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Presidential Debates Set
The debates are set, there will be four of them: Sept. 30, Oct. 8, and Oct. 13, and Oct. 5 for the VPs. All are at 9 p.m. Eastern. Get more details and read the memorandum of understanding (it is unreadable in Preview for me, I had to use Acrobat). There's not much different in here than in previous years. Says CNN: "A senior Kerry source said the Bush campaign was 'hung up' over whether a light or something audible like a buzzer would be used to tell the candidates when their time is up. A Bush official acknowledged that last-minute questions, mostly over the time cue issue, held up the agreement." In related news, it appears the first debate proposed by the truly nonpartisan Citizens' Debate Commission, scheduled for this Wednesday in Columbus, isn't going to happen.
Typical of politicians to get stuck on the least important decisison...
According to "the Economist", however, Kerry is already "kebabized" over Vietnam and his changing mind over the Iraq war, while Bush is very hard to kebabize about his military record the silver spoon he had in his mouth when he was born, and "probably up his nose", and also because he is constantly underestimated.
People have already started voting thanks to loose absentee rules in several states, electronic voting machines are everywhere, districts are gerrymandered, the vote is amplified by the electoral colleges, and everyone has already accepted the result thanks to biased polls.
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I'm personally a Kerry supporter, but I don't think his campaign has been handled terribly well. One of the most frequent complaints I've seen levied against Kerry has been that he hasn't presented a clear plan for what he would do if he were president. People seem to feel that, whether or not they agree with what Bush says, he seems very forward in his message and they feel like they have a good idea what to expect if he served another term. Kerry, on the other hand, has given vague suggestions about what he'd do, but hasn't presented much in the way of a solid plan. Now, his attacks this week about Iraq were quite a bit more specific than what he's done in the past, but Iraq is such a volatile issue that I doubt it's going to rally undecided voters much.
Edwards will likely do well in the vice presidential debate, regardless of how Kerry does, just by virtue as coming across as generally more likeable than Cheney. This probably won't mean much, of course. But if Kerry comes out and answers questions directly, without trying to skirt the issues, he could see quite a gain from his debate performance. He's a much better speaker than Bush, and if he comes out directly with solid goals for when he becomes president, he could raise undecided voters' passion quite a bit.
Of course, who knows what Kerry will actually do. I don't have that much confidence that he'll be able to pull it off. But I think if he makes a solid effort to present himself as decisive in the debates, it could very well change the momentum in the election. Or he may just fuck it up like he's been doing the rest of the campaign. We'll have to wait and see.
hot foreign sheep.
A very good idea, no matter which side of the fence you're on. Debates have gotten so stale, even the most stalwart arm chair politicians have a hard time swallowing them. The 2000 Bush-Gore debates were just awful because of their predictability and the absense of real political discourse.
Citizen's Debate Commission is made of people all over the spectrum who want to bring back real debates, where the candidates answer actual unscreened questions from actual human beings. Count me in.
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"If I had to pick someone to run my business I sure would not pick someone who would screw his intern in the office..."
Engaging in inappropriate sex is one of the characteristics of ACOAs, Adult Children of Alcoholics. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was not an alcoholic, but his parents were violent alcoholics. The book, The Dysfunctional President: Inside the Mind of Bill Clinton, discusses the fact that Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of the children of alcoholism-influenced families. The behavior of such children is so typical that every U.S. city has ACOA support groups.
Clinton has a strong interest in government and government policy. He at least has the knowledge to make informed decisions.
Bush, however, is a recovered alcoholic, and acts exactly the way recovered alcoholics usually act: The psychological effects of alcoholism provide a framework for understanding the Bush administration.. See points 1 through 13. Bush has never shown a strong interest in government and government policy.
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Bush: Spending money the U.S. doesn't have to make himself look good.
Am I the only one that finds it frightening that someone could wait until a month before an election, and hope to make up their minds based on a debate? When you have a four year presidential record and a 19 year senate record to consider, how can a couple hours of talk convince you of anything?
In my mind, the "undecided" voter is just about the most foolish creature on earth. A political campain will tell you what you want to hear. A record speaks volumes about what you can expect.
The old cliche holds, talk is cheap.
The candidates may not ask each other direct questions, but may ask rhetorical questions.
Basically, this is where one politician tries to be dramatic by saying "I pledge today that I will never X; will my opponent be willing to agree to this pledge also?"
A famous example was in the Hillary Clinton/Rick Lazio debate for Senate from New York in 2000. Rick Lazio came with a written pledge to not taken any soft money. He literally demanded that Hillary Clinton sign it right then, during the debate. She offered to "shake on it" instead.
It's dramatic enough so that it gets mentioned on the news, and in theory it's supposed to make people think "that pledge sounds reasonable, why won't the other candidate approve it?" The danger is that the person insisting on the pledge will look like an aggressive, petty jerk.
In theory, since the rules for these debates state that the candidates can't ask each other questions, they couldn't ask them to sign a pledge anyway. They could say "I have a signed pledged here for X; I wonder if my opponent will be willing to sign the same pledge." It's technically not a question...
I think most of these will benefit Bush, which makes sense since for the most part they are points he won as concessions for conceding to a third debate.
#1 will NOT benefit Kerry. Everyone knows that Iraq is a mess. It's well illustrated every night on the evening news. The issue is already "priced in" to the equation - already knowing that Bush supporters are bush supporters and undecideds remain undecided. Kerry can maybe gain a bit marginally by restating the critique. His problem is that Bush's support is unified, Kerry's support is only unified in thinking Bush screwed up but NOT about exactly what should have been done instead or what should be done about it now. That's fine as long as Kerry limits himself to only criticizing Bush, but the moment he outlines his own position he risks alienating some part of his own support. Of course constant equivocation on the topic bleeds support as well and is unlikely to be sustainable during a debate. Kerry has to bite the bullet, chose whether he is a hawk with a different plan, or a dove... lose a bit of support and then try to build it back with a coherent message from here on out. Of course after months of equivocation and fuzziness he has left a bunch of statements out there Bush can use to attack him using his own words.
The other points are all pretty minor, #2, 4, 5 and 6 seem designed to prevent Bush getting ambushed. #3 seems designed to play to Bush's rhetorical style (short, blunt, sometimes witty in a folksy way, sometimes uninformed) and against Kerry's (wonkish, detailed, sometimes longwinded, given to equivocations, caveats, provisos...) If Kerry gets too wordy in the debate he'll be only half way through his point when the little light goes on.. visible to the audience, cuing them in that he has exceeded his time limit and implying that he is being rude. Bush is far less likely to fall foul of that little trap.
The Bush administration making such a fuss over how Bush would know when his time is up and refusing to let Kerry question him directly is exactly the kind of stuff that shows Bush's incompetence is irrelevant because it's so well covered up by his very talented campaign staff. Everything he says will have been scripted and thoroughly rehearsed, so expect him to be ever so slightly off the main topic of some questions as he searches for the best fit rehearsed speech. He will have the edge over Kerry in the debate.
and on another note about the debates..
While the debates are held on-campus at colleges in large auditoriums, VERY few students (25 is the magic number here at the University of Miami, site of the 1st debate) are allowed to attend the debate. Aren't they supposed to be trying very hard to rally the younger voters this election? The Kerry campaign is at least, so I suspect this was also Bush's doing as he has no regard or interest in anyone except the base of staunch conservatives in his party. Oh well, on the other hand we do get free food at a huge debate watch party.
Posted anonymously because I'm not usually one for tin-foil hats, but my username is so unique and I've been using it for so many years, there's no doubt in my mind a government database search of it would turn up my real name and SSN, and the Republicans sure do love to deny those who oppose them government jobs, especially the Bush admin.
There is intelligence and there is knowledge. The problem with Bush is that he is not interested in making any effort to learn any piece of information whatsoever. This is a real problem when you have to make decisions on the basis of complex information.
in the debates Bush reacted to a series of questions with the non-existent 'call a friend option'. He made plain that he would be the creature of his advisors, a follower not a leader.
On 9/11 he showed that he was not a leader by reading 'My Pet Goat' and waiting for his advisers to tell him how to act.
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