VP debate odds.......Follow

2 to 5 that even if Palin totally blows it, Fox/Gbaji/Knox say she was "brilliant"

Ah... So pretty much the same spin Dems are putting on the Presidential Debate last Friday? ;)


I lost count of the number of times I heard the equivalent of "This was McCain's strength and he didn't knock it out of the park, so that means that Obama won...". Lol!

Er? Now I'll admit that it's been awhile since I did debates, but as a general rule, saying that your opponent is right is usually considered a bad thing. Saying it repeatedly through the course of the evening is "really bad".


To be fair, political debates are not like normal debates though. The point is not necessarily to "win" an argument, but to present a relative view of yourself and your opponent that favors you on election day. So yes. Obama holding his own in an area McCain has a significant advantage in helps him. Also though, Obama saying "John is right" over and over hurts Obama (and helps McCain). Additionally, McCain's consistent statements that "Sen. Obama is naive and doesn't understand" works on election day in a way that isn't apparent during or even immediately after the debate itself.

People pick up on phrases and labels during debate (heck. during the campaign as a whole). Those tend to stick in their minds and have a significant effect on their votes. At the end of the day, it's more important in a presidential debate to associate a key word or phrase with a candidate (positive for you and/or negative for your opponent) than it is to "win" any single question or issue at the debate itself.

In a month, no one will remember exactly what McCain or Obama said about the geopolitical significance of Ukraine and Georgia, but they will remember that McCain called Obama naive and inexperienced, and Obama called McCain "right".

Pretty funny:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/couric-palin-open/704042/








Edited, Sep 29th 2008 8:15pm by trickybeck

The words matter though. You don't name the other guy, say he's "absolutely right", and then add some additional context to spin it to your position. That's the kind of approach you use when you're trying to sway a body of people to a specific position on an issue. You can make it appear as though you're agreeing with a broad position and then narrow it to something you specifically want. That way you appear to be agreeing with everyone at the table, while shifting the topic to a exact solution you want them to associate with said agreement.

Heck. I use virtually the same methodology when I'm sitting in a meeting at work and someone suggests applying some solution and I think I've got a slightly better way of doing it. I don't say he's wrong and an idiot and then present my idea as a better alternative. I say that his idea is good, but hey! Maybe if we make this slight change to your idea it'll work just a bit better... Then I proceed to sell my idea, not as a competing alternative, but as an improvement on the same general theme. It works. Quite well in fact. Heck. I'll teach you all about "the funnel" sometime if you want more techniques on how to sway people to doing what you want them to do...


If the choice people vote on is what specific economic plan they want to adopt, that's a great approach. But that's *not* how you debate if the choice they'll be making is just between two people (which it is). Because what you've done is basically tell everyone that the other guy has good ideas. The voters aren't actually assessing which idea is better, but which candidate is better.


And that's the context that really matters. Obama was treating that debate like the objective was to convince people that his ideas were better. McCain was trying to convince voters that he is better...

Isn't this supposed to be about the VP debate?

I think Palin's going to look surprisingly well, simply because this upcoming debate format isn't going to really allow for impromptu, back-and-forth discussion.

If the VP debate followed the same format as the presidential debate, it would probably end with Palin drowning in a puddle of her own tears, followed by her decision to back out of the running to "spend more time with family."

NPR let a little of its liberal bias seep through today. See, they were doing 10 minute segments on each of the VP candidates this week, in preparation for the VP debate. However, while Biden gave them a brief interview, Palin declined (since the McCain campaign has her bound and gagged.)

The 10 minute segment thus was a brief bio, followed by all the "unanswered questions" and commentary about her having the strangest VP candidacy in history. And the obligatory complaint about not being granted an interview.

To the McCain campaign: Keeping your candidates locked away from reporters doesn't mean they won't say anything bad about them. It does, however, make them less inclined to say anything good about them.

This would be touching.

I was being sarcastic . . .

(Right, right, sarcasm doesn't carry over the internet. I forgot this.)

That would certainly be a first.

Nexa

A question I would like to have an answer to if I was a voting/thinking American.



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Interviewer : Governer Palin. There are many decisions a VP has to make in the course of their career that have to be based upon 'best- evidence' and 'provable facts'.

Bearing that in mind, you have been quoted as saying in regards to creationism that you believe it should be 'taught' in schools, wich to me seems to imply a belief on your part that it has some basis in established fact.

Could you explain to the audience what provable evidence there is to justify teaching 'creationism' as a science, alongside other sciences such as physics biology and indeed evolution? And does your own personal faith in the idea of creationism extend to believing that dinosaurs and humans co-existed on this planet as recently as four thousand years ago?

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Missing the point I think. You don't disagree with things that are correct. You just don't make a point of naming your opponent and saying "<blank> is absolutely correct". You'd say something like: "Yes, of course the sky is blue, however <insert relevant point here>".

There's a difference between saying that a fact is correct and saying that your opponent is correct. The very closest you really want to get to the latter is to make a statement of agreement (ie: <blank> and I agree that ...). It's just really really bad debating practice to actually say that the other guy is right. Even when he is right. You acknowledge that the fact is correct. You don't actually say the other guy is right.


Yes. I know this is about the VP debate, but I couldn't help feeling a bit jarred when watching the Presidential debate. Obama is so good at wordsmithing when he's giving a speech, so it was very surprising to see him making what I consider to be "rookie mistakes" in a more free form format.



As to the VP debate? Honestly, the shorter and more constrained format will help Biden as much if not moreso than Palin. Biden has a really bad habit of meandering off topic and wandering into the bogs of his own odd ideas if he's given too much time to talk. If you've ever seen him in an open format discussion you know what I'm talking about. The guy is nice, but he's just a bit off his rocker. Not in a whacko crazy way, but in a "I have some very strange social/political ideas floating around in my head, but I usually keep them to myself" kind of way.


I doubt we'll see anything too surprising though.