Tag: John McCain
Ole Miss Debate Preview
Tune in by 9:00 p.m. Eastern on your TV, participate via many means on the internet, and/or the liveblog with me and other debate geeks at debateScoop and elsewhere for tonight's opening salvo in the debate series leading up to the November general election. The University of Mississippi is the host site, all networks will carry the debate, and Jim Lehrer of PBS is the moderator.
Below the fold we will dive into a number of weeds for people who, like me, study and care about debates.
But even if you are not into the details, several items are worth noting.
First, McCain's Ploy (no debate unless bailout deal) has been exposed for what it is, most damningly by the internet ad declaring him the debate victor that he was running well before he announced he would debate at all.
Second, the economy and the "bailout" is likely to be the first topic tonight even though this was originally billed as a foreign policy and national security debate.
Third, the CW ("common wisdom") while often close enough to accurate on debates (it's circular -- since the media both defines CW and has the biggest influence on perceptions it's hard to throw CW off track), is way off base in one important respect: without exception I have read, even from people who should know better, that Obama needs to be concise and pithy and that nuance will get him in trouble. Sound familiar? The problem with that analysis is that it ignores the very first item every debate coach and debater considers: format. Tonight's format allows extended discussion and does not confine the debaters to ninety, sixty, or thirty second fragmented answers. The CW is based on the early primary debates when up to ten candidates at a time were vying for time and the formats were devised to account for the multiple candidates and multiple questions. Tonight's format has nine segments of ten minutes each and the candidate who best uses that format boosts their chances to "win" (more about what that means below).
Below the fold, let's delve more deeply into all of the variables that might influence tonight's debating and its effect.
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: debate, debates, 2008 presidential election, Mississippi, John McCain, Barack Obama
MTV/MySpace and McCain
I'm watching John McCain on the "MTV/MySpace Presidential Dialogue" live from the Southern New Hampshire University. I'm watching via TV, but the host billed it as the first and only that is live via the web, TV, and mobiles, in English and in Spanish. Viewers can participate in real time via instant messaging, too.
In addition to a host (John Norris), Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post moderates by keeping track of the live questions streaming in and keeping track of the instant feedback online polling as it updates during the debate. He also asks some follow up questions.
Viewers/listeners can vote on how well they think the candidate answered each question. They can pick one of four ratings (two positive and two negative) to each answer and the choices are contextualized to the question!
The questions and answers are as good as or better than any I have seen in any of the debates and forums.
McCain was announced as the first of the Republican candidates to participate. John Edwards and Barack Obama participated earlier.
There is not a schedule at the site listing when other candidates might participate.
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: MTV-MySpace, John McCain, 2008 elections, mashup, republican presidential primary
Drexel's Digital Divide - Post Debate Spin
We're familiar with the post debate spin room, placard lead spokespersons careening from reporter to reporter. Increasingly, however, campaigns are finding more efficient ways to manipulate.
We're becoming accustomed to candidate web page's (re)interpretation of debates (A favorite of mine was Dodd's "Talk Clock" exposing disparate speaking times) but the practice seems to have stepped up a notch.
The Drexel Debate was not Hillary's best effort. After dominating the prior encounters Clinton's smooth sailing ran aground and fairly received a severe media lashing. Even FactCheck.org documented, at length, three questionable "bobs and weaves."
What is a well heeled campaign to do? Simple, fight back by extending the post-debate spin, often using video interpretations that infiltrate campaign coverage.
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: primary debates, democrat debate, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Edwards, John McCain, post debate spin, Philadelphia, Drexel
Des Moines GOP Debate: Musings and Reflections
Obfuscation was the winner in ABC's "This Week" Republican primary debate from Des Moines, IA. The top-tier (as well as the rest of the field) stayed largely true to form while John McCain did not meet expectations in jumpstarting his campaign. The host, George Stephanopoulos, despite his stated goal of hosting a "real debate." failed to generate anything like the "mayhem" he was seeking. Perhaps the biggest loser (and/or winner) was the person not onstage (and I don't mean Fred Thompson).
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: debate, debates, GOP, republican presidential primary, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, George Stephanopoulos, This Week
Des Moines GOP Debate Preview: 90-Minutes to Midnight for McCain?
ABC kicks off the first of its two scheduled debates between the major party presidential candidates tomorrow morning with live coverage of the GOP forum from the campus of Drake University in Des Moines, IA beginning at 8:00 am CST (check local listings). The debate will be moderated by "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos and will include questions from David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register.
Although this will be the 4th such exchange between the GOP candidates (still sans Fred Thompson), ABC is hyping it as the "first Presidential Debate of the 2008 cycle." While it might be the first "network" debate (if CNN, MSNBC, and FOX aren't really networks), it is certainly NOT the first debate. To prepare for the Des Moines round, you might want to catch up by checking out some of our coverage of the three previous meetings:
New Hampshire (6-5-07)
South Carolina (5-15-07)
California (5-3-07)
The real spin on tomorrow's debate almost universally focuses on John McCain, whose campaign imploded little more than a month ago. Senior staff resignations and dismissals, flagging fundraising, unpopular positions on Iraq and immigration, and low poll numbers all point to the fact that the one-time frontrunner has his work cut out for him in Des Moines.
Some say this is McCain's last best chance to salvage his campaign with a "Hail Mary" pass. As Dan Balz notes in On the Trail, "[McCain's] performance on the stage in Des Moines this weekend will offer some important insights into his energy level, his determination and into whether having been singed by the immigration debate, he has begun to change his message."
So, if we buy the spin and aren't too wary of reductionism, what will McCain need to do to "win" this round?
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: debate, debates, Des Moines, republican presidential primary, ABC, This Week, George Stephanopoulos, John McCain, Hard Call
McCain paints himself into Iraq corner
Iraq is likely to be the number one issue in the upcoming primary debates and, it seems, in the general election. Of all the candidates, John McCain may be in the most difficult rhetorical position with regard to Iraq.
He painted himself into this corner at the November 16, 2006 GOPAC dinner with these remarks:
As troubling as it is, I can ask a young Marine to go back to Iraq. And he will go, not happily perhaps, but he will go because he and his comrades are the first patriots among us, and he will fight his hardest there for his country to prevail. Of that, I have no doubt. But I can only ask him if I share his commitment to victory.
"What I cannot do is ask him to return to Iraq, to risk life and limb, so that we might delay our defeat for a few months or a year. That is more to ask than patriotism requires. It would not be in the interest of the country, and it surely would be an intolerable sacrifice for so poor an accomplishment. It would be immoral, and I could not do it.
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: John McCain, Iraq
