Quotes of the Day

The second presidential debate was a battle between two candidates: one peevish, shaky and floundering; one aggressive, active and emotional. I speak, of course, of President George W. Bush... and President George W. Bush.

In this uneven fight, second-debate Bush defeated first-debate Bush. This, of course, is the way Bush and his handlers want the media to spin this debate—"Bush improved, therefore Bush won" —since, after all, it was a fight the President was bound to win. All he had to do was avoid kicking over his stool, shouting "No fair!" and storming off stage. (In fact, on the cable networks after the debate, Bush's surrogates happily denigrated his performance in the first debate, by way of saying how decisively they believed he won the second.)

And let's be honest—for the media, it's the most tempting angle, because it allows analysts to draw a firm conclusion without being called biased. Not to mention, it guarantees they not give Kerry a 2-0 lead going into the last debate. (Much like the TV networks during the baseball playoffs, the political media has an interest in making sure there's a decisive rubber match.)

Bush defeating himself, though, is not the same as Bush defeating Senator John Kerry. The second debate—a "town hall," with questions offered by undecided voters in St. Louis, Mo.—was a format that was supposed to play more to Bush's strengths in connecting to people. The fact that the candidates were not tethered to the podium eliminated the President's problem, from debate one, of hunching at the podium while he spoke; he had an audience to smile and wink at; and simply being able to move around the stage made him appear less physically besieged.

It seemed pretty clear that Bush was specifically prepared to avoid the sour signals he gave off at the last debate. He didn't scowl. He didn't take several seconds to begin answering a question. When the camera cut away to him during Kerry's attacks, rather than grimacing, he wore—not a smile exactly, but a ruler-drawn diagonal slash across his face, the kind of sideways expression Charlie Brown would wear when Lucy would walk up to the pitcher's mound to tell him something annoying. (You could practically see the thought bubble over his head: "Must... not... frown...")

But although Bush's face conveyed a studied unflappability, it sometimes seemed that his voice didn't get the memo. Especially in the first half, on foreign policy, he practically bellowed his answers; when Kerry ended a critique of the Iraq war by saying that, if Bush had chosen differently, "Osama bin Laden might be in jail or dead," Bush's head popped up, and he seemed like he was about to ask his taller challenger to take this outside. At one point, moderator Charles Gibson tried to ask a follow-up when Bush wanted to rebut Kerry, and Bush simply steamrollered over him, barking his answer until poor Charlie gave up. Earlier, Gibson had promised to hold the candidates to the rules "forcefully but politely." You're one for two, Charlie.

As for his opponent, Kerry was everything that he was in the first debate, and less. That is, he largely showed the same kind of command, facility and mastery of specifics that he did last week. When Bush spoke, he maintained a look of genial unconcern or took notes. He attacked Bush in just as stark terms: "The military's job is to win the war. The president's job is to win the peace." He came across as presidential without sounding dead-presidential.

That was fine—well enough to win, by most accounts—in a podium-bound debate. But the town hall—a rite of passage institutionalized in 1992 when, debating Bill Clinton, Bush's father fell on his sword by looking at his watch—is also about engaging with an audience. This is clearly not the format Kerry was born for; he was literally more stiff than Bush. He almost seemed to carry an invisible podium with him, moving his right hand and his right hand only while keeping his spine stiff and his mike-holding hand at a constant unmoving angle. (Bush, on the other hand, favored a kind of head-bobbing move that at times made him look like something you'd buy for $4.99 and put on your dashboard.)

Body language aside, the night was a tough, meaningful exchange, thanks largely to the audience. The audience of undecided voters and "soft" Bush and Kerry supporters chose direct, provocative questions that many professional-journalist moderators would consider cheap stunts. (Will there be a draft? Would John Kerry pledge not to raise taxes on those making under $200K a year? Could Bush name three mistakes he made?) And as a result, they got actual answers, or at least actual evasions that the home audience could recognize as such.

One such question came from a voter who wanted to know who Bush would name to the Supreme Court in a second term, and the answers probably best captured the difference in the candidate's style. Bush opened with a joke: "I'm not tellin!... I want 'em all votin' for me!" He then went on to give the characteristics of the judge he would look for, rather than name names. Kerry, on the other hand, paraphrased Justice Potter Stewart, saying that if you read the ideal judge's opinion, you would not know if it was written by a man or a woman, a Christian, Muslim or Jew. It was more eloquent response—but less funny. It was also the words of someone else, a preferred Kerry device; he likes to remind you that he knows a lot of quotes, facts and names. Whereas Bush, at one point, gave up in the middle of trying to pronounce "Silvio Berlusconi." (He got the name on the second try.)

If the first debate was about who looked more "presidential"—a judgment the polls evidently gave to Kerry—this one was about laying out a choice as to what "presidential" means. Is it calm or forceful? Folksy or statesmanlike? The instant polls and focus groups the networks surveyed immediately after generally called the verdict a draw or close to it. Given what happened last week, Bush will undoubtedly take that as a win. But there's one more debate next week, and this time, he will have to try to beat somebody besides himself.

• James Poniewozik
• Mindful of the spin game, the President angles for a favorable comparison with himself