Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: VP Debates
From: anwar+@cs.cmu.edu (Anwar Mohammed)
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 20:15:50 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <92288.111346JCT3@psuvm.psu.edu> <JCT3@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>Ad. Stockdale - The less said, the better.  Although he came across
>as a very personable guy, he did not instill any confidence.
>
>
>Dan Quayle - Superficially he appeared pretty good: aggressive and
>refusing to back down.  As the debate wore on though, his style
>began to wear a little thin.  Two major goofs undermined this strategy,
>though.  It is pretty stupid to try and tell the author of a book
>what that book says.  Quayle spent maybe a couple of days reading
>Gore's book; Gore spent a year or so writing it.  Similarly, Gore
>probably has a better idea of how he voted on certain issues than would
>Quayle.

Apparently not.  The record has confirmed that despite votes against 
in '82 and '83, Al Gore, in 1990, voted for the very same initiative 
that he claims sent manufacturing jobs overseas.


>
>These two incidents have a couple of disturbing ramifications.  As far
>as the book goes, this tells us soemthing about 1.  How carefully
>Quayle read the book in the first place, and/or 2. How well Quayle
>can read [cheap shot; couldn't resist].  More disturbing, though,
>is the way Dan presented these arguments.  On both of these points
>Quayle said [more or less] "We've got the facts, we'll show you the
>record after the debate."  In both cases, the news researchers had
>determined before the debate was even over that Dan had screwed up.

Wrong.  See above.

>
>The question raised is this:  Was the Republican strategy to throw
>as many attacks at the Dems as possible, regardless of their validity,
>figuring that moast voters 1. would be impressed by Quayle's new
>agressiveness, and 2. would not wait to see whether or not those
>claims could be substantiated.  I'm not positive, but I think that in
>both of these cases Quayle made his offer of verification at the end
>of the discussion when Gore could not respond.  I wonder if Dan
>kept that proof in a briefcase . . .
>
>"A crisis will develop.  I don't know where or when . . ."  Give me
>a break.  This is just a retread of Reagan's "There's a bear in the
>woods ad."
>
>
>Gore - did pretty good.  Like Clinton, he appeared perhaps TOO
>polished for his own good.  Unlike Quayle, he had a solid command
>of his information.  

Obviously not.  The two biggest gaffes were his misinformation on
his voting record I've mentioned above and his repeated lie that
"a vast majority" of scientists in the world believe that we are
approaching environmental catastrophe.   

Regrading taxes, something interesting happened:
When Dan Quayle brought up the tax figure of $150 billion dollars
on a couple of occasions, rather than refute it with "facts" from
the Clinton Plan, all Gore did was claim that it was untrue.  I
believe it was because Al Gore *couldn't* possibly have brought up
the offsetting middle class tax cuts because Clinton has pretty much 
abandoned it.  At that point in the debate, Quayle would surely have
used this as another example of 'pulling a Clinton', but to even more
devestating effect than any other example he provided. 
Obviously, I also think it was a big mistake for Quayle not to 
bring it up directly himself.


>
>Gore came off fairly well, particularly when compared to some of his
>earlier speeches.  His one low blow [re limiting terms] was good.

I think Quayle's comeback was as damaging (all the sound bites have
included it).  Bunching Al Gore with Kennedy and Metzenbaum (sleazebags
R us) was a really low blow.


One of the silliest things I've heard in the post-debate spinning was
that Quayle was "too rough", guilty of behaviour not befitting a 
vice-president, "an attack dog"...This reeks of sour grapes and 
it convinces me that the Clinton/Gore campaign are disappointed with
the outcome of the debate.  Regardless of who was a technically superior
debater, Gore came off sound like Robopol and Quayle made a few things
stick, namely the tax issue and the character issue, the latter reinforced
by Stockdale.



>
>Jim Thomas
>Penn State


-- 
Anwar Mohammed                FREE       Graduate Student
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush