Non-live Debate Blogging, Part 2

Anyone else watch the debate between Clinton and Obama? I'm not sure how many more Democratic debates there will be, but you can watch them online at the sponsoring network's web site if you don't have cable.

Both of them had very strong performances in what was a pleasantly civil debate. The moderators asked some good questions, a few of which should have been asked 10 debates ago, but late is better than never.

The only slight downside is that Wolf Blitzer would occasionally egg on Obama and Clinton to attack each other. "Senator Clinton, that sounds like a swipe at you from Senator Obama. Care to respond?" I think his salary is based in part how much the candidates fight on stage. The O.C. did well at brushing off Blitzer's rhetorical equivalents of "Fight, fight, fight!"

It's very possible that before Clinton laughs, the command center director in her head saying: "We got a joke from the moderator. Processing. Okay. Optimal response calculated. Prepare laughter. Open mouth, smile--not too much. Perfect. Engage laughter units!"

It doesn't matter because even if it's somewhat calculated, it still goes leaps and bounds into making her more likable. She was as warm and as easy going as she can be, and her biggest gain from the night was easing some of the enmity her abrasive campaign style generated in the past few weeks.

Obama isn't as good of a debater as Clinton, so it was an accomplishment that he did as well as she did in this debate. Obama is a cerebral guy, and unfortunately has trouble articulating his intellectual and political philosophy in easy-to-understand snippets. That's his fault though. Most of what I know about the way he thinks is from articles about him or extended interviews with him, not from what he says at debates, which unfairly or not is the primary exposure most Americans will have to him before voting.

That's why many people think he's vague or unsubstantive. His arguments for his candidacy and way of thinking aren't as sharp as they could be, to the point where sometimes I felt I could argue his case better than he could.

But he crystallized some of the ideas behind his candidacy and delivered them in a way that would connect with more voters in this debate.

There were several examples of this, the best perhaps when he was criticizing both Clinton and McCain: "I don't want to just end the war, I want to end the mindset that got us here in the first place.”

The nerd in me also applauded when he finally mentioned in a debate his idea to broadcast his health care plan negotiations on C-SPAN. Clinton scoffed, although she is probably right to do so as I don't know he will get Congress and the insurance industry to agree to have their meetings open to the public. It's a nice thought though, and I'm glad he suggested it in such a public forum.

His answer on the type of people he wants in his cabinet cheered me, because it goes to the heart of how he thinks: "...people with independence, who are willing to say no to me so, so that, you know, no more yes-men or women in the White House. Because I'm not going to be right on every single issue."

The ability to realize you can be wrong is one of the hallmarks of a skeptical thinker. Is that a critical trait for a good President? Probably not if the President is intellectually strong in other ways, as Clinton is, but being open to the possibility of being incorrect does take a certain lack of ego, which is a little surprising to find in someone who aspires to be the most powerful person in America.

In short, it was an odd debate where both candidates came out looking a little better than when they came in.

On a related note, the last question to them was, "Would they consider a Clinton\Obama or a Obama\Clinton ticket?" The audience cheered wildly. Most commentators poo-pooh the idea, citing the animosity the two candidates have against each other as a deal-breaker.

I agree that it won't happen, but not because of personal dislike. Enemies can turn to friends instantly in politics, especially when it's personally advantageous to both parties. I'm sure Ted Kennedy and President Bush dislike each other, but they had no problem working with each other on No Child Left Behind. John Edwards ran against John Kerry in 2004 and ended up being his VP candidate.

The reason I can't see it happening is that they're worldviews are very different from each other. Clinton believes in top-down government. Obama bottom-up. While by the end they will be able to overcome the bad blood between the two, they still aren't going to click as people because they don't have enough in common with how they view the world. I don't see either of them willing to put up with that sort of personal awkwardness for 4-8 years.

Non-live Debate Blogging, Part 1

Best blog comment on the Obama\Clinton debate comes from Josh Marshall of TPM:

"8:08 PM ... What GOP operative masterminded holding this debate at the Kodak theater with a bunch of movie stars in the audience?"

Seriously. What was the venue decision meeting like?

CNN PRODUCER: "Here's what I'm going to do for you. You tell me where you want to hold the Republican presidential debate, and we'll do it."
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Anywhere? Wow. Even the Ronald Reagan library?"
CNN PRODUCER: "You got it. What else do you want?"
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Uh...midway through the debate, could you bring out one of Reagan's diaries, so we can further worship Our Savior and Holy Father?"
CNN PRODUCER: "I'm going to do you one better. Not only will we bring out one of Reagan's diaries, I'll program Anderson Cooper to say "I'm a little too nervous to actually even touch it, but that is Ronald Reagan's original diary."
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Program?"
CNN PRODUCER: "Yeah. He's a robot. That's why his hair is white. Silicone gets like that in a sun."
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Wow. Well, thank you. This is so much more than I expected."
CNN PRODUCER: "Whoa, hold on there. We're not done yet. Where do you want to hold the Democratic presidential debate?"
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Are you being serious?"
CNN PRODUCER: "Yeah. Shoot."
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Okay. I'll play along. I want you to have the debate...in Hollywood. In the Kodak theater, where they hold the Academy Awards. Oh, and no regular people in the first 10 rows. Just rich, obnoxious Hollywood celebrities whose very countenance will remind middle America of the phrase 'Hollywood liberal.' "
CNN PRODUCER: "As good as done." [yells] "Cooper-Bot, get in here!"
ANDERSON COOPER-BOT: "YES, MASTER."
CNN PRODUCER: "Cooper-Bot, you're going to the Reagan library, Before you go, tell Wolf-Bot he's going to Hollywood. And make sure he's loaded his Obnoxious Goading sub-routine. If he doesn't start a fight between Clinton and Obama, he's scrapped."
ANDERSON COOPER-BOT: "RIGHT AWAY, MASTER."
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Wow. Robot technology has progressed so far in 30 years."
CNN PRODUCER: "You've seen a robot before?"
REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "Hello? Reagan fan here."

Last Question of the Debate

GRABEL: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.

I applauded when this woman asked the question, the last one of the debate, because I knew Bush couldn't answer it. It's the central problem of his administration: an inability to see one's mistakes due to ideological blindness. You can't fix a problem you don't admit to having.

If you haven't seen the debate, guess how many wrong decisions he cited? Here's a hint: it's less than 3!

How's This For a Headline?

President Bush Owns So Many Businesses That He Can't Even Keep Track of Them

Okay, The Washington Post calls it "Plenty of Flaws Among the Facts". With subtitle "Candidates Made Questionable Claims", which is an excellent description, as long as no one else reads the article and has the ability to count.

Go ahead and read it. I found the ratio 2:1 in number of misstatements that Bush made compared to Kerry, and I'm being generous to Bush.

I understand the pressures to avoid the appearance of bias, and how a strongly worded headline may make feel partisans feel good but turn off some people who would otherwise be receptive to the message. But wouldn't it be nice if, just once, there was a headline that said, "President Bush Makes Twice As Many Misstatements as Sen. Kerry in Debate, and That's Just the Shit We Found in Two Hours"

(if you're wondering what I am referencing)

KERRY: You can't stop all outsourcing, Charlie. I've never promised that. I'm not going to, because that would be pandering. You can't.

But what you can do is create a fair playing field, and that's what I'm talking about.

But let me just address what the president just said.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's just not true what he said. The Wall Street Journal said 96 percent of small businesses are not affected at all by my plan.

And you know why he gets that count? The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's counted as a small business. Dick Cheney's counted as a small business. That's how they do things. That's just not right.

BUSH: I own a timber company?

(LAUGHTER)

That's news to me.

(LAUGHTER)

Need some wood?

(LAUGHTER)


KERRY: You're a part-owner in a timber compnay, you dumb ass. And you sure aren't getting any wood by looking at Laura.

HELLO I AM THE PRESIDENT

AND I DON'T HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER THE MODULATION OF MY VOICE.

THAT MEANS I'M A POWERFUL LEADER. ALSO, I DIDN'T SMIRK THE ENTIRE DEBATE. THAT MEANS I WIN.

Instead of all of these different formats and pages of guidelines for the debates, we should just strap electric wires to the testicles of the two candidates and send a shock every time one of them tells a lie or makes a grossly misleading statement, as determined by a panel of researchers afterwards.

Of course, if this system were in place tonight, these researchers would be responsible for killing the President, and for giving Kerry a painful yet slightly erotic tingle, but we all have to make sacrifices in the war on terror.

I try to look at the debates in the eyes of one of these mythical undecided voters the media keeps talking about, and in that sense I can't imagine this debate will sway anyone making a decision based on voting for a clear victor. They both did well enough to take that level of superficial analysis out of play. In fact, I think Bush put on one of the best performances he could have, considering he was up against his own petulance, the pressure of needing to do a significantly better job than last time, and a record so abysmal it can only be defended through misrepresenting his own actions and words as well as those of his opponent.

The reason Bush didn't "win" is because Kerry did at least as well. I think there are two components to debates: who is the better tactical debater, and who connects well with the audience. Sometimes these are related, sometimes not. I think Kerry did much better than Bush in the tactical category and either matched him or came close to matching him with connecting to the audience, which was the one dangerous area for him.

One of Kerry's smartest moves was to tie many of his answers by giving examples that related to Missouri. It's surprising to see how the man supposed to connect better with people mention the state once or twice, in general terms, and the "cold fish" be the one to take the time to showing he understands how these issues affect the voters of Missouri. And that's the wild card here. While I don't think this debate changes much on a national scale, it may have helped Kerry in Missouri specifically because he personalized the topics to the state.

In a way, the end of this debate matches the end of the Vice-Presidential one. Two fairly even performances where partisans from both sides can argue that their candidate is the winner, but where one side has a potential advantage in that their candidate didn't tell a string of lies and misstatements that a moderately interested voter can't find out for himself in tomorrow's paper.

I don't know if the Bush-Cheney campaign got any fallout for Cheney saying he never met Edwards or said he never tried to connect Iraq to 9/11, so I can't say if Bush will lose any points for telling some outrageous whoppers. But I will say this right now: any half-decent fact-checking article will show that Bush lied and misrepresented things much more than Kerry. If I'm wrong, I'll print this post up, eat it, poop it out, and then put my poop on a birthday cake and sign to myself, "Happy Birthday, Poophead!"

Now, if I can drop the detached analyst voice for a moment and tell what I thought as a partisan. I thought Kerry rocked. There were a few times during the debate that Kerry said something to Bush that made me yell, "Bitch, you just got slapped!" My Mom, who I was watching the debate with and had her attention split between it and her email, would then say, "What happened? Who got slapped?" I wanted to avoid explaining the whole thing so I would just say, "The bitch, Mom. The bitch. I'll explain later."

There were also many times he responded in a way that balanced eloquence with intelligence that reinforced my belief that this man is going to make a great President.

I realize that the belief that Kerry will be a great President is one even many of the people who will vote for him do not hold. And I forget the pithy phrase for blind belief not based in reality ("drinking from the same punchbowl?"), but that could be going on here. Especially with statements like "he will be a great President."

But the more I read about his past, what he's done with his life, the issues he's believes in, and the way he thinks and works with people, the more I have shifted from lukewarmly supporting him to liking them to my current view that he has what it takes to be one of the best that we've had in decades.

Pre-Debate Analysis

I love calling the crap I write analysis. It makes me feel big and important. I'm going to rename my blog and tell people I work as an analyst:

PERSON: "What do you do?"
ME: "I'm an analyst."
PERSON: "Oh! What think thank do you work for?"
ME: "Um...the Center for Strategery and Important International Relationships Foundation Board Center (dot com)."
PERSON: "How did you do that?"
ME: "Do what?"
PERSON: "Speak in parentheses."
ME: "It's one of our strategeries."

So, the big debate is tonight. Grab a beer, a bowl of popcorn, and pray that no one from a Bush rally sneaks in and poses as an undecided voter.

"UNDECIDED" VOTER: "President Bush. A President needs to face the public regularly and give frank answer to tough questions. In that spirit, I ask you this: Why does God love you so much? Also, do you think the terrorists will win and God will smite us if Kerry is elected, or do you just think the terrorist will win?"

Actually, there will be no self-identified undecided voters in the audience. It is made up of "soft supporters," people selected by the Gallup who are leaning towards a candidate but say they may switch sides. Which is good, because the percentage of people that identified themselves as undecided in the last Gallup poll is 0, and an audience of undecided voters would have to be made up of trolls, pixies, elves, and talking unicorns.

UNICORN: "Mr. President, I--"
PRESIDENT BUSH: "I know you! You're the unicorn that gives me advice in my dreams."
UNICORN: "Uh, yeah…"
KARL ROVE: [hissing from back stage] Sir! That's me with a strap-on dildo on my head. You fell asleep at the briefing last week. There was no other way.

To go on a tangent for a bit, ………..visit Pancake City tonight for the most important Presidential debate poll on the web!

(My traffic doubled the night after the first debate from people looking to vote in online polls.)

Although I'm not going to actually have a poll……………I do hope people visit to vote on the performances of President Bush and Kerry, both of whom said many key words in their responses, responses that were broadcasted by major news organizations, which followed the debate with important online polls.

Back to my expert analysis of tonight's debate. (This is a good moment to thank my boss Ralph, the executive director at CSIIR-FBC, for giving me the time to share my analysis with you.)

Obviously, both sides try to manage expectations so they can influence the post-debate coverage. But President Bush is at the end of one of the worst weeks in his Presidency.

And he has never been in a situation where the pressure was on him to perform well. The expectation he set for himself (and got the media to accept) in the 2000 debates was, "Golly gee, I hope I don't get crushed by this slick Washington insider, whose nickname, I've heard, is Double-Down Demosthenes."

So there's this conflict between low and high expectations. In one way, the expectations for Bush have never been lower. He's going to do better because he can't do any worse. It's almost impossible.

What's he going to do, demand to answer a question and then pause for 15 seconds instead of five? Repeat phrases 18 times instead of 17? Bush repeated "hard work" so often in the last debate he sounded like he had Tourette's.

So the post-debate analysis "the President did better this time" is a given. But because reality finally gathered a few of his friends and bum rushed the bouncer, he has a lot of political damage to cover. The expectations for him are also high because of necessity. His campaign expects him to do well because they need him to do well. But because many of Kerry's rhetorical blows are based on what the Bush administration calls the R word, it puts him in the difficult position of mounting a defense that requires denying even a base acknowledgement of facts.

In other words, reality bites, and if the audience asks decent questions and Kerry attacks well again, it will be probably be too much for Bush to overcome.

What Was He Thinking?

During the Vice-Presidential debate, Dick Cheney directed people to factcheck.com (he meant factcheck.org) in response to Edward's criticism of Cheney's former employer Halliburton: "If you go, for example, to FactCheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton."

God, this is Jason. I don't ask for much. In fact, I don't ask for anything. I think the whole flowing white robe and booming voice thing is kind of silly, and if I'm going to believe in a God, I want him to have a few tats. But if you do exist, and you have some extra time on your hands, please send people to factcheck.org to read their article on the debate, just like Cheney requested. I know you don't like to get directly involved in human affairs, but if you look at him as a pasty devil without the horns, it's really not that hard.

A Few More Debate Comments

Just making fun of my recent uncreative titles...

I got a question posted in a Washington Post chat about the debate, and, as it is the highlight of one of the many dreary days that make up my existence, I share it with you to bask in the warm glow of your admiration and newfound respect.

Arlington, Va.: Maybe I'm idealistic, but you haven't addressed what I think is the most important question: who told the truth more often?

Let me get my bias right out: I'm a Kerry suporter. But I challenge anyone to read The Washington Post's "debate referee" article and claim Edwards made anywhere near as many misleading comments or "deliberate misstatements of facts" as Cheney did.

Pancake City rocks!

Robert G. Kaiser: Thanks for the posting. It doesn't take a PhD to count up the examples in that article; your analysis of it is accurate. Also accurate is your analysis to the rockingness of Pancake City.

(obviously, the Pancake City references weren't part of the original question. And the chat is worth checking out--lots of interesting comments.)

Debate Thread

So, what did you think? Post your comments. My thoughts:

I saw the debate in a gay bar, with a completely partisan crowd. It was loud, I had to readjust constantly to see the television screen between the heads of people, and was repeatedly grateful for the closed captions (obviously done in real-time, which is amazing). So there was a lot distorting my view of the situation, both literally and figuratively. Having said that, I am sure it will shock all of you to find out that I think overall Kerry did better than Bush.

The pre-debate meme was that Kerry had the most work to do. As the meme goes, he's behind in the polls, President Bush has painted him as an unviable alternative, and people aren't convinced he has the stature to be President (I don't agree with some of the premises behind the meme, but that's the gist of it).

The corollary that got less attention but I think became evident midway during the debate is that Kerry also had the most to gain. Everyone knows Bush is presidential. As he would say, "I'm the President. I preside. That's what I do."

But people have had far less time to know Kerry, and what they do know about him is as likely to come from the Bush campaign or a Swift Boat Veterans-type group than his own campaign. This was his chance to strengthen parts of his image and redefine other parts to a public that, once you consider political nerds only make up 2.3% of the population (it's a fact), may be hearing him at length for the first time.

That's why I think he did better than Bush--because he had more to gain, and did so with a generally good performance. By speaking directly (for him), and being forceful but not overly aggressive, I think Kerry took a giant step forward into getting undecided voters to look at him as having the temperament to be the next President of the United States.

On individual questions, there were some that Kerry won, and others that Bush did. But that's almost irrelevant. Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but do you know what I think people will remember from this debate a few weeks from now?

Thirty seconds. I think people are going to assemble their own debate highlight commercial in their heads, reinforced by whatever clips get a lot of media attention, and play that commercial in their heads when they are deciding who to vote for. And my instinct, which I hope is based in more than wishful thinking, says that many of the snippets in that commercial will reflect favorably on John Kerry.

(Quickly, on another note: the post-debate spin, and which side is more effective in getting the media to buy it, is more important than the debate themselves. Republicans are still the masters at media manipulations, but I'm hopeful because Democrats have finally recognized the importance of the post-debate game and are at least going to do a better job at shaping it than they were in past elections. In other words, thank God for The Daily Show.)

Rock the Vote Quotes

Alternate Title: Why I Love Al Sharpton
2nd Alternate Title: Al Warms-Up For Hosting Saturday Night Live

COOPER: Changing the subject a little bit, Governor Dean, I know you took a year off after college, spent a little time skiing. Is that something you would recommend for college graduates?

DEAN: When I was 20 years old, I was a junior in a college in New Haven, Connecticut. And I was totally turned off politics. I thought that the President of the United States was a crook, which turned out to be right. It was Richard Nixon.

[...]

(The moderator earlier joked that some young adults watching the debate would drink a shot every time one of them repeated a catch phrase.)

COOPER: Reverend Sharpton, A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll just last week showed that young people, 18 to 29, are actually more conservative than their parents. And, actually, 61 or 62 percent of them said they agree with the job George Bush is doing.

What are the Democrats doing wrong?

SHARPTON: Well, I think that first of all, a lot of young people don't understand what George Bush is doing. And a lot of them have been confused because a lot of the Democrats have played this game of trying to be Republican-like.

I say that we've been...

(APPLAUSE)

I think that we've had too many elephants running around in donkey jackets that are not real Democrats. When we stand up...

COOPER: By the way, I think someone's drinking right now, because I think I heard that before.

(LAUGHTER)

SHARPTON: Well, while they're gulping, let me give you another two lines. Anyway...

[...]

QUESTION: My question is for Reverend Sharpton, though I'd love to hear from the other candidates as well.

My question is this. What's the first thing going through your head the morning you wake up in the White House?

SHARPTON: Well, I think the first thing going through my head would be to make sure that Bush has all of his stuff out.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SHARPTON: And that we changed the locks on the door, so none of his crowd can come back.

[...]

And finally:

QUESTION: You guys seem to get to know each other fairly well. I'd be curious to find out, if you could pick one of your fellow candidates to party with, which you would choose. But keeping in mind, partying isn't just, you know, who do you think can shake their groove thing.

(LAUGHTER)

I mean, we're talking, who's going to be loyal to you? Who is going to stand by your side? If you get sick, who's going to hold your hair back?

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Second of all...

(APPLAUSE)

There's more. There's more to it. Who's going to be a team player, you know, if you--imagine if you were single again. If you see a cutie across the room...

(LAUGHTER)

...who's going to be your wing man? Who's going to take one for the team?

COOPER: Senator Lieberman?

LIEBERMAN: I hope my wife understands this. I'd like to party with the young lady who asked that question.

(LAUGHTER)

You're good.

COOPER: Reverend Sharpton?

SHARPTON: I hope mine understands it. Probably the best person I've met to campaign, to party with--Mrs. Kerry. I'm sorry.

(APPLAUSE)

KERRY: I was going to choose Carol Moseley Braun, but now I'm going to have to choose you so I can keep an eye on my wife.

Sharpton Doesn't Disappoint

The man knows how to deliver a one-liner. From today's democratic presidential candidate debate:

"I think, lastly, the whole notion of our showing our differences is good. But let us not forget that our differences should be toward the aim of winning against Bush.

We are 48 hours away from watching an actor that couldn't win an Oscar winning to be the governor of California."

I read the transcript instead of watching it. Out of the nine candidates, Clark got hammered the most, and his responses in general were more catch phrases than substantive. Sharpton had some interesting things to say, and Kucinich gladly took the role of liberal gadfly. I've heard very little about John Kerry, but he seems knowledgeable about the issues but not academic. Out of the nine candidates, he is the only one who I'm now more interested in after reading the transcript.

(Side note: the spell checker suggested 'juiciness' for Kucinich.)