We live in an age of forgetting.
debate
The McCain Hail Mary
Oct 7th
McCain is behind in the polls and is getting increasingly desperate. What will he do in tonight’s debate to shake the race up? Possibilities:
- Fly in onto stage on a trapeze.
- Vow to kill Obama bin Laden.
- Trick Obama into wearing a patriotic, American-flag turban.
- Wear Kryptonite around his neck. Just in case.
- Deliberately mishear questions about Palin’s tenure as mayor as questions about William Ayers.
- Bite Obama, infecting him with lycantropy, and then run anti-werewolf attack ads while hoping no one asks you how you were able to infect Obama with lycantropy in the first place.
- Repeatedly employ the “I know you are, but what I am” defense. (already doing this)
- Accuse him of fathering two black children.
- Convince the audience that “one house, one spouse” is for losers.
- Sneak a Rev. Wright imitator into the audience and pay him to tell Obama, “Great seeing you at the Nation of Islam potluck last Sunday.”
- Practice ventriloquy and slip in “White people suck” while Obama is speaking.
Other suggestions?
VP Debate Non-live Live Blogging
Oct 2nd
A brief note: I’m influenced easily, so I try to write up my debate comments before reading blogs or watching the pundits. The result is that my opinion isn’t particularly informed.
In an earlier post, I said that Gov. Palin was almost guaranteed to exceed expectations because the expectations were so low. I felt a mediocre performance would be enough to help her fortunes because even mediocrity would be better than what we’ve seen of her on SNL and her interviews with Katie Couric.
I suspect I’m wrong. In her first response, all I could hear was the voice of Tina Fey. And while I can’t know the thoughts of independent and undecided voters, if they heard Tina Fey’s voice too, then it means it wasn’t enough for Palin to have a mediocre performance. It means she needed to directly strike at the heart of the image of her as a blathering lightweight by providing detailed, specific responses that would reassure the public: “Those past interviews were one-time flubs. This is the real me.” I don’t she did that anytime during the debate.
***
Non-live live blogging (sorry I don’t have many direct quotes):
9:02 Here we go. Why am I nervous?
9:03 Palin (shaking Biden’s hand): “Can I call you Joe?” Nice. Came off classy.
9:04 Joe is talking fast in his first response.
(AXELROD: “Hey Joe, do you think you could, I don’t know how to put this…be on the “concise” side in the debate.”
BIDEN: “Nope.”
AXELROD: “Okay, how about you talk faster so you finish earlier and it at least appears concise.”
BIDEN: ”I will literally do that.”)
9:06 Uh oh. Palin is talking and all I can hear is Tina Fey…
9:09 Palin makes the case for youth, energy, reform…um, Governor? You know who your running mate is?
9:10 PALIN: “Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again.” Her feelings towards McCain?
9:11 Shorter Biden: Here are some facts about McCain that you probably don’t know since you just met him last month.
9:12 Joe is solid. This is going better than I thought it would.
9:13 Palin is going to ignore every subject thing she doesn’t know about.
9:14 Oh shit. Biden is on FIRE! (Note: Sorry, didn’t write down what he was saying. But it was fire-ous!)
9:15 Shorter Palin: I’m not going to fall into your trap and answer the questions that the moderator asks.
9:17 Joe is going to have to try mighty hard not to seem condescending. I mean, she’s asking for it.
9:18 Ifill follow-up to Palin: “Are you interested in answering the question I asked?”
9:21 Ifill asks Biden what parts of their plan will have to be curtailed because of the financial crisis + recession. Biden: Helping brown people. (foreign assistance) Very political.
9:26 Biden is doing a good job tying things back to McCain.
9:27 I was afraid Palin would come off looking smart. I’ll take her not looking dumb.
9:29 Palin strategy: I hope people’s memories don’t last longer than 2 minutes. Cause I’m not answering the questions I was asked.
9:36 Biden stands up for same-sex equality.
9:39 But not gay marriage.
9:39 Ifill is doing a good job. I don’t see how anyone will be able to complain about her performance. (Edit: complain about her being unfair or biased. She took the same “no harm, no foul” approach to moderating that she did for the 2004 VP debate.)
9:40 Palin turns Biden’s past statement about Obama against him. I expect to see this a few more times.
9:41 Biden has a great response about ending the war in Iraq. He points out that Maliki and Bush has come around to Obama’s position, and coaches the withdrawal from Iraq in terms of responsibility (Iraqis taking responsibility of their own country).
9:43 I think Palin is sounding like an idiot, but I’m biased.
9:50 I love that Biden and Obama are still bringing up McCain’s comment about not knowing if he’ll meet with the President of Spain. We need to meet immediately with any country that has tapas.
9:55 Shorter Biden: Where’s the beef, Palin?
9:57 PALIN TALKING POINT OVERLOAD.
9:58 I feel like Biden is wiping the floor in his follow-up responses to Palin.
10:00 Palin’s first specific response of the night (about Afghanistan).
10:02 Biden’s first so-so response of the night. Rambling answer about Bosnia, Darfour, and Iraq. You know how some people subconsciously adopt the speech patterns of those around them? Well, he’d been debating Palin for the past hour.
10:05 I can’t tell whether I’m starting to lose interest because of the content or because I’m getting sober. Better drink some more beer and makes this a single-variable study.
10:07 If you watch Palin in slow motion, you can see the exact moment where she switches from a rambling, improvised response to a rehearsed speech.
10:09 Shorter Palin: Yeah, it would be a real shame if McCain died. (Watch your back, McCain!)
10:14 Palin on her potential responsibilities: If I’m V.P. John McCain said I could have energy independence and retarded children.
10:16 You have to rewatch this moment. Ifill sneaks in a question Palin didn’t prepare for, and she has a flash of panic.
10:18 I think for Palin, this is going to end up being a rally-the-base performance, not a convince-independents performance
10:20 Biden chokes up talking about his family. It was a nice moment.
10:22 Direct quote on Palin: “[McCain] is the man we need to leave..uh. Lead!”
10:23 Biden sinks his teeth into the maverick image and tears it apart like a steak. I like it.
10:26 Palin will never do a press conference. She can’t answer most questions directly and has dodged almost every follow-up question.
10:28 Question: how is Palin’s family diverse? Not snide, just curious. She mentioned it twice. I don’t know anything about her family.
10:29 Biden was gaffe-free as far as I can tell. I suspect there will be some people disappointed that he didn’t eviscerate Palin, just as people were disappointed Obama wasn’t more aggressive in his first debate with McCain. I think those people are wrong in both cases. Biden did a great job. Being more aggressive would have been a mistake.
Palin closing statement: “I like talking to people without the mainstream media filter.” How does that filter work? Is it like a screen door? A red-tinted sheet? Hugh Hewitt, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity: here she comes!
Last Pre-Debate Comments
Oct 2nd
1. Absent Gwen Ifill being replaced at the last minute by a juggling bear, how in the world can this debate not end up disappointing?
2. John McCain would be a horrible President but an amazing TV programmer.
VP Debate — Not Very Live Blogging
Oct 2nd
I’ll be watching the VP debate tomorrow and probably write something about it, but not in real-time. If I had 1,000 regular readers, I’d blog it in real-time. I don’t though. I have 10. I’ll be typing my thoughts after I sober up.
Pre-debate thoughts: the problem with your opponent being turned into a caricature is that, however justified the caricature is, it’s still a caricature. All most people have seen of Palin are the worst clips from her interview with Katie Couric and the SNL skits that poke fun at her lack of knowledge and her reflex to BS her way through an answer rather than say “I don’t know.” (You can credit the Obama campaign repeated hammering of McCain’s “I don’t know much about the economy” comment for banishing the phrase “I don’t know” from the McCain campaign).
The poor opinion of Palin is justified, but she’s not as bad as her caricature. People tuning into the debate expecting her to flub answer after answer will be disappointed. Furthermore, a lot of her verbal fumbling has come in response to follow-up questions, something the debate format doesn’t focus on. One can predict most of the questions that will be asked at a debate and rehearse sensible two-minute responses to these questions. That’s 75% of the debate there. Barring a total panic attack or a surprise question, her baseline will be a C performance, and that in itself would staunch the bleeding.
She may well do better than a C. Either way, the deck seems set for her to do “good enough” and pop the bubble of criticism that has grown over the past few weeks. Not that she will then give her first press conference or do another interview with a real journalist, but mix in some media appearances with Republican-friendly outlets and the Sarah Palin facade will strengthen itself and carry on, provided she makes no more major gaffes.
I’d love to be wrong. But I feel that the most likely result of the VP debate isn’t a flame out or triumphant comeback, but a fairly bland, anti-climatic moment.
***
Another thought: There is the possibility that the growing perception of Palin as unqualified and out of her league has already hardened in the minds of most people, similar to how the perception of Joe Biden as someone who talks a lot and makes gaffes is set in stone, regardless of the truth.
If that is the case for Palin, then she needs to hit it the debate out of the park or she is screwed. Once people start looking at you one way, it takes a long time for them to take a second look. I am convinced Joe Biden could take a vow of silence for a year and people would still see him as a talkative gaffe-machine.
Debate Recap
Sep 27th
I’m out of tune more often than not with conventional wisdom, so I don’t have a strong opinion on who did better. Several months ago, the expectations were that McCain would best Obama in a foreign policy debate and it would be a victory if Obama could hold his own. After McCain’s behavior the last week, I think the new expectations were that it would be a victory for McCain if he showed up on stage wearing pants.
I wasn’t sure if McCain would fly in on stage in a hot air balloon, if he would rappel down from the rafters, or ride in piggyback on Joe Lieberman yeling “Yippie!” When he walked on stage like a normal candidate, I think that was a major campaign surprise. A real game changer.
I like the new format of the debates a lot, and I’d be happy to have Jim Lehrer host all of them. He does a great job. One quibble with a question he asked, the one about what programs or priorities would be put on hold because of the cost of the bailout. It’s one of those questions where the evasive, politician-speak answer is the right one.
The number $700 billion wasn’t arrived at based on certain conditions in the market. It was because they needed a big, dramatic number. That’s not a joke. I don’t have the quote from the Treasury official who said that handy, but I can dig it up if you want. Here is a link to the quote.
The point is no one knows at this point whether the bailout will be $350 billion, $700 billion, or $1.3 trillion. We don’t know how much money the government will lose (or possibly even make in the long term) because no one knows yet how much these sub-prime mortgages cost. The point of the bailout as I understand it is to create an environment where banks can find the true value of these mortgages (like on an auction market) and be able to sell them without going bankrupt. Once every financial institution has their books in balance and knows how much money they truly have, it will be easier to make new loans to businesses and lend to each other because then they”ll know how much risk they can take.
(I have to say that I’m not confident about my understanding at all. I could be completely off.)
The main point is that neither McCain or Obama will know how much they have to cut or what changes they’ll have to make until they know how much the budget shortfall will be. I guess they could have responded “Well, if I had to cut something, I would cut…” but it would have been better if Lehrer had asked that question directly.
What did you think? Let me know your thoughts.
Next-day non-live live debate blogging
Feb 22nd
8:07: I admire Clinton’s ability for tailoring her opening statement to the audience, but I think she took it a little too far when she commemorated former Cowboys coach Tom Landry.
8:09 Four minutes in and still mud-free!
8:10. Obama’s opening statement. He’s using a lot of the same phrases he used in past speeches. No one’s accusing him of plagiarism this time!
8:11 I call this opening remark pander-off a tie. A good pandering to the both of you.
8:12. Obama: “What we are lacking now isn’t good ideas.” He introduced this line a week ago, I guess it’s a swipe against Clinton’s wonkiness, but I actually don’t agree with him. Political strategy is critical to implementing legislation, but what you are trying to implement is important as well. This line is anti-idealistic, and it’s strange coming from a campaign partially based in idealism.
8:14: First question is from the soccer game announcer at Univision. “Senator Clinton, what are your GOAAAAAAAALS for America?” Actually, it’s a good opening question: “Would you be willing to meet with Raul Castro or whoever leads the Cuban dictatorship?”
8:15 Clinton’s response: not until Cuba changes first. This is the same argument Bush uses for not talking to countries. It’s based on the idea that America is the popular kid in school and Cuba is a socially awkward nerd that will do anything to please us. We’re like 0 for 13 in countries we tried this policy against.
Another ridiculous policy: embargoes. When have they ever worked? We had a trade embargo against Cuba for 40 years, and all it did was make the Cuban people poorer. We would have got rid of Castro faster by sending over some of our potato chips. Try living past 70 after eating a bucket of Lays, Fidel.
8:17: I can’t say if Obama’s position on Cuba is ideal, but it’s worlds better and more forward thinking than Clinton’s position.
8:22 Obama makes a good argument for active diplomacy–to undo some of the damage caused by Bush.
8:23 Q: “How are you different from Clinton on economy?” Are they different?
8:25 Obama avoiding differences so far, giving stump speech answer.
8:28 Clinton wants a “trade timeout”. No X-boxes for 2 weeks.
8:30 Pleasantly pleasant so far. I wonder if at 9:00 they will give Clinton and Obama battle sticks and send them into the Octagon. (Note: I swear I wrote this at 8:30, and not after watching what happened around 9:00)
8:30 I like Clinton’s “War on Science” line. I also like the passionate, positive Clinton. There is an argument to be made that her only chance is to ferociously attack Obama, but I personally like and admire Hillary more when she’s arguing for herself and not against Obama.
8:31 Today’s group to pander to: Hispanics. The Kanaka Maoli got totally left out when their wasn’t a debate in Hawaii.
8:33 The path to citizenship for illegal immigrants sounds like a huge pain in the ass. Are any illegal immigrants really going to do this?
8:34 Obama: We need to tone down the rhetoric. Fits in with his campaign well. “We need to fix legal immigration process.” Clinton nods in agreement, looks like she’s thinking “I wish I said that.”
8:36 Snide question from me: How can we help the Mexican economy when we have trouble with our own? It’s probably one of those ideas that ends up helping both of us, but people become more protectionist when they’re fearful for their own economic future.
8:37 Border fence question. Question I would prefer: “Is a border fence as stupid as it sounds?”
(Side note–the audience seems slightly pro-Hillary. Not sure if it’s her performance or their predisposition)
Clinton’s argument for why she and Obama voted for a border fence: Bush tricked both of us. Again! Damn you, Bush.
8:39 Clinton mentions “smart fencing”. Is that like those ultrasound electric dog fences? Overall, she gave a good response.
Obama agrees with Clinton. Clinton nods in agreement, looks like she’s thinking “Yeah, I’m the one who said it.”
8:43 Obama mentions the “Dream Act”. I don’t know what that is, but Obama is dreamy, so I support it.
8:43 Get this Univision guy back for another debate. He asks good questions. “Is there a downside to a bilingual nation?”
8:46 Obama: I want kids to learn a second language. Woah, hold on there, Barack. I don’t like learning new stuff. And I don’t want to raise a race of super kids that are smarter than me. Let’s keep our kids the way they are now: unilingual and dumb.
(commercial break) If this is what debates will be like, Obama should be fine with one every week. Both candidates are coming off well, which favors Obama slightly.
8:50 John King: Will you fight. Please? Come on. I’ll help you out. Obama is a _____.
8:52 Bye Internet. I was watching the debate online. Come back soon.
8:56: Obama says something that gets a lot of applause. What is it? I don’t know, INTERNET.
8:57. Campbell Brown: Seriously, you have to fight. I mean, Senator Clinton, you are sitting next to a plagiarist.
8:58 SILLY SEASON! I love it, Obama! I want to put Silly Season on my popcorn.
8:59 Clinton must have been crushed when that line bombed. “…lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in; it’s change you can Xerox.” It’s a good line, but the timing was horrible, especially after Obama’s strong response against the charges of plagiarism. First boos of the night.
9:00 Number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop: three. Number of questions it takes to get candidates to fight: two.
9:03 Where is this debate, next to a wind turbine? A gust of wind has been blowing their papers around for the past 10 minutes.
9:06 Obama: openness vs. closedness. Closedness is why Hillary’s health care reform in the 90s failed. Plans needs to be explained to people. A philosophical difference between the two candidates.
9:11 More fight questions!
9:13 Obama gives a better-than-usual rebuttal to Clinton’s health care claim.
9:15 It’s an attack question, but it’s from the Univision guy, so I like it.
9:22 Good question on the surge: Were you wrong in opposing it?
9:22 Very good answer by Clinton–goal of surge was about political progress. Goal still hasn’t been met. Completely true. The whole point of the surge was to create a safe enough environment for political progress to take root and flourish. The security part worked, but the political process is still stalled. We need to do something else to motivate the many power-holders in Iraq to figure out a political solution.
9:24 Clinton: “Last night in Brownsville, you know, a woman grabbed my hand and said, ‘Please, my husband’s there for the third time. Bring him home.’ ” There are a lot of people grabbing Hillary’s hand. Where is she holding rallies, Zombie Conventions? “Last night, in Gaisnville, a young zombie mother of two grabbed my hand and said, “BRAAAINS!” And I tell you, when one of her daughters started biting my ankle, the tears welled up in my eyes.”
9:33 Questions on their records on earmark spending. Obama mentions a “Google for Government” bill he co-sponsored with a staunch conservative. I like the bill, and I like his point–it’s not earmarks that are bad, it’s the secrecy behind them.
9:35 Hillary: Remember the good times with Bill? I’m a Clinton too.
9:36 Univision guy asks his first bad question. Super delegates: yawn.
9:39 “Describe the moment in your life when you were tested the most?” I think Oprah submitted that question.
9:43 Awwww…. (Hillary gave a nice closing response. They shook hands. You had to be there.)
Non-live debate blogging
Feb 21st
It means I’ll jot some notes while I’m watching tonight’s Democratic debate and post them later. Or maybe not. I wrote notes for the last debate, but didn’t feel motivated to share them.
Non-live Debate Blogging, Part 2
Feb 1st
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.
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