before the debates, late friday in my office, one of the partners in my firm remarked that kerry would probably "lose" the debate, not because he does worse than bush, but because bush will do better than bush did in the first debate. in other words, the first debate shifted the focus to bush with his terrible performance and so that would define the viewer's evaluation of the second debate. kerry almost becomes irrelevant. all that matters is whether bush can resist making faces in the background.
josh marshall seems to be taking precisely the opposite view, at least when he says this:
The basis of President Bush's resurgence in late August and September was based less on confidence in him than in his campaign's effective effort to portray Kerry as not an acceptable commander-in-chief. Kerry's strong performance in the first debate undermined that impression and knocked the race back to parity.in other words, marshalll sees the focus to be on kerry, not bush. kerry's solid performance at the first debate neutralized the messages of the negative advertising that had hurt his standing in the pollls. bush's lackluster performance was not the reason he lost the debate, except to the extent that he created a contrast with kerry and made kerry's performance look better.
which of these two perspectives about the first debate one holds, probably will determine their views of the second presidential debate. most accounts i have read seem to say that kerry did about the same as the first debate (perhaps slightly better), while bush showed marked improvement from last time. if you hold the former view--where the focus is on bush--then that translates into a bush "win" last night. if you hold the latter--where the focus is on kerry--then you probably think kerry won. i'm still not sure which meta-narrative will take hold as the Official Story of this debate.
what is interesting is that neither theory of the debates considers what one would normally think of when deciding who won a debate: which candidate did better than the other.
