The debate debate: who won, who lost, who cares.

Televised debates can be pivotal in an election.

In 1960, in the first U.S. presidential debate on TV, John F. Kennedy looked cool and composed, while Richard Nixon looked nervous and sweaty. Kennedy is widely seen as winning the debate, but radio listeners thought Nixon was better. Folksy Ronald Reagan crushed Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Al Gore fared badly against George Bush in 2000 when he repeatedly sighed loudly when Bush was talking.

Our nation’s most famous debate occurred in 1984, when PC leader Brian Mulroney destroyed Liberal leader John Turner. During the election debate, Turner said he “had no option” but to approve a raft of blatant patronage appointments made by outgoing PM Pierre Trudeau, which was a very big deal in 1984. Mulroney pounced. “You had an option, sir – to say no” Mulroney thundered. Turner visibly withered, and the exchange became part of Canadian political history. The PCs went on to win 211 seats, the largest number in Canadian history.

So, with that little history lesson in mind, was any history made in Thursday night’s one-on-one debate between NDP leader Rachel Notley and the UCP’s Danielle Smith?

Frankly, I thought the debate was Notley’s to lose. She would certainly come off better than Danielle Smith. It’s hard not to, I thought. Notley has the sympathetic ‘trust me’ smile, and the well-rehearsed hand gestures to indicate just how serious she is. Smith’s years of talk show blathering would serve her well verbally, but let’s face it, she has a face made for radio. She has a flinty, gimlet stare that says she feels she is never wrong, and she speaks with the assurance you often hear from people who are basically morons. (See: Trump, Donald.)

So, what happened? Let’s go to a recap.

First, they both wore blue. You would have thought that Notley would have worn something orange, right?

Anyway, it took Smith less than five minutes to use the NDP-Liberal coalition line. She called NDP leader Jagmeet Singh Notley’s “boss”, and made several mentions of Justin Trudeau. And that was all before the first commercial break (seriously, they had to have commercials?).

Smith had a clear strategy of not responding to any of Notley’s criticisms. In fact, she never looked at Notley, acting as if she didn’t exist. It was contemptuous.

Notley landed some pretty good shots, of course; there is so much ammo to use against Smith that Notley had an embarrassment of riches to choose from. (I thought her line about Smith promising not to cross the floor, then doing it, was the best of the night.) Ironically, Smith later accused Notley of telling a “flat-out lie”; talk about the pot calling the kettle a pot of color.

Then came a question from the public: name two policies that you agree with from the other party. While Notley had a surprisingly good, thoughtful answer, Smith didn’t answer it at all, bragging about how wonderful the UCP policies were that Notley just praised. And nobody called her on it. That was the fault of the debate format, which was so closely timed and regimented that there was no opportunity for the moderators to question the candidates.

Notley scored a bull’s eye on the issue of policing. When Smith said the NDP has candidates who advocate defunding the police, Notley pointed out that the UCP actually did defund the police, by cutting money for policing. Good one.

Overall, I was surprised that Notley was not as confident a speaker as I thought she would be. Notley had to refer to her notes, over and over, particularly in her closing remarks. While Smith spoke directly into the camera, spouting cornball lines about how wonderful Alberta is, Notley read from her notes, stumbling a little from time to time. For someone who has been in the public eye for years and years, she was surprisingly weak in that regard.

Overall, I don’t know if the debate is going to move the needle for undecided voters. It was too short (it should have been 90 minutes, no commercials), too regimented, and with no time for real debate between the candidates.

Going into the debate, I was hoping something historic would happen, like Smith saying Hitler “had some good ideas”, or Notley decrying the animal cruelty of the Calgary Stampede. But there were no knockout blows, no “you had an option” moments.

It will be interesting to see if the polls show a change in the undecided voters’ intentions. I don’t know if it will.