http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/
This article shows the campaign ads of both Obama and McCain post debate and shows their different approaches and how they were trying to spin the debate. Obama's campaign ad was saying that McCain never mentioned the middle class once during the whole debate. McCain's campaign ad shows various clips where Obama is agreeing with McCain on one subject matter or another. McCain also tried to emphasize his experience whereas Obama emphasized change. The article mentions that one of Obama's goals for the debate was to link McCain to Bush in terms of economic policy so people will be put off by that. I don't know how successful Obama was in creating this link, but I think it is a good strategy because people are clearly displeased with how the economy has turned out under the Bush administration. McCain is generally not that great of a public speaker, but I think the debate was his best public appearance so far. He looked composed and did a good job speaking, which is very good for him because he does not want the image of a poor public speaker. A president should always seem knowledgeable and confident while speaking in public and I think McCain's showing at the debate definitely helped him in that regard. The ultimate question is who really "won" the debate? I think McCain's stronger than usual speaking and his ad repeatedly showing Obama agreeing with his points makes him seem like he might have a leg up over Obama. Also, though both candidates had about equal speaking time, McCain seemed to dominate most of the conversation. I am wondering now if this recent debate will significantly change the polls one way or another or not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
As is typical in presidential debate tactics, both sides claimed victory to what the public percieved to be an equally fought battle. It seems as though McCain's appearance and poise behind the podium could only do him good, as Americans obviously hold the president's public appearance and speaking abilities in high regard. President Bush is often times unfairly portrayed in the media because of his fallacies in speech and it is becoming apparent critics of McCain connect him with both because of the duo's sub-par public appearance and strength of rhetoric and speech. This is actually quite intriguing to see opponents of McCain make this connection, as Bush and McCain are not the greatest of friends (as apparent in the 2000 election). The question I have for this blogger is under what presumptions do you believe McCain won the debate? Was it a moral victory because he did not present himself as less articulate than Obama or did he have better answers to the questions? I guess I am a little confused when you say McCain "dominated" the conversation. Didn't both candidates have equal air time?
It is very difficult to determine which candidate actually "won" the debate because both make good arguments for themselves. I did however see a segment of the Colbert Report where Steven Colbert explained how McCain had won the debate. One of his main reasons was the fact that Obama agreed with McCain on many of the points that McCain had made. Obama seemed to misunderstand the idea of a debate. As mentioned the Republicans said McCain won and Democrats said that Obama won. I believe it was about 90% of republicans for McCain and 94% of Democrats for Obama. In my opinion McCain did a better job of showing where Obama would do America wrong. He talked about how Obama was going to spend millions on different plans that would cost the tax payers money. Obama tried to link McCain to Bush, but didn't do a very good job. Mosly because McCain is running against the current Republican party; which is a wise decision.
First of all, in response to Justin, I do not think President Bush is really unfairly portrayed in the media about his speech flaws. If he says something stupid and the media picks up on it, that is not unfair that is his own fault for not thinking before he speaks. Even though Bush and McCain are not buddies they are still members of the same party so it is easy to link them together to anyone who is not really paying attention, and even if they do not get along that does not mean their views on all the issues are different.
In response to Doug, I agree that McCain did a better job of pointing out Obama's flaws than the other way around, which is why I said McCain dominated the conversation. Even though the majority of people in both parties said their candidate won, which is to be expected, there is that 6-10%who did not think their candidate won who could make the difference. Those people could be the swing voters who are not really sure and are willing to admit their candidate did not win.
Post a Comment