But Stephanopoulos continued, “One of your friends told The New Yorker magazine that the mainstream is just not ready for a fire-breathing Black man so do you turn down the temperature on purpose?” Obama responded, “You know, I don't think this has to do with race.”
  
Nevertheless, Obama’s performance showed that his campaign is not up to speed on debate preparation. When I directed Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.’s campaign issues in 1984, we always had a debate strategy and he was always briefed on the issues that might come up and what angle to take in answering the questions. We never had to worry about Rev. Jackson creativity and brilliance in handling the issues on the spot, but wanted his policy proposals to be as substantive as possible, so we had sessions on debate preparation.
  
What I see, is that Obama has been shoved out onto the stage by his campaign without adequate preparation and that he is attempting to think his way through answers to questions on the spot. That is a losing posture for a candidate because of the pressure of time, especially in this kind of a situation where the hosts were pressing him for answers. Obviously, his campaign knew the kind of questions that were coming at him and therefore it is a mystery to me why he did not have at hand creative, instantaneous responses.
  
This was a critical debate, which should have been taken seriously since it could have determined the outcome of the entire election. What I mean by that is if Obama were to win Pennsylvania, the election would be over. But with a poor debate performance, some of those voters sitting on the fence are either still there, or may go to Clinton. Well, that was probably always going to be the case, but he didn’t help himself very much by his performance.
  
I understand the problems. It is a long campaign, the mind gets clouded and other things come into view, as priorities such as the release of his tax records just before the debate. But few voters would have paid attention to his tax records and even the political class would not have paid much attention to them - as they didn’t - unless there is some new glaring issue in them. So it was a mistake to place getting them out ahead of debate preparation.
  
The most important failing of his campaign however, may have been the seduction that Barack Obama’s brilliance could suffice for such preparation and that he could handle what was thrown at him on the spot. Given his past performances, for this one, his answers to questions should have been rehearsed so that he was able to come back with responses quickly and creatively. That is the point of debating and the key to winning.
  
But Obama should also have been keyed enough to have attacked the hosts on the spot for their persistent and mindless focus on minor personal aspects of Barack’s campaign rather than on what the people of Pennsylvania wanted to hear about solutions to their problems of health care, jobs, globalization, education and the like.
  
This was a giant opening that he could have taken advantage of to win some points with voters and although he did comment on it, he did not emphasize it. Confronting them would have shown strength. Remember the points Ronald Reagan won when he shouted in a debate that he paid for the microphone?
  
Well, there is now some talk about another debate over the Indiana primary, but it is my view that unless Obama’s debate operation seriously improves he should skip it and campaign where he has strength, at big events, where he can tell his own story to the people.

Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, director of the African American Leadership Center and professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. One of his latest books is: “The Price of Racial Reconciliation, University of Michigan Press.”