If a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it make it a sound?
Or,
to put it another way: When a bunch of Republican candidates debate in
Des Moines at 1:00 in the afternoon, does it make a difference?
The
potential was there. Today's Des Moines Register debate--the final
face-off before Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses--was hyped to high heaven, with
headlines in all the major papers riffing on the basic (if
self-promotional) premise put forth this morning by the Register
itself: "Last Debate Could Have Seismic Impact."
With only 22 days to go and 60 percent of the electorate still
undecided, even a debate held smack dab in the middle of the work day
looked likely to send ripples through the Republican race--especially as the strange start time would allow the
MSM to declare winners and losers and exaggerate the contours of the
encounter long before any actual working Iowans got a chance to watch the 7:00 p.m. re-broadcast.
But
alas--'twas not to be. In fact, the most telling clash this afternoon
was not between any two candidates--it was between the Des Moines
Register debate staff (led by the schoolmarmish editor/moderator
Carolyn Washburn) and the bellicose Beltway chatterati (led by Chris
Matthews and Co.).
The debate, as you may have noticed, wasn't
really a debate; there were no follow-ups, few direct confrontations
and nary a reference to the news of the day. Instead, Washburn
dismissed with the two top Iowa issues (Iraq and immigration) and
conducted the ceremony as a down-the-line, uninteractive recitation of
each candidate's positions on debt, education, global warming and trade
policies.
Unsurprisingly, the format failed to produce any
fireworks (save for Alan Keyes' melodramatic monologues). And,
unsurprisingly, the D.C. commentariat were appalled. They wanted
Huckabee to call Romney a cult member, and Romney to call Huckabee a
bigot. A slip, a gaffe, a knife in the back--anything "hot," as Chris
Matthews put it during the post-show. Absent any grist for
horserace-style analysis, the MSM declared that Romney looked
presidential, Thompson substantial, McCain tired, Giuliani
diminished--and no one knocked Huckabee, the Iowa frontrunner, off his
pedestal. Basically, that nothing "newsworthy" happened. And I
basically agree.
But I wonder how real live Iowans will see it.
Yes, the CW has plenty of time to circulate before Iowa tunes in at
7:00. That said, I can't imagine the MSM's insubstantial analysis--a
dismissal, essentially--will stick. The debate won't provide Iowans
with a new, prefabricated media narrative. Instead, it'll do what it
was designed to do--provide them with data that may (or may not) help
them decide who to support.
