From: erics@infoserv.com (Eric S. Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Thoughts on the 2nd debate
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 22:44:19 PDT
Organization: Reigning Cats and Dogs
Reply-To: erics@infoserv.com
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.6v1

This debate was more interesting for the questions than for the answers.
About 90% of the questions dealt primarily with the economy. There was
one question on foreign policy, one on racism, one on crime, one on
the inner cities. There were no questions on the draft, family values,
trips to Moscow, trust (although Bush tried to work it in every chance
he could), etc.

Given the audience of uncommitted voters who posed the questions, this
shows why Clinton has a big lead in the polls: voters care about the
issues on which the Democrats are focusing; they don't care about the
issues the Republicans are trying to raise.

Thoughts on the candidates:

Clinton - if not a home run performance, it was just short of it. As
one commentator said afterwards, "he was at home in this format". He
was the only candidate who responded to the issues questions with detailed
responses outlining his positions and the things he would do as President.
He interacted very well with the audience, for the most part sounding
sincere, involved and caring. Best moment: interacting with the woman
who asked how the economy had affected the candidates directly, after
Bush had made a rambling and confused answer.

Bush - He wasn't a disaster, but the debate was a disaster for him.
His only hope in the last few weeks of the campaign is to change the
character of the race, something he clearly hoped the debates would
allow him to do. But he was unable to achieve his purpose in raising
the trust issue, or to become more aggressive toward Clinton because
the crowd took him out of his game plan early by deploring the negative
style the campaign has assumed. He talked vaguely about plans to achieve
this or that goal, but was short on specifics and offered no real vision
of the future, as in the first debate. He tended to ramble a little
and didn't interact well with the audience. He looked very uncomfortable;
at one point the camera caught him looking at his watch as if wondering
just how much longer this had to go on. He did score some points with
his closing statement. Strangest moment: when he said that "portable"
was a "big word, I know". Just where does he rate the intelligence of
the voters?

Perot - He presented essentailly the same face as in the first debate,
but this time it wasn't as fresh or as effective. Extremely short on
specifics, his plans each sounded mostly like "put everybody together
in one room and the problem will be solved, like apples falling off
a tree". Often he made the same points as Clinton, but where Clinton
was succinct and precise, Perot was long-winded, rambling, confused,
and offered no solutions. Perot really has about nothing left to say.

Clinton is cruising at the moment, and it's hard to see how Bush can
narrow the gap. The next debate will feature some time of open discussion
similar to the free-swinging Veep debate, but it's clear that the voters
don't want to see the namecalling style of campaigning. Bush is in a
double bind: he can't change the character of the race without attacking
Clinton, but he can't look Presidential if he does.

-----
Eric Smith
erics@infoserv.com
CI$: 70262,3610