It's amusing to see all the Kerry and Bush partisans running around, trying to lower expectations for their guy in the coming debates. As I understand it, the idea here is to say, over and over, that your candidate's opponent is a master orator and that it will be a major victory for your candidate to just hold his own. Of course, immediately following the debate, you'll be out there declaring that your boy hit a grand-slam and utterly humiliated the loser at the other podium.
The thing I like least about debates is…well, there are two things. One are those post-debate interviews where — surprise, surprise — the Democratic party spokesperson comes to the unbiased conclusion that the Democrat won handily, while the G.O.P. spokesperson declares without prejudice that the Republican was the big winner. I'd give major props to anyone with the candor to say, "Well, of course, even though my guy lied his butt off, contradicted all his past statements and accidentally confessed to several sex crimes, I have to stand here and insist that he won in a walk."
The other thing I can't stand is during the debate and it's the stark, pointless insistence on rules. Two grown men who seek to lead the country ought to be able to stand or sit there and just talk and ask each other questions and rebut points on any subject without someone saying, "You have 42.5 seconds to address only this one narrow topic and no other." The only reason they have rules is because one or both debaters wants to hamper his opponent's ability to confront him head-on. I'd have a lot of respect for any candidate in any race who said, "I'm in favor of none of us who are on the ballot having any say in how the debates are run. Let's just let some non-partisan organization decide how many there are, where they're held and how they're conducted…and I'll be there and do it their way." Anything less is a sign of cowardice.