Spin and the spinning spinners who spin it

The debate about the Thursday debate is already in force.  And we're hearing about spin all over the place.  Like Debate spin in full force as candidates rehearse San Francisco Chronicle 09/29/04.

The usually lucid Hesiod even has a post about spinning the spin and the spin on the spinners: Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? 09/29/04.

All this reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager where the Voyager crew get catapulted through a spacetime warp into 1990s Earth.  At one point, Captain Janeway gets thoroughly exasperated and says something like, "This is why I've always hated the idea of time travel.  The past is the future, the future is the past, the whole thing just makes my head hurt!"

So, here's my strategies for minimizing headaches during Thursday's debate and the debate over Thursday's debate in the days afterward.

First, it's worthwhile remembering that the debate really is something more than a 90-minute event.  The days following the debate will be full of partisan comment, and the real impact of the debate will be heavily influenced by the subsequent press coverage and commentary.

The Daily Howler (aka Bob Somerby) is running posts this week recalling the first Bush/Gore debate in 2000.  The series is well worth following, beginning with the 09/27/04 installment and continuing in subsequent days' entries.

Next, as a Kerry partisan, I want to see Kerry go after Bush hard over the Iraq War on Thursday.  Joe Conason has some ideas on how he can do that effectively: Here's what Kerry needs to tell us WorkingforChange.com 09/29/04.

This would be a good thing because the Iraq War is one of the worst disasters, maybe the worst, in the history of American foreign policy.  The war was a rotten idea to begin with, and Bush's management of it has been abysmal.

It also has the advantage as an issue that it fires up Kerry's base, andit has strong appeal to swing voters. See James Galbraith, The voters Democrats can't reach Salon.com 09/13/04. And not only is it a vitally important, substantive issue in itself.  Bush's management of the war, from the buildup beforehand to his false claims about progress up to the present moment, challenge is credibility and punctures his image as a steadfast leader.  It will, if Kerry can hammer the points home effectively.

Finally, on Friday morning everyone will go from talking about their preferences by pretending to be a political strategist ("Kerry risks alienating swing voters by criticizing Bush") to pretending to be drama critics.

However our sad excuse for a political press and the Big Pundits play it, the drama aspects are really not that important for voters seriously trying to deal with the issues of the election. Unless one of the candidates has something like a nervous breakdown on camera, it's not that important in the fabled Grand Scheme of Things.

Will Kerry come across as being as much a regular guy as the legendary "Joe Sixpack"?  Of course not.  Will Bush smirk his preppy smirk?  Of course he will.

And it won't surprise me if that's what the Big Pundits obsess about over the next few days.  Another wild prediction: Fox News commentators will not think Kerry did a good job! ( See what bold forecasts I'm willing to make?)

But what happens in Iraq over the next year will affect our lives a lot more.

Other worthwhile pre-debate pieces I've encountered: Swagger vs. Substance by Paul Krugman New York Times 09/28/04; and, Josh Marshall comment 09/28/04.  The Howler alos discusses both pieces this week.