alternative hippopotamus » Blog Archive » In Which I See The Presidential Debates

In Which I See The Presidential Debates

by AltHippo @ 2:12 am. Filed under 2008 Elections

Tonight I watched the debate between Obama and McCain at the 17th St. Cafe near Dupont Circle with a largely (perhaps entirely) progressive audience. Here’s what I learned: in a situation where the stakes are very high, and this presidential contest counts as such a situation, watch what you say. Tonight, for example, I thought that Obama had a very good night, but needs to be more clear on some of his attacks. In particular, there were two concerns that I had about his performance:

He has a bad habit of saying “I agree with my opponent.” A debate is by its nature a compare and contrast kind of event. Saying why you’re the right guy, and your opponent is the wrong guy is entirely okay in that situation.
Obama has either the excellent or horrible habit, depending on your point of view, of being congenial. Obama tends to allow his opponent to frame attacks. McCain’s overall theme for these debates is clearly that Obama does not have the experience to be president. He said as much in his closing. Obama’s theme is less clear. One of the people I was with argued that Obama’s theme was that McCain does not have the judgment to be president. I would argue that Obama could learn something about framing his attacks.

Here’s how WaPo’s Michael Shear and Shailagh Murray saw the framing of the debate:

McCain repeatedly cast Obama as naive, while the Democrat sought to link his opponent to the highly unpopular president, especially on the economy and Iraq policy. At the end, McCain stated unequivocally that “I honestly don’t believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience” to be president.

Here’s how Jane Hamsher saw the standoff:

But the biggest problem for me was that McCain had a grab bag of adjectives he consistently used to characterize Obama — “naive, inexperienced” — and every time he repeated them, it was like money in the bank. He worked them in at every opportunity, and their cumulative effect wore into Obama as the evening went on. Obama missed the opportunity to do the same and characterize McCain as brittle, rash, impulsive and out-of-touch. His critiques were all over the place, and his failure to tie them together into a coherent narrative about McCain meant that he never really grazed the old buzzard.

That sounds pretty close to what I was saying. Now, no one is trying to argue that Obama didn’t win the debate. He did. I think there is an argument that Obama could learn something about creating a clearer message.

And here’s my point: saying that Obama was off in his framing was an opinion dismissed out of hand. None of the people I was with wanted to hear anything of the sort. I’m not even sure if we’re on speaking terms at this point.

This was rather surprising to me. Hopefully this is just an abberation of the intense political drama.

Bookmark on del.icio.us

[link]

September 2008
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Aug		Oct »
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Recent Trackbacks:

Mad Kane’s Political Madness: Bush and Cheney’s Blunderland (Song Parody)
Wonkette: Metro Section: It's Friday the 13th so DC is More Repressed Than Usual
Wonkette: Metro Section: No Mark Foley Edition
ktigllpcnao: bhfxaflie
ixlyjxpey: zyqyenetqs

September 27, 2008

Leave a Reply

contact

The Alternative Hypothesis podcast feed The New Media: Introduction 12.09.2006 Ford et Al The Surge

the elephants of anwr

issues and insight

capitolists

alt media

sounds

critical resources

flora and fauna

law & order

events

cinema

literati

propaganda

use with extreme caution

internal links:

categories:

search blog:

archives:

other:

Recent Comments

HippoWire

Recent Trackbacks:

The Alternative Hypothesis

podcast feed

The New Media: Introduction

12.09.2006

Ford et Al

The Surge