Town hall suits Bush’s style

After having been widely seen as the loser of the first presidential debate last week, President Bush enters a friendlier town-hall format for tonight’s second debate, where Democrats say he badly needs a win to boost his campaign.

“Given the president’s performance in the first debate, I would submit he not only has to have a good debate, but an extraordinary debate,” said Kerry campaign adviser Michael Donilon.

The Bush campaign, which is hoping for a better performance out of the president this time, has tempered its expectations — at least publicly.

Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry’s brief career as a prosecutor in the 1970s equips him well for tonight’s event.

“As you saw in the first debate, Senator Kerry is very skilled in debate,” Mr. Mehlman said. “We expect him to be articulate and very effective.”

Mr. Kerry has prepared for tonight by taking several days off and rehearsing in a hotel ballroom in Englewood, Colo. Mr. Bush has kept up a busier public schedule, holding campaign events yesterday and Wednesday.

After the first debate, some of the president’s advisers blamed his poor showing on the fact that he had kept a busy schedule in Florida leading up the event, including touring hurricane damage.

Mr. Mehlman suggested that the rigors of being president are much greater than those facing a challenger, but predicted that it wouldn’t be a noticeable problem.

“The job of being president requires a lot of vigorous activity,” Mr. Mehlman said in a conference call with reporters yesterday. “I’m confident he can fulfill the duties of president and perform well at the debate.”

Unlike last week’s debate, a one-on-one affair with a moderator posing questions, tonight’s town-hall format has questions submitted by an audience of voters who lean either toward Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry, but who all say they could be persuaded to switch.

Mr. Bush has conducted scores of town-hall meetings in the past few months and often seems to be more comfortable charming people in the crowd one at a time than talking to them all at once in a standard stump speech.

Mr. Bush has performed so well at the events that his campaign changed the usual format for nominating conventions, placing the stage in the middle of the hall and having the president speak “in the round” for his acceptance speech.

On Wednesday, Kerry adviser Mike McCurry said there is probably more pressure on Mr. Kerry this time, thanks to the high bar set by his performance in the first debate.

“We have probably more to lose going into the next two debates because of the really strong job in the first debate,” he said.

But Joe Lockhart, another adviser, told reporters yesterday that Mr. Bush still must prove himself.

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