Obama carries uneven record to first contest

By John M. Broder

updated 1:00 a.m. ET Sept. 23, 2008

Senator Barack Obama has shown himself at times to be a great orator. His debating skills, however, have been uneven.

Some of his chief strengths — his facility with words, his wry detachment, his reasoning skills, his youthful cool — have not always served him well and may pose significant vulnerabilities in the series of presidential debates that begins Friday, according to political analysts and a review of his earlier debate performances.

Mr. Obama has a tendency to overintellectualize and to lecture, befitting his training as a lawyer and law professor. He exudes disdain for the quips and sound bites that some deride as trivializing political debates but that have become a central part of scoring them. He tends to the earnest and humorless when audiences seem to crave passion and personality. He frequently rises above the mire of political combat when the battle calls for engagement.

This was seen most starkly at last month’s forum at Saddleback Church, where he and Senator John McCain were interviewed back to back by the evangelical church’s pastor, the Rev. Rick Warren . Mr. Obama gave long, discursive answers to questions on loaded topics like abortion and personal moral failings, while Mr. McCain stole the show with earthy anecdotes and humor.

“Obama clearly knows how to float like a butterfly,” said Alan Schroeder, who studies media and the presidency at Northeastern University , “but he needs to work on the sting-like-a-bee part.”

Those who watched his debate performances during the long primary season say he improved markedly from a fairly shaky start but never really mastered the form.

“During the course of 18 months, he learned to give shorter, crisper answers,” said Howard Wolfson , a top adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton who helped prepare her for the two dozen debates she had with Mr. Obama and other Democratic candidates. “I think his command of facts, figures and anecdotes got consistently stronger.”

One of Mr. Obama’s worst moments came in the first Democratic debate, in South Carolina in April 2007. The candidates were asked how they would respond to a new series of terrorist attacks.

Mrs. Clinton gave a short answer, ending, “Let’s focus on those who have attacked us and do everything we can to destroy them.”

But Mr. Obama gave a rambling reply on emergency response, intelligence flaws and the importance of engaging “the international community.” He had to ask for a second chance to answer the question in order to say he would go after the terrorists.

Two months later he was on the defensive over a question of meeting without preconditions with the leaders of hostile states. He said that he would do so and that he disagreed with the Bush administration’s approach of not engaging with Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea. His rivals cited this as evidence of his naïveté in foreign affairs.

Perhaps Mr. Obama’s single worst debate moment came early this January in New Hampshire, where Mrs. Clinton was asked why some people found her less likable than some of her rivals. She adopted a hurt tone and said of Mr. Obama: “He’s very likable, I agree with that. But I don’t think I’m that bad.”

Mr. Obama looked at her and said coldly, “You’re likable enough.”

In part because of a sympathy backlash, Mrs. Clinton went on to win the New Hampshire primary, keeping her candidacy alive.

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