From: elendil@mintir.new-orleans.la.us (Edward J. Branley)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: Vice Shrub Won.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 14:56:16 CDT
Organization: Minas Tirith BBS (Public Access Usenet for New Orleans)

egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:

> In article <3VcmsB3w165w@mintir.new-orleans.la.us> elendil@mintir.new-orleans
> >egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
> >
> >>
> >> Yup, I think Our Man Dan actually won.  He came out there shooting,
> >> was aggressive with the occassional little fact, and didn't make an
> >> obvious gaffe.
> >
> >His entire performance was a gaffe.  I heard a caller on a radio call-in sho
> >today say that all Our Boy had to do was not drool during the debate.  Well,
> >the time of the abortion question, he was drooling.
>
> I disagree.  He managed to spew a bit with the tax-and-spend and trust
> rhetoric, but I think some of that stuck.  Gore didn't counter-punch
> very well.  As said, in the issue of trust, he should have hit Quayle
> hard with Iran-contra, etc.  Reciting Bush's campaign promises wasn't
> a strong response: I think people tend to think of those statements as
> just that, campaign promises.  Iran-contra smacks of law-breaking,
> subverting the Constitution, etc.  Perhaps a bit more esoteric, but he
> should have been able to hit that Bush is a criminal, just as easily
> as Quayle hinted that Clinton was a traitor.  Gore didn't follow-up
> this line of attack very well, and the trust issue is going to stick.
> Perhaps I was just hoping for more than merely sitting on a
> pre-rehearsed speech.

There was no need for more than that pre-rehearsed line, given how weak the
attack was.  Actually, Gore's counter-punches were limited to "you're wrong" so
many times because that's exactly what Our Boy was:  wrong.  There were so many
times that Dano outright lied that it was difficult for Gore to get into a
serious punch-counter situation.

>
> >
> >>
> >> Gore was wooden, and there were a couple of lines I thought he should
> >> have followed up on but didn't.  So much for zinging your opponent
> >> with the single-moderator.
> >
> >'Dan, can you say "I support a woman's right to choose?"'  That's not follow
> >up?  What debate were you watching?
>
> This may have been the only good counterattack Gore managed to pull.
> As I said, he was weak everywhere else.  More on trust: Bush is a
> liar.  He should have quoted from Kinsley's article on the 128 tax
> increases, said explicitly how Bush lied, etc.  More on taxes: Gore
> made a reference to Bush already breaking his most recent "no new
> taxes" pledge, but a citation of the bill and details would have been
> more substansive, would have taken more time, and would have been
> highlighted on the evening news.  Gore missed opportunities to really
> hit Bush.  Again, I may be used to a more aggressive style, where
> obvious lines of attack are followed-up (I've been on usenet too long
> :-).  Yes, Clinton has a big lead, and it might be a good, cautious
> move to sit on it.  It just bothers me, makes me nervous.  I don't
> think Bush will win, but I don't want to be sweating on Nov. 3, that's
> all.

There was no real need for Gore to pull out the hatchet and jump down in the
dirt with Dano.  Remember, they're leading by better than 10 points in almost
every poll.  That gave Gore the opportunity to stay above the slime as much as
possible.  Actually, I think that the Dannster's outright misrepresentations
sort of threw him.  Take the thing on his book, for example.  He knew it wasn't
true, but Dano just kept on going.

BTW, I wouldn't sweat the election.  Even His Rushness conceded today.  I'm
with you, that I don't want to get overconfident, however, when even His
Rushness jokes about moving to Britain, I perk up.

> >
> >>
> >> Quayle was helped in part by having the closing zing a number of
> >> times, when I thought the discussion could have continued for quite a
> >> while longer.  Lawyers are right when they say they'd rather have
> >> closing arguments before a jury.  Further, expectations were so low
> >> for him that he would have come across peachy by not saying, for
> >> instance, "Hypocracy is when hippos rule the world."  But give the
> >> Vice Shrub credit: he came prepared.  Quayle as the GOP nominee in
> >> '96?
> >
> >He came prepared to lie and distort.  He couldn't get the line about Gore's
> >book right.
>
> Quite true.  But my argument is that you shouldn't take the lies and
> distortions lying down, which is what Gore did.  Yes, you can say,
> "But I didn't say that," but the statement has no weight in and of
> itself.  Again, I may be extrapolating from a usenet debating style,
> where we have time and resources to provide documentation for a
> refutation rather than merely asserting it.
>

I don't think he took them lying down, but there's only so much you can do when
Dano lies as blatantly as he did.  He said he didn't do it, and left it to the
CNN 'Truth Squad' to do the rest.  Frankly, it was Gore that had a bit of the
deer-in-the-headlights last night.  It's one thing to zing someone with a
one-liner, or come up with an analytical twist that gives you an advantage, but
they just didn't prep Gore for outright lying.



|Edward J. Branley         elendil@mintir.new-orleans.la.us|
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