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Oct. 8 in St. Louis is not Bush's cup of tea. Furthermore, even •the Bush inner circle acknowledges that the town hall format could easily produce a mugging of the President; most of the tough average citizen questions will certainly be directed at Bush, not Kerry—even if the selection of the average citizens has been fair and no citizen has deceived the Gallup interrogators (which we doubt). It’s in the nature of the presidential job, one of the only disadvantages of incumbency. Voters will target the occupant of the White House for any deficiencies they see. Kerry merely has to sit back, sympathize, arid feel the pain of the complainants.
The final debate, on Oct. 13 in Arizona, has a focus on domestic policies. Again, any Democrat would have a big edge, because ever since the New Deal and the Great Society, Democrats have been seen as more caring on the big issues of health care, education, the environment, and so on.
Thus, Kerry is well positioned for a debate sweep. Bush must prevent this if he is to stabilize his campaign. Maybe the President will surprise us and beat those nasty expectations, just as Kerry did in the first debate. Bush has two new advantages as he attempts to stop Kerry. First, the Kerry campaign can no longer credibly claim that the senator is not a substantial favorite to do better in the debates; thus, the expectations game once again favors Bush if the president can muster a decent showing. Second, on the morning of Oct. 8, before the St. Louis debate, the last significant jobs report before the election will be released in Washington. If the numbers are encouraging, they could create a booster rocket for Bush that evening, giving the
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