Reporter's Notebook: Worth Debating?

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2004 — -- Asking who won the debates at a viewing party organized by grass-roots Democrats in the bluest of blue states was not going to get me a very diverse set of answers. So my conversations with the predominantly African-American crowd watching the whole 90-minute extravaganza turned to the value of the event itself.

Are the debates worth it? How do they weave into the fabric of this grand conversation between candidate and voter? What I found was media criticism, a layer of hope, some skepticism and fear.

We were in the VIP room of a trendy hotspot in the chic Bowery area of Manhattan. It's a neighborhood with homeless shelters adjacent to high-priced lofts. I didn't have the audience applause meter, but it was a tossup whether the cheers were louder at Kerry's consistent steps to seem, well, consistent — or at Bush's pregnant pauses which, well, didn't deliver.

At the end, by the time Teresa Heinz Kerry and first lady Laura Bush were in their awkward embrace (perhaps commenting on the similarity of their outfits), the viewing portion of the program ended and the party portion began.

As the sounds of the speeches were quickly replaced with thumping bass lines, Philip Mckinley, a physician, wondered with me what the talking heads on the telly, with their wraparound microphones, were saying. For him, it was the pundits' distilling process in this next half-hour of lip flap that was so crucial in shaping public opinion.

In his mind, it was a slam dunk for his candidate, but he wanted to know whether he watched the same game as those who got paid to pontificate on a Thursday night. He had reason to be concerned.

The insta-polls that media outlets release immediately after the debate play a crucial role in framing the conversation over the next few days. Friday headlines run the numbers from Thursday night's polls.

Headlines beget headlines. Momentum can strengthen in one direction or another, a moveable voter could, God forbid, move, and campaign strategies must adjust accordingly. This doesn't have much to do with a candidate's actual position on issue X or Y, but more the spin.