From: thf2@quads.uchicago.edu (Citecheck Hell)
Subject: Re: Thoughts on the First Debate
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 05:30:58 GMT

In article <1bapvhINNebl@overload.lbl.gov> bks@s27w007.pswfs.gov (Bradley K. Sherman) writes:
>1) Perot won hands down.  He will be rewarded in the polls.

Depends what you mean by "won."  He didn't directly answer a single
question -- he sounded much more like Kibo's parody "I'll work out
the bugs in ninety days."

But by appearing on the same stage as the other two, in the 
sixty-second format without followups, everything went by the board,
and he looked just as good as the other two.  That might not be
enough for Bush, who needs to dominatingly win a debate, but Bush
might be indirectly helped by Perot siphoning some anti-Bush support off of
Clinton.

It won't matter.  It will sink back down to single-digit levels in
the waning days of the campaign, just like it did in 1968 and 1980.

>2) The commission was right, this is a lousy format.  Not a single
>good question was asked (puffballs all) and as soon as the candidates
>began to address the issue, the minute was up and it was on to the
>next disjoint question.  This was perfect for Perot.  Serves Bush
>right.

I agree.  But Bush probably likes it this way.  He was dead wrong in just
about every question he answered, but because of the crowded stage,
nobody had a chance to catch him in a lie.  Thus, it's likely that some
of the mud stuck.  Still, Bush didn't have the laugh-lines he did in
1988, nor was he as negative as he was when I saw him speak in Chicago.
He did not at all attack Clinton's record in Arkansas.

>3) If Clinton uses the word "change" or Bush says "tax and spend"
>one more time they should lose half their remaining time.

Yep.  Same goes for Perot and "task force" and "ninety days."

>4) Perot completely defuses Bush's attacks on Clinton.

That was one good thing to come out of the debate.  Bush looked silly
attacking Clinton on the British Vietnam protest (especially when he
himself criticized Vietnam later in the debate).

One problem Clinton had was his humorlessness -- he answered every
question as a policy wonk trying hard to put his ideas into the
sixty-second sound-bite -- thus he was restricted to parroting "change!
change! change!" in order not to give long-winded ten-point plan answers
that would get cut off after the third point.

But once again, the format sucks.  I hope the single moderator helps,
but Perot would add an irrelevancy every once in awhile.  I liked
Clinton's remark "nice speech, but it's more complicated than that"
but I'm not sure how it would play.  For all Perot's talk about action
being better than talk, he didn't show anything but talk.  I wasn't
going to vote for him anyway, and I've seen enough of him to know not
to vote for him, but even without his paranoiac tendencies, he said
nothing tonight that would convince me to vote for him.

Clinton won on the issues.  Adding in intangibles and the muddle of the
format, it was pretty much a draw.

-- 
ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu 
also at quibeaux@uchicago.edu | standard disclaimers
the university of chicago law school, chicago, illinois 60637
ajax crypto-analyzer -- warning! remove all chicken bones first
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections