a reason to want to do that. You said on Thursday night that you don't take the Kerry camp's attacks personally. I doubt that's true, but in any case your reactions Thursday night sent a very different message. So breathe deeply, Mr. President, put some Eric Satie in your Walkman and go for a long walk on your favorite country road. And cool it.
Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, teaches at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International affairs. His column appears regularly in the Globe. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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