The Washington Times

One thing is certain about George W. Bush and Al Gore: One of them is going to lose. To the victor, victory requires no explanation: The outcome is as it should have been, given the self-evident excellence of the candidate, the campaign, the strategy, the issues, the message, etc. There is no need to pick at victory, especially not when there are parties to go to as well as the executive branch of government to run.

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The Washington Times

The story of the Gore campaign so far can be summed up with a word from the vocabulary of financial market watchers: “underperform.” Except for the heady weeks following a very successful Democratic convention, when it looked like Mr. Gore might be turning the corner and opening up a lead against George W. Bush that was more than a post-convention bounce, Mr. Gore has simply not done as well as he ought to, given the givens.

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The Washington Times

I find it very difficult to score debates, for the simple reason that I tend to respond favorably to a candidate articulating a position with which I agree – and, perhaps more viscerally, to respond unfavorably to a candidate taking a position with which I disagree, or one unfairly (in my judgment) attacking a position I favor. This tendency is probably no more unusual among political commentators than it is among other members of a debate audience. But it is rarely acknowledged, and it may help explain why the Republican candidate is so rarely judged the clear-cut winner in a debate.

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The Washington Times

En route to the airport in the cab of a politically attuned taxi driver this weekend, I found myself listening to a C-SPAN radio broadcast of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate. The clich about this debate is that those who listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won, whereas those who saw it on television thought Kennedy won.

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