A week after its anticlimactic finish, it’s now clear that the first presidential debate was not dominated, as instant-polling results and exuberant liberal pundits have since indicated, by Barack Obama. It was also not, as his preemptive Wall Street Journal advertisement declared, a landslide for John McCain. In fact, the clear stars of the debate-that-nearly-wasn’t were not running for the presidency at all. They were speech coaches, makeup artists, and, for the first time, man-bracelet manufacturers. Like all political theatre, that night belonged to the costumers, to the stage crew, to the stylists to power.

Speechwriters played a part, of course—every folksy quip, every heart wrenching anecdote, every false accusation was delivered with the poise and monotony of long preparation on both sides. But the best moments were, as in all theatre, accidental: McCain nearly forgetting how to pronounce “Ahmadinejad.” Obama’s ludicrously blackened eyebrows. And, most of all, a stunning exchange concerning the bracelets they each wore.

McCain had been trotting out a black wristband from the mother of a Corporal Matthew Stanley for cheap sympathy points since August of last year. I should have seen it coming: At just the right moment and in a lowered voice, he intoned, “She said, ‘Senator McCain, I want you to do everything—promise me one thing, that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that my son’s death was not in vain.’”

He continued on to recite the foreign policy arguments we knew he would. But then Obama, in a tone of exasperation, delivered his single zinger of the evening: “Let me just make a point. I’ve got a bracelet, too.” And then he stumbled. “From, Sergeant, uh, from the mother of, uh, Sergeant, Ryan David Jopek.”

Diehards on conservative forums spun it as The Greatest Debate Gaffe Ever, liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos skipped over that last sentence and called it the apex of debate brilliance, and the rest of us were left with a distinct feeling of unease. Bracelets? Really?

In the early days of this quagmire of an election—the really early days, before Giuliani’s mobster connections and before Edwards’ pregnant mistress—I might have found this funny. We all used to laugh at all the candidates, what characters they were: the 9/11 Guy, the Crazy Libertarian, the One Who Calls Himself a Potted Plant. I used to tell people I was voting for Mike Huckabee because his weight-loss story was an inspiration to us all. Sarah Palin, nearly as cute and every bit as socially conservative, now inspires only disbelief and a vague sense of panic.

You see, in the intervening year that brought a brutal nomination fight, abundant scandal, and total financial collapse, I’m afraid I lost my sense of humor. The notorious Paris Hilton ad is less witty when we start worrying if it was supposed to tap into racism. McCain’s humble acknowledgement that “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should” is no longer cute as the investment banks of Wall Street tumble around us. And after his vice-presidential choice was reduced to incoherence by Katie Couric, even his age has ceased to work as a punch line, because he may very well die.

I thought the bracelet debacle was the end of it. An old man with the heady impetuousness of youth wove a tired tale, and a young man with the calmness of a Socratic law professor called him out. “No soldier dies in vain.” It is patently stupid to argue about jewelry, so stupid that Obama now wears a flag pin out of resignation while McCain, whose detractors never really noticed what pin he wore, did not.

So I was heartened to find that even as fierce partisans across the Internet rehashed his single comment again and again, major media outlets are hardly graced it with a single mention. They have bigger things to worry about than token politics—that pesky bank bailout, for instance, that McCain’s cavalier intervention and the political posturing of his House Republican friends may have put beyond rescue. They have better things to worry about, and so do we.

Last night, we saw two vice presidential nominees with very different image problems. One, known for his experience, wit, and candor, could have ruined everything with an unfortunate sound bite. The other, whose commitment to staying on message extends to repeating things that everyone knows are lies, could have unhinged all if she were allowed to speak too long. Setting vitriol aside, the two campaigns compromised: To accommodate Joe, they set up podiums. To accommodate Sarah, they allotted less time for answers. She would speak as she does best: in sound bites.

We’ll find out soon enough whether Biden’s offensive jokes or Palin’s feeble mind surrendered the ten-second clip that lost either of their more able running mates the election. But just as last week’s show did nothing to advance the debate, except maybe exclude bracelets from future episodes, last night’s will do no more to put voters on the path toward making the right choice. The problem remains the same: a contest in which the rules are designed to save face will give us, the voters, nothing. The worse candidate cannot lose, and the best one will not win.


Elise Liu ’11, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Cabot House.