Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Net War Room for Bush vs Kerry Debate

Posted by michael on from the instant-spin dept.

ancice writes "Article by Wired. Seems like Bush and Kerry are going to battle in cyberspace. The Bush Team is going to have a War Room to provide live rebuttals to thousands of conversative blogs. Not much info on Kerry's response though. This seems like a good use of the Information Super Highway. Would be interesting to see how this War Room will affect the election. Will this tactic be successful or will it be information overload? Worse still, will technology be exploited? Tune in on Thursday."

5 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Conservative blogs... by dameron · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't imagine this swaying anyone. Holding on to the base maybe, but pimping live rebuttals to thousands of conservative blogs seems kinda masturbatory. I'm far more interested in the "real" live rebuttals that will be happening on stage.

    This is the first time W. has debated with a record to defend. It should be interesting.

    -dameron
    ----
    DailyHaiku.com, saying more in 17 syllables than Bill O'Reilly says all day.

    1. Re:Conservative blogs... by IndependentVik · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The two candidates got to say what they wanted, but it was very clear that one of them was prepared, articulate, and in total command. The other was ridiculously unprepared, looked nervous, kept demanding to speak out of turn, etc. I won't even say which was which, because if you actually watched the debates, you'd know.

      For the truly open-minded, this debate revealed a lot about the two candidates.

      --
      I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
  2. In defense of ideological uniformity by daviddennis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's useful right now - look at how conservative bloggers were able to take down CBS news. No matter what you may think of the story, there's no question the memos were forged, and ineptly at that. This story would not have broken without the bloggers.

    There is actually enough controversy between people nominally on the same side in sites like Free Republic (right) and Democratic Underground (left) to create effective debates. As a conservative site, Free Republic contains material of all kinds (from The Nation to National Review), and the conservatives who debate range from libertarians to fundamentalists. Democratic Underground is much smaller and ironically has much less tolerance of opposing views than Free Republic. Both sites will delete blatant trolls within seconds, but someone called Liberal Larry has survived on FR for years. He's civil, so he survives. In contrast, I wrote civil messages on DU which people seemed to enjoy responding to and I was deleted simply because I wasn't a liberal. I don't think that would have happened on FR.

    A major reason for the emergence of liberal and conservative enclaves is that liberals and conservatives are pretty darn nasty when put in the same web site together, and as a result very little productive discussion actually occurs. This is unfortunate but true.

    It's interesting that Slashdot has developed into essentially a liberal ghetto because intelligent conservative posts are moderated down. I have seen this happen to many of my posts, to the extent that I feel unwelcome. As a result, I don't post nearly as much as I did when the section was originally opened.

    D

  3. Wired helps excuse the media by jamie · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The Wired piece helps perpetuate a myth: that in 2000, after the first Bush-Gore debate, it was the GOP that changed the perception from "Gore won" to "Bush won":

    After the first debate, Gore advisers thought he had handily won. But a few hours later, the Bush campaign was able to change that perception by disseminating press releases on its websites, through faxes and in e-mails.

    Gore's advisers thought he won because he did win. As the Daily Howler points out, the five "instant polls" of viewers after the debate gave Gore the win by an average of 9.6% -- a huge margin, especially considering more Bush supporters were watching.

    And that perception did change in the hours and days to come, until finally the American people were browbeaten into believing that Bush had won. But one can't blame GOP press releases and emails. The fault lies squarely on the media, as the Daily Howler has been demonstrating all week.

    Whether you think our media has a conservative bias or not, it's indisputable that it let Bush get away with murder after that first debate, refusing to do even basic fact-checking on his blatant errors, and it crucified Gore, mostly by focusing on absurdities and trivia like the color of his suit or his body language. Let's put the blame where blame is due.

  4. I wouldn't worry about exploits... by mtrupe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Blogs are proving to provide very good checks and balances. The reader has at his disposal all the tools he needs to verify stats, facts, and accusations. This is why the media is so fearful of the blogosphere... It doesn't allow them to have any kind of bias. Big media is dead.

    I think its cool that the candidates recognize the Internet as a battleground. I think the Internet is proving to be a more effective medium for getting out your message than television. Lib or Conservative, nothing wrong with that.

    http://rupertzone.net/

    --
    [FromTheMorning]