Beam on Politics: Pros size up debating styles

"Pagliuca speaks as if he were in a boardroom," Palmer commented. "It takes us four years to groom a truly successful debater. It's like politics -- you can't just walk onto a stage and do it."

They watched the second debate together, and concluded that Pags hadn't improved much.

"Everyone appears to have figured out that you rag on Pagliuca and it'll play well," they said in a joint e-mail. "He certainly did a little better in terms of his own performance. But his attempts to take over the debate didn't make him look strong -- they made him look frantic."

Say goodnight, Steve.

Both Palmer and Sanchez awarded the first night to Capuano. They thought he was wise not to name Coakley when he was trashing her stance on the Patriot Act, and they liked his stagecraft, too. Always face forward and address the audience, they counsel, even if you are answering an attack from the person next to you. Swing sideways, as Pagliuca did when arguing with Coakley, and you close out the people you want to sway -- the questioners, the audience, and the voters.

“Attacking someone in a four-way debate is very risky," Palmer said. "The person who attacks is often brought down with the target."

And going after a woman is tricky, Sanchez added. "Even in high school, men are terrified of jumping on a woman."

But it's just as tricky being a female debater, they note. "If you are too warm, you come off as coquettish," Palmer said. "But if you are too cool and factual, then you are the ice queen." They generally praised Coakley, who they thought was strongest when talking directly at the television camera. "She did kind of disappear after the exchange with Pagliuca," Palmer noted.

The second night, they (and others) were perplexed that Capuano didn't throw Coakley a haymaker when he had the chance to question her directly. His question "wasn't a very strong one," they wrote. "It ended up giving her a chance to readdress her weaknesses on the Patriot Act question from the day before, and helped her in the end."

As debate connoisseurs, they enjoyed watching Coakley fall into The Reverse Pit of Doom on night two. "That's when you ask someone a question that you know they'll want to answer a certain way, and walk them directly into a related trap that they won't want to answer the same way." The question concerned a "litmus test" for the Stupak Amendment; would she apply the same test to a Supreme Court nominee? She initially answered no, then had to correct herself.

Khazei? They weren't bowled over. "His breath control is off, he's botched his timing," Palmer commented at one point during night one. "He's nervous." As pros, they gave Khazei's rousing final statement very low marks on night one.

"It was too rehearsed, really just an ad," Sanchez said. "If you have money material, you shouldn't save it for the end," she added. "We expect a polished, consistent performance, not a mad dash at the end."

Night two, they liked his closing better. "There's nothing wrong with him," they wrote, "He's just overshadowed by two people who are politically more adept than him."

Overall, they and I agreed that front-runner Coakley did herself almost no harm during the two nights.

"We guess that means Coakley wins by default -- she went in as the front-runner, and nobody drew blood," they wrote. "Coakley didn't lose anything, so in a way she won."

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. To read previous political columns, click here.