I am incredibly bored by every attempt to re-litigate the 2000 campaign between George W. Bush and Al Gore, especially efforts to blame the media. I might agree. I might disagree. Mostly, I don’t want to think about it. I do remember one thing that’s worth mentioning, though, since we’ll all see the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton tonight. I recall cringing during the first debate between Gore and Bush because Bush was being blown out so badly that I had the urge to intervene on his behalf and stop the pummeling he was taking. The problem was, I was judging the debate by metrics that mattered to me, like whether Bush could demonstrate even a rudimentary preparedness for the job. And, he couldn’t. He was flagrantly uninformed, inarticulate, and basically incapable of having an intelligent conversation on any issue that was raised. That Al Gore sighed a lot while enduring the idiocy coming from Bush’s side of the stage was more than understandable, even if I thought he should make an effort to look a little less exasperated.
The important point, though, is that it didn’t matter whether the media agreed with me (as some initially did) that Gore had floored Bush repeatedly in the debate, or if they focused on their best guesses of how the public would react to Gore’s impatience. All that mattered is what the audience actually thought.
And, yes, I’ll acknowledge that the post-debate coverage mattered because a lot more people were exposed to the “analysis” than actually watched the debate for themselves. But the analysis was mixed. In the end, Bush probably came out the winner because the American people, on balance, decided he was the winner.
Even though I learned my lesson from that experience, I still was surprised that McCain wasn’t hurt worse by Sarah Palin’s bizarre debate performance against Joe Biden.
This isn’t to say that Donald Trump will win tonight’s debate. It’s only to point out that acting in a totally unconventional manner and demonstrating complete cluelessness won’t necessarily hurt him. We might almost feel sorry for him only to discover that he’s jumped ahead in the polls.
On the other hand, we might think he’s met the standard for a presidential debate better than we ever expected, only to discover that people were really offended by the way he waved his hands.
I have no idea how to win a presidential debate. I only know that it isn’t decided by the folks at Ted Cruz’s American Whig-Cliosophic Society.
As soon as the debate ends, everyone will have an opinion about who won and how much it might matter. You can probably go to sleep without listening to them. The polls will do a better job than they will in answering those questions.
The last people to have an opinion on a debate is someone who follows politics closetly.
My favorite debate post debate headline:
“No Apparent Winner”: Adam Clymer, New York Times, October 29th, 1980.
Post debate polling would show a Reagan margin of about 15 points in who won.
A week later that would grow to 25.
Some more history, this relevant. This is the post debate poll to the first Carter Ford debate. Note BOTH candidates actually increased their support within their party. Something pretty common. The difference in debates is often who consolidates their support more effectively.
However, the press lives on twitter these days and the memes that spread there turn into narratives that do shape coverage for the week that follows. So anyone supporting Clinton (or at least anti-Trump) should be tweeting up a storm because it can shape coverage and advance anti-Trump memes. I normally don’t think that sort of thing matters, but in these sort of brief moments it can.
I spent the first Obama-McCain debate getting annoyed at Obama for missing obvious attacks he could make on McCain, and finished up thinking he’d been completely ineffectual. Then the polls told me that the TV audience thought he’d won, 2-to-1. But Obama (like Bill Clinton) is a great campaigner and he understands what voters want a lot better than I do. I don’t have that confidence with Hillary.
Consider that Clinton literally can not afford to cough onstage.
Or smile. Or not smile. Or laugh. Or not laugh. Or raise her voice. Or be too meek. Or wear (fill in the blank). Or be too demonstrative, as to seem non-genuine. Or be too dispassionate, as to seem cold and aloof.
In other words, no matter what she does she will likely be held to an impossible standard. I haven’t decided, as yet, whether I will even watch the debate. I think she could hit the equivalent of a debate grand slam and I’m expecting even that won’t be sufficient for those who will be spinning the narratives on Tuesday.
Ah, and I now see that at the last minute Trump is now going to have a Benghazi survivor in the front row, too. So thanks, Chuck Todd, for planting that seed. Good job.
Oh, this is so true! It’s a no-win for Clinton because Trump will be dropping lies the entire time and she’ll be forced to refute them. And as you said, she could gut him and make him look like the fool he is, and the spin somehow will still be in his favor.
I’ll probably watch, because I want to see how my opinion measures up against the rest, but I’m not going to place any bets.
Oh yes, I remember that first debate well. I couldn’t understate how the Republicans had selected a standard bearer who was so obviously unfit for the office of the President, but I was convinced after that first debate he didn’t have a chance. I was so naive back then.
After that debate, Gore was knocked off his stride. He was overly nice and un-combative in the next, and subsequently seemed to be frantically looking for the right balance.
And of course, I never dreamed that 16 years later, the Republicans would select a candidate that would make George W look like a great statesman.
Unfortunately, Chris, a colleague, and I called that first 2000 debate. We ducked out of a business retreat schmooze session to watch it. As two of the few women there and possibly the only two Democrats. (Chris suggested that we make a pact and leave the country if GWB was elected. Appealing but totally impractical and probably near impossible.)
Sure Gore nailed it on content, but the optics made the content difficult to hear and absorb. We weren’t happy campers at the end of that debate. Gore needed better than a draw to begin to put GWB away on election day.
Expectations play a huge role in political debates. Incumbents and/or those with plenty of debates under his/her belt are supposed to do better than a less experienced challenger. The challenger gets spotted a few points which is why a draw can be claimed when a more objective rating would have the experienced candidate modestly besting the challenger.
And HRC does not have top tier debate qualities.
She’s about as good as it gets for being well-trained and well-rehearsed but not a fast on her feet thinker. It’s somewhat difficult to knock her off-balance. Obama, Sanders, and O’Malley did succeed a few times in doing so, but what they didn’t do was press their advantage at that point. For good reason because Hillary has a cudgel ready to pull out in such a moment.
She is not good at turns of phrase or making memorable moments in the debate like “please proceed.” That is, communicating her themes for an audience. That’s Trump’s strength and it probably matters a lot more than command of policy.
she is competent at communicating to audiences willing to listen to complete sentences. She isn’t able to pretend that real policies can be turned into sound bites.
“willing to listen to complete sentences”
If your vote is based purely on anger and resentment, and an overwhelming desire to tell the political establishment to go fuck itself, then whether or not your candidate speaks in complete sentences doesn’t matter.
Audiences of quite able to listen to and understand complete sentences. It’s HRC’s long paragraphs (of mostly complete sentences but not always devoid of word salad) with contradictory sentences that lose audiences for her. She works very hard never to take a clear stand on practically anything. We could call this general election Zelig v. Zelig.
She is not good at turns of phrase or making memorable moments …
True. Worse is when she comes with pre-packaged assumed to be crowd-pleasing lines. What has worked for her is going into her I’m just a girl that works hard mode. Damn, one could almost see the tears in her eyes from her words in the last debate with Sanders. A brilliant canned line from her team and well-delivered by Hillary.
If Trump gets anywhere near her ability to pull out “I’m just a girl,” this can easily kneecap him.
Responding from hindsight, it helped immensely that the crowd was prohibited from responding to the candidates. Trump was really put off his game by not being able to feed off them, and he would have because there were several times they would have cheered his statements.
I guess it helps to be a sociopath who lies fluently.
From what I understand, by the morning after a debate whoever the media says “won” the debate is who people think “won” the debate according to KDrum charts from last election. In fact if snap-polls say A won the debate, but the chatter is all about how B won, by the morning the polls think B won.
I have no idea whether that translates into support or not. So in one respect the spin matters a lot to who won, on the other hand does who won translate into more support? In that respect you are right.
iirc the media said that HRC won all her primary debates — snap polls and chatter didn’t confirm that assessment.
The analysis was hardly mixed. The “Al Gore is the snotty ‘front row’ kid being condescending to the ‘regular guy’ Bush, who you ‘wanted to have a beer with'” type vastly outnumbered the “this Bush guy is staggeringly incompetent!” type.
Since most people were exposed to the analysis rather than the actual; debate it really swung the thought around.
Of course then they were off on the “Al Gore claims he invented the internet Har Har Har!!!” schtick.
The Media had Their Candidate in 2000 and they did their absolute best to put their thumbs, elbows, feet and cartoon 1000-pound weights on the scale in his favor.
And Gore still won.
I really don’t see the point of watching tonight. For me political debate is not an entertainment event. I already know who I’m going to support, and why. If I thought there would be a useful discussion of policy positions, it might be worth the aggravation of listening to Trump. But there won’t be. The same applies to the spin doctors. Jeezus it’s tiresome. Lets just vote already and get this over with.
You just summed up my attitude exactly. I have no intention to listen to this or any of the other debates. I don’t want to. I don’t want to ruin some few hours of my life listening to and watching Trump. UGH. No thanks.
I know who I’m voting for, and it definitely ain’t Trump. There is nothing that jerk could say or do to change my opinion.
My prediction? The media will be insanely harsh on Clinton and hold her to ridiculously high standards, which no one could achieve.
The media and the pundits will totally fawn all over Trump, and if he manages not to make a complete horse’s ass out of himself, they’ll declare a huge giant bigly win.
UGH. No thanks.
Good luck to us all.
Yes, good luck to us all, and good luck to the Blue Jays, that’s who I’ll be watching tonight.
The media has set the bar so low for Trump, from their point of view he just has to not spontaneously combust on stage and he will have shown himself to be presidential and ready for the Oval Office.
If there’s any possibility of picking up the pieces from what’s left of the United States and the world when four years with Donald Trump have come and gone, I hope reform of the corporate media is at the top of the list of things to be done.
equally annoying, distorting.