Park thrives on unorganized opposition

By Kim Tong-hyung

Readers will know how newspapers write obituaries about famous people in advance and just fill in specific details on the day of the person’s actual death before going to press.

There might be more than a few politics writers in Yeouido preparing a column on how Democratic United Party (DUP) candidate Moon Jae-in lost the battle for Cheong Wa Dae after he was rendered anonymous on national television Tuesday evening.

The opposition challenger was pitted against conservative candidate Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party and leftist candidate Lee Jung-hee of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) in the first of three presidential debates obligated by the Election Law before the Dec. 19 vote.

There were no knockout blows, no major blunders and no bumbling candidates exposing themselves as ineligible for office. But the first debate had a clear winner and it was Park.

This is not to confuse Park’s television performance with greatness. She wasn’t particularly likable, looked wooden and seemed incapable of keeping her eyes on the camera for more than two seconds.

But in the end, Park came off as believable and confident. And that was more than enough to brush back Moon, who despite sporadic moments of assertiveness, appeared as unfocused and fatigued as his campaign has become.

``The dual between Moon and Park was subdued … Moon seemed intent on keeping his dignity. But when seen as a challenger to Park, political ally of incumbent President Lee Myung-bak, he didn’t do enough,’’ wrote Lee Bu-young, a DUP old hand, on Facebook hours after the debate. He had been involved in the efforts between Moon and independent contender Ahn Cheol-soo to merge candidacies, which eventually failed.

Koh Jae-yeol, a journalist-turned-pundit, left a snarkier summary on Twitter: ``Lee had nothing to lose, Park had nothing to read, and Moon had no room to squeeze in.’’

It was clearly Moon who had needed a big performance as he finds himself on the wrong end of a widening popularity gap with Park.

He did attempt to set the tone in the discussions about foreign policy and North Korea and showed plenty of bile when the conversation turned to the corruption allegations surrounding the Saenuri Party. But even in these moments of heat, his comments felt like a telegraphed punch. At other times, he looked distracted, and worse, tired.

Moon frequently allowed himself to be upstaged by Lee, whose approval rate is closer to zero than one on most days, who was both witty and relentless in her attacks on Park.

While Moon will get another shot on Dec. 10 and 16 to directly appeal to the Korean people, it’s safe to say that he all but eliminated his margin of error with his insipid performance in the opener.

Since the collapse of his talks with Ahn last month, Moon had helplessly watched his support in key battlegrounds like the Seoul metropolitan area and southeast region melt like cheese on toast. Even before his appearance on national television Tuesday, pollsters had been wondering whether the possibility of him becoming the country’s next leader was gradually turning from plausible to merely mathematical.

`` Moon had the most to gain and also the most to lose. No matter how you look at it, Moon blew a critical opportunity. His support gap with Park was not at a level that couldn’t be overcome and this was like a game where he needed to get that one point, that one score. And he failed to do that,’’ said Hong Hyung-shik, president of Hangil Research, in a telephone conversation.

Hong also predicted that the presence of the straight-shooting Lee will hurt Moon more than her intended target Park in the upcoming debates.

``The television debate was supposed to be a showdown between Park and Moon, but Lee stole the show with her verbal sniping. If Lee keeps this approach, the remaining debates won’t be much of a factor on polling day and that really doesn’t bode well for Moon,’’ he said.

`` Lee was giving Park all she could handle, but didn’t throw much in the direction of Moon. This actually hurts Moon because he is rendered invisible. More importantly, centralist and conservative voters may see him as a pair with a leftist candidate and gravitate toward Park.’’

Perhaps, Moon wasn’t able to shake Ahn off his mind. In breaking out of his mini-hiatus earlier this week to attend the disbanding of his presidential camp, Ahn offered only a lukewarm endorsement of Moon and blasted both the DUP and Saenuri Party for their overly negative campaigning.

During the television debate, Moon seemed to waste many chances to attack Park with dreamy comments about political reform and the elimination of partisan politics, subjects Ahn would always prate about, perhaps to impress the disgruntled voters of the former independent candidate. DUP officials claimed it was all part of the plan to soften his combative image and look more composed and warm-hearted.

In other words, Moon had no intention to risk alienating swing voters by being too aggressive against his opponents on television. A worse outcome, however, was being reduced to a bystander on a show that needed to be his.