biography, kathleen hall jamieson from the university of pennsylvania and james fallow, the national correspondent for the atlantic. jim, let me start with you. you were the chief speechwriter to jimmy carter and you describe that as being like fdr s tap dance instructor. so here we have another, shall we say, a difficult person to coach in donald trump. and i want to start with that because we can go back in history but trump has never been something quite like him. what have you observed, looking at the primary debates, looking at the first debate, what s the big takeaway for you about donald trump? i think the big takeaway is that his natural style, which seems to be the only style we re ever going to get out of him, was a much better match for the primary debates than it has been at least in this first election debate. he tends to play to a crowd and
the ways in which we think of barack obama as being eloquent is usually in large set piece orations that go on for 20 or 30 minutes which is different from the sharp comeback that he sometimes has been able to master but sometimes it takes him longer to get the answer out than you want in a debate format. but in this setting, that could work better for him than it did four years ago. james, thank you very much for being here. thank you. up next, the good, the bad and the ugly. our teasing finally comes to an end. we re finally going to talk clint eastwood. stay tuned. two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we ve worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected, and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy
the race is super close and has been for months. the final round will be decided by a series of fights. a.k.a., the debates. the great writer james fallows has watched every moment and thinks we are in for a serious battle. both men are strong fighters. two men enter, one president leaves. he writes about it in his excellent cover story slugfest, which appears in the september issue of the atlantic. james, an honor to have you on the show. you re a great writer. thank you for being here. my pleasure. thanks for having me. what are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these men, as debaters? i think first it s worth mentioning why these debates matter in contrast to the convention performance we ve seen and we re going to get for the next week. the speech that mitt romney gave last night was one of his big moments in presenting himself to the public at large. the other one comes when he s face to face with the sitting president on the debate stage.
ran it when i was running for pennsylvania, the big city mayor of philadelphia, my folks wanted me to don overalls and milk a cow. i said, absolutely not. good for you. that s the right answer. i said absolutely not. i am who i am, i m a big city mayor. but i learned more about agriculture. by the end of that campaign, i could talk about manure dige digesters as good as anyone in the state. thanks, governor rendell. thanks, guys. last night was just a preview of the fight nights to come. james fallow is the author of slugfest and joins us next. which candidate is best trained for the debates to come? on every one of our cards there s a date.
then there s the town hall format, which is a bit more free flowing and loose. do you think the town hall format would advantage the president more? yes, i think the range from his best to his worst is wider than it is for most of the candidates. when prepared, he s actually good. he knows how to stay on message and advance these attacks. but when he has to improvise, it often brings out the worst in him. we ve seen it on stump appearances and in the clip you just showed. the more things are beyond control, the more he runs the risk of being in the same situation the first president george bush was during that famous town hall encount we are bill clinton where a woman was asking him about the deficit. he didn t understand she really was talking about the economy. bill clinton did understand that. went over and talked with her. i think that s the kind of situation the romney team is trying to think their way around. james, you also make a point in the piece that debates are