One of the biggest frauds which helped George W. Bush in 2000 was the expectations game. Both candidates had their strengths and faults in debating, but the media played up Al Gore as somehow being a debate genius, and George Bush as being a disaster waiting to happen. Because we Democrats liked to overlook Gore’s speaking style for his substance and greatly enjoyed pillorying Bush for his gaffes, we played along with it. The problem with that was the fact that it set up Bush to win: all he had to do was not pee himself and he would be declared the “winner.” Gore did not help with his exaggerated sighs, but the fact was, as far as oratorical skills went, Bush had the better skill set: where Gore sounded wooden, Bush sounded folksy. So despite having the better argument, Gore lost.

In a perfect world, the debate would be judged purely by the strength of one’s argument. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about that; the media always judges debates on expectations, and there’s no sign they’ll make a change this year. The only thing we can do is try to prevent another case where the Democrat is given far too much credit, allowing the Republican to win by losing.

And in the Obama-McCain calculus in terms of the expectations game, McCain is favored here, though it’s kind of complex. On the one hand, McCain has made lots of really bad gaffes, and we’ve given him grief over it. But on the other hand, the media has played these down somewhat. And yes, McCain does stumble sometimes, but the fact is, when he’s prepared well enough, he can come across as solid. While McCain is not as good an orator as Obama, this doesn’t come across the same way in the debate setting; McCain has tons of experience in town hall settings.

On the Obama side, the thing that will hurt him most is his oratorical skill; the McCain side will play this up to no end, and it won’t hurt them as they’ve already turned it into an attack, borrowed from Hillary (“he’s all about words”). The problem is that debating is not speechmaking. While Obama can soar on the stump, in a debate, he is much less graceful, with lots of pauses and “um”s and “ah”s. While McCain’s platitudes are composed of misrepresentations and panders, they are simple and come across strongly; Obama is more about reason and nuance, qualities that tend to lose the audience.

I think it’ll be necessary to make these points: McCain can sound solid and polished in a practiced setting, his message, while wrong, is simple and strong, and his extensive town-hall experience has groomed him to hit a home run in a debate, while Obama’s rhetorical skills won’t serve him nearly as well in debates as they do in his stump speeches, and his nuance and wonkery in answering policy questions plays far less well to crowds. McCain is a Q&A man, Obama is not.

Get the word of accuracy out, before the right-wingers wake up and again successfully set up the false expectations.