Election 2008: Let's all go debatin'

The second 2008 US Presidential debate happened. Actually, saying it "happened" makes it somehow sound much more dramatic than it actually was. So let me rephrase that - the second 2008 US Presidential debate kind of took place. I think.

Obama won - although he didn't have to do much more than turn up to secure his victory. Increasingly, and as the polls turn against him and his campaign, McCain resembles a grumpy, tetchy old man with chronic constipation. He seemed to treat the debate like he is treating his entire battle against Obama; as an inconvenience that shouldn't be happening to a Senator of his calibre.

Whilst Obama won, however, a lot of the coverage seems to be saying that he failed to deliver a "knockout blow". The closest he got was citing McCain singing "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran" again. But then I got thinking about it. When do people ever really deliver a knockout blow at these sort of things? Most of the really famous debate moments are not so much one candidate kicking the other in the teeth, but rather one candidate saying or doing something immensely stupid. Take Jerry Ford claiming that Eastern Europe wasn't under Soviet domination in 1976. Or the reprehensible Jimmy Carter in 1980 claiming that his daughter was crucial to his decision making process about the bomb. Or there is my personal favourite - Michael Dukakis responding to a question in 1988 about the death penalty and a theoretical scenario about the rape and murder of his wife like a particularly emotionally cold replicant. None of these examples was really about what those candidates' opponents did - they are simply foot in mouth disease, through and through.

And where does this talk of "knockout blows" come from anyway? These are debates, not boxing matches. Talk of knockouts creates images that are far more exciting than the boring, tepid reality of a US Presidential debate. In fact, calling them debates is probably pushing it. They are far more polite, structured and meaningless that Prime Minister's Questions in this country. Watching a US Presidential Debate is effectively watching boring people, being boring, about boring things, at a boring venue somewhere. The talk of "knockout blows" and other associated hype comes from the media, who are so desperate for something other than endlessly repeated stump speeches that they make these debates into something far more exciting than they are or, indeed, ever could be.

However, the media hype means that these *debates* are important, and will help to decide the outcome of the election. And as it stands, Obama is winning both the debates and the election. Barring an October surprise or a real turnaround in the next debate, President Obama - once just a pipe dream of the more naive US Liberals - is rapidly becoming a reality.