At this stage of the process, my thoughts on the Prex and VeeP debates have very little to do with who’s winning. Instead, I find myself yelling at the screen in frustration over how damned bad these guys are, especially Kerry and W. I speak as a guy who debated competitively for a few years, winning a number of trophies at the high school level before putzing around at the college level for a year or two before deciding I’d rather have a social life than a debating career. (Given how my college social career proceeded, you could make a good argument I should have stayed with debate, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So when I watch a political debate, I’m inordinately concerned with who’s actually winning on the issues and the arguments, irrespective of audience opinion, and with the tactics being employed by the participants. I’m especially annoyed by bad strategy and missed opportunities, so you can imagine what it must be like for me to have to watch Dubya and Kerry bumbling around the stage like a couple of brain-damaged octogenarian sumos fighting over the last pudding cup. In the dark. On Percoset.

Worse, try to imagine being the same room with me as the drama unfolds.

Friday night’s Tango in the State of Mizzery was the stuff of high parody. Now, I don’t have very high expectations of Bush in these debates. He’s not very smart, he’s inarticulate as hell, and he doesn’t have the truth on his side in most cases, which means that if he gets out of the room alive it’s a moral victory. And Friday night, he not only got out alive, he may well have scored some actual points due to Kerry’s ineptitude. I do not exaggerate when I say that there are presently, across America, literally hundreds, if not thousands, of current and former high school and college debaters who could, with 15 minutes to prep and no help from any handlers at all, wax the floor with either man.

Let me give you an example of an “issue” that Kerry and his team seem incapable of mastering. On the persistent question of “what would you do in Iraq?” or “what would you differently in Iraq?” Kerry seems at a loss to explain how he differs from the president. You can argue, as the president does, that Kerry’s plan looks a lot like what Bush says he’s going to do or is already doing. So when pushed to differentiate himself, Kerry talks much and says next to nothing.

Let me script this for you, John:

That’s a great question, Hermione – in fact, it may be one of the most important questions either myself or the president will be asked this campaign season. The problem is that we have allowed various media and pundits and spin doctors to convince us that the only way two people can be distinguished on an issue is if they have different proposals. On many issues, if not most, this president and I do have very different proposals, but on the question of winning the peace in Iraq and getting our troops back home to their families, the simple truth is that we agree on more than we disagree on – in principle. We both want more training for Iraqi police and military forces, we both want to build a stable government there, and so on. We both believe Iraq is a global problem, not an American problem, and therefore that the challenge of establishing a lasting peace and prosperity there is one we share with our allies around the world.

Where we differ isn’t in the thrust of these ideas, but in our capability to actually get the job done. I think all Americans can look at their own lives, their own workplaces, their own communities, and understand that just because two people agree on what needs doing, it doesn’t mean they’re equally qualified to do it. Mr. President, you used to own the Texas Rangers. In that capacity you had to evaluate managerial and coaching talent. You could interview dozens of potential coaches and managers and discover that they all agree on what you need to win – solid defense, a blend of on-base percentage and power at the plate, strong starting pitching and a reliable bullpen, exceptional scouting and development in your farm system, and so on.

But the history of baseball is littered with the skeletons of failed managers who, despite agreeing with the Joe Torres and Tony LaRussas of the sport in principle, nevertheless lacked the ability to execute on these principles. Hermione, not everybody is equally qualified for the job. Some people are more capable than others, whether we’re talking about managing a baseball team, running a Kinko’s franchise, or serving as president.

My opponent has proven decisively that he is not qualified for the task of winning the peace in Iraq. He ignored the advice of the smartest minds in the world in advance of the war and alienated many of our allies, nations that ought to be in Iraq helping us shoulder the load right now. Whichever of us wins, he will have on his hands a herculean task – I’ll say it right up front – so if America is truly concerned about the future of the region, it needs to think long and hard about what this president’s track record predicts. Is this a man we honestly believe can solve this problem, or does the evidence suggest that he’s more likely to make it worse than it already is?

So asking me how my plan for winning the peace and exiting Iraq differs from the president’s plan is the wrong question. The question we must ask if we are to avoid sinking deeper into our worst foreign policy nightmare in 40 years is this: which of these two men is most capable of successfully executing a plan that they more or less agree on?

That’s not a perfect answer, by any stretch – give me an hour or two to noodle on it and I can buff it up considerably. But hey, this is straight off the top of my head, and while it may not prove to be a knockout punch, it is significantly better than anything that’s come out of Kerry’s mouth on the issue.

Other missed opportunities? Hell, there’s a million. Cheney said he’d never met Edwards before, when we know of at least two cases where he damned well had. Why didn’t John-Boy remind him of those two times and embarrass him on national TV. Bush didn’t know he owned a lumber company (he does, by the way) – why didn’t Kerry say something to the effect of “well, Mr. President, you listed $84 in income from LSTF, LLC on your 2001 tax return, so either you own a timber company or you lied on your taxes.”

What about the other side? Well, if I were Bush’s coach, I’d try to pin Kerry to the wall on his claim that he can fund feckin’ everything he’s proposing simply by rolling back that tax cut for the rich. The numbers don’t make sense to me, but I’m not a finance guy. One finance guy I talked to a few days ago (a biz professor here) guesses that re-taxing the rich might pay for maybe 30% of Kerry’s plan, and I’m willing to bet that the GOP can find some independent sources who’ll back that number or maybe even do better.

In any event, instead of just walking around on stage with a stupid look on your face and saying “he never tells you how he’s gonna pay for all that,” actually sticking Kerry with some non-partisan numbers and making him match them with equally non-partisan numbers is a tactic that puts some teeth into your claim that he’s going to raise everybody’s taxes.

And while I’m voting for Kerry, I’m also already taking bets on what point in his presidency he has to eat that promise of no taxes on the non-rich. (I’m also taking bets on when Dubya institutes a draft, too.)

So there. Something to chew on….