Bush Owns The Town Hall Format

Marvin writes of the second presidential debate:

It's a town hall meeting. It's Bush's to lose. Spontaneity. Rhetorical banter. Bush can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee in there. Poor old scripted, stiff John Kerry's going to look like a corpse.

To which I ask: What gives? Marvin leaves out the most important element in Bush's repetoire. The sin qua non which demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt why Bush will destroy John Kerry in the town hall debate.

The simple fact is that Bush has been practicing this particular format non-stop for the last four months. Almost all his campaign events (sometimes two or three, maybe even four times in a day) have been a speech followed by the town hall style give and take with the audience. Bush is primed to take any question from the audience.

I myself have been to a John Kerry event and there was no Q&A from the crowd. But nearly all of Bush's events have included some kind of crowd interaction. The bottom line is that Bush is going to murder, just MURDER Kerry in this format. Kerry will be lucky if he can remember his own name as he concentrates on interacting with the public that simply adores the homespun Mr. Bush.

In fact, the word on the street is that Bush's campaign events were such an important part of his training regime for the town hall debate that his staff prevented Kerry loyalists from entering in order to keep them from learning Bush's preparation techniques.

And, let's not forget, Bush has prior experience in this particular format that Kerry sorely lacks. Nearly 38 million people watched Bush destroy Al Gore in their town hall debate in 2000. Kerry couldn't buy that kind of experience.

I tell you, given the immense preparation Bush has had with the town hall format, and his innate skills connecting with the public (not to mention his abysmal showing in the first debate), Bush will come into the town hall debate loaded for bear.

Bush is going to run up the score.

Unfortunately, Kerry will have to content himself simply to breathe the same rarefied air as George W. Bush, the Master of the Town Hall format.