Debate commentary peeve

It's been bugging me that lots of commentators, when "scoring" debates, muddle the distinction between how a candidate did in the debate and to what extent the debate helped the candidate. It could be the case that a candidate was soundly beaten in a debate, but that the debate nevertheless helped the candidate because it, say, disproved the prevailing notion that the candidate could not form coherent sentences. By the same token, it could be the case that a candidate handily won a debate, but that this did not improve the candidate's chances in the overall election because everyone already expected this to happen (the debate victory was, you could say, already factored into the price of the candidate's stock).

Just looking at Sullivan's debate reax summary, we can see a couple of examples:

No heavy punches landed. The format scarcely helped. In fact it helped snuff out any threat of life or spark or conflict or, damn it, interest. And so, because of that, Obama, leading in the polls, won. (Alex Massie)

Gah! If the debate was a tie then it was tie, and nothing about anyone's positions in the polls is relevant to that. What Massie ought to be saying is that Obama's position in the polls makes it the case that a tie is favorable outcome for Obama. One more:

At this stage in the race, a tie goes to leader, and this was not a tie. (Fallows)

Bah! My Philosophy BA is rolling in its grave.

Circumstantial evidence

Tell me if the following twos ought to be put together:

• McCain--behind in the polls, paired with a floundering running mate, and desperate to sieze control of the campaign narrative--makes the grandiose gesture of suspending his campaign and postponing the debates--including the VP debate--until a bailout deal is worked out.
• McCain goes to Washington and--in conjunction with House Republicans--scuttles the bailout deal, thus regaining the initiative by appearing to be driving negotiations and pushing back the VP debate to give Palin (even more) time to prepare.
  

Admittedly, it's a leap. It could be that McCain didn't want to scuttle the bailout plan (although, curiously, he never lent it his explicit support), and McCain may yet show up to the debate even with no bailout plan in place. However, I am a big believer in the idea that cognitive dissonance and good old-fashioned self-delusion can exert a powerful--albeit unconscious--influence on a person's decision making. My little conspiracy theory does not require McCain to have evil intentions--it merely requires that he (perhaps with the help of his campaign advisors) has persuaded himself that these actions really are what's best for the country, and that it just so happens that they benefit him strategically in the campaign.

In the end, though, there's no way to know, so this line of inquiry is a non-starter.

I stand corrected

Just a few hours ago I said that Andrew Sullivan's criticism of the McCain campaign's request to postpone the debate was bunk. Looks like I was wrong; it appears that the whole thing is a ploy to give Sarah Palin more time to cram for the VP debate:

McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.

In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined....

The jaw slackens in disbelief.