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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Will the second debate be kinder to McCain?

The NYTimes has a piece talking about a permanent replacement for Tim Russert (Chuck Todd?), but inside that piece is a look at the NBC/McCain campaign relationship.
Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate’s aides that — despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular — Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mr. Brokaw said he had been told by a senior McCain aide, whom he did not name, that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential debates — until his name was invoked.....

Mr. Brokaw will moderate the second debate, on Oct. 7, in Nashville.


Should that concern me?

Also, (Politico) "Biden's strategy: Go easy on Palin."

2 Comments:

  • I'm not sure how Lehrer was not kind to McCain. And in a town hall format I'm not sure how a moderator could be "kinder" to McCain.

    The acts of kindness -- or unkindness -- come from the post debate commentary, not the moderator.

    The second debate will be what it will be. So far in the campaign McCain, I think, likes the town hall format. It's his element. He's allowed to go on un-rebutted and unfettered by facts to paint fantasy portraits of Obama as unpatriotic, politically petty, inexperienced, naive and scary.

    The difference this time is that Obama will be right there, rebutting and correcting. And lets face it, Obama didn't get this far because he COULDN'T connect with people....

    McCain runs the risk of overplaying his hand. Of painting a picture of Obama that viewers can see with their own eyes is not true. I think that's what happened to McCain in the first debate with all the "What Barack doesn't understand..." crap. Also, McCain is becoming increasingly desperate as the polls continue to show. McCain doesn't handle stress well. Look for another bizarre stunt in the next week.

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:38 AM  

  • No, I'm not really worried about Obama v McCain in this format.

    You still have the underlying dynamic of McCain needing to make up lots of ground and it's his format so the media bar will be high.

    (And that last point is a good one.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:41 AM  

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