[editor's note, by Allan Louden] Submission from Ed Panetta & William Hays Watson University of Georgia. Dr. Panetta is Director of Debate, publishing in argument and political communications. Hays Watson is working on his Ph.D. at Georgia, coaching the debate team.
Although the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, was selected by 11:00 PM on Election Day, the makeup of the next Congress remains undetermined. The Democrats have already gained seven seats in the U.S. Senate, but two Senate races remain undecided. Unlike Minnesota, where the votes are being recounted, Georgia's race is heading towards a runoff election on December 2nd. State law in Georgia mandates a runoff election if no candidate reaches a majority of the votes (50 percent + one vote) in the Senate race. Incumbent Saxby Chambliss (R) led after the general election with 49.8 percent of the vote. The runoff race will be a head-to-head contest between Chambliss and Jim Martin (D). This, ironically, isn't the first time that the Georgia Senate race has turned to a runoff: the 1992 Senate race between Incumbent Wyche Fowler (D) and Paul Coverdell (R) also was decided in a runoff election, which was ultimately won by Coverdell. And, that 1992 result left the newly elected President, Bill Clinton, suffering his first loss as Head of the Democratic Party.
The Georgia runoff has attracted significant national attention. Given the possibility of a Democratic supermajority in the Senate, the stakes for the Georgia Senate race are increasingly important to both major parties. John McCain and Mike Huckabee have already traveled to Georgia to campaign for Chambliss, while the Obama campaign has sent over 100 field organizers to Georgia in order to help Martin mobilize voters for the runoff (Mullins and Roth, n. pag.). And, Bill Clinton will again visit Georgia to campaign for Martin in this the 2008 runoff. There is on-going speculation that both Governor Sarah Palin and President-elect Barack Obama may make campaign trips to Georgia.
More analysis after the fold
Thousands of students participated in mock presidential debates surrounding the three McCain/Obama encounters this fall.
Motives varied, from education to stimulating media attention, but collectively mock debates offer a model for promote school activities.
This post offers examples of modeling of presidential debates around the country and world that may stimulate other educators to consider student political debates in the next election cycle.
Third-party advocacy groupFree & Equal announced this morning at the National Press Club that it will host a debate between perennial third party candidate Ralph Nader and Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin...
The debate will be held at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel in DC on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 9:00 PM.
Bill Benoit's research team at the University of Missouri have released preliminary findings of the nature of statements in the three presidential debates on the website The Presidentail Debate Blog.
Although the debates were much like former cycles they changed in tune with campaign demands.
[T]there were great variations across the debates: McCain attacked in 34 percent of statements in debates one and two, but his attack output increased to 40 percent in the final debate. In contrast, Obama's percentage of attacks declined steadily: 42 percent in debate one, 35 percent in debate two, and only 24 percent in debate three.
[editor's note, by Allan Louden] Submission from Dale Herbeck a professor in the Communication Department at Boston College, where he teaches courses on argumentation, communication law, cyberlaw, and freedom of expression. He was chair of the Communication Department from 1998 until 2007. Professor Herbeck is co-author of Freedom of Speech in the United States (2009 latest Edition)
Democratic Senator John Kerry and his Republican challenger, Jeff Beatty, participated in a debate broadcast over New England Cable News (NECN) on Monday, October 20th.
For those unfamiliar with Massachusetts's politics, a bit of background may be helpful. The Republican challenger, Jeff Beatty, earned the nomination by default when Jim Ogonowski, a better-known candidate, failed to gather the requisite number of signatures to earn a spot on the primary ballot. At the moment, Beatty is trailing in the polls (Rasmussen and Survey USA both have him down by more than 30 points), his fund raising is lagging, and he is trying to unseat a well-known incumbent first elected to the Senate in 1984.
As might be predicted, Beatty was on the offensive and he attacked Kerry repeatedly throughout the debate. In the opening moments, he accused Kerry of accepting financial contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac employees and of having a conflict of interest because Kerry had a financial stake in insurance giant AIG. When the topic switched to energy, Beatty charged Kerry had been on a five-week beach vacation when he should have been in Washington working on an energy plan. Midway through the debate, Beatty asserted Kerry had "blood on his hands" because he voted to authorize the war in Iraq in 2002. Along the way, Beatty claimed that Kerry was out of touch, that he had turned his back on the middle class, and that he had failed to bring home the pork for Massachusetts's voters.
[editor's note, by Allan Louden] Reprinted with permission from John M. Murphy's Blog Oratorical Animal John is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois. He is widely published in rhetoric and political communication.
Keith Olbermann noted last night that this was the 49th debate we've viewed during Election 2008. Oh my. No wonder the commentariat was so confused. For the first half-hour after the debate, they tried (with the exception of our Rachel) to claim that John McCain won. Evidently, inappropriate volume, snorting, and displaying aggression are signs of a winning debate style, not the mating rituals of mountain goats. The American people, however, were not fooled and when the 2-1 margins began showing up in a variety of snap polls, the pundits miraculously found evidence of McCain's failures. They should have noticed those from the beginning. This wasn't his best debate, as many asserted. It was his worst.
Here's how my grad school office mate taught me to view these things. On one level, you can chart the individual exchanges and figure out who won. What claims were made? Who defended their claims effectively, with good reasons and solid evidence? Which candidate better responded to the other's claims and refuted those claims? On another level, not all exchanges are equal. Some arguments are central to a campaign's identity and some are not. In 1980, Jimmy Carter argued that Ronald Reagan was a dangerous man; he'd be too free with nukes. When Reagan argumentatively destroyed Carter on the nuclear prolif issue in their debate (this was the infamous Amy exchange), well, game, set, and match to Reagan. Now, I don't think there was quite the same sort of impact last night. But there was a great example of McCain's overall failure.
Senator Obama has run a tightly disciplined rhetorical campaign centered on an adaptation of James Carville's 3 1992 rules: 1) Change vs. More of the Same: Bush=McCain; 2) It's the economy, stupid; and 3) Don't forget energy and health care. McCain naturally wishes to deny those claims and, last night, he planned carefully and had a sound bite ready to go: "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush." He then crankily asserted that, if Obama had wanted to run against Bush, he should have done so in 2004. McCain leaned back, pleased he'd delivered his zinger. According to CNN, McCain staffers gleefully e-mailed reporters, exulting in their hit and put it up on Youtube before the debate was even over.
A debate scheduled for Sunday at Columbia University in New York was canceled Friday, when none of the "major" third party candidates signed on. Only Ralph Nader, Independent, continued to express interest, with Bob Barr, Green Party candidate, Cynthia McKinney, Green Party, and Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin being otherwise occupied.
Plumbers Cracking the Case for Truth, a "serious parody" is making limited rounds on the net. The original link is from Ben Smith's Politico blog. Do these blips have an impact? Probably not but who knows what goes viral, and given the "Joe" is still with us days past the debate...
[editor's note, by Allan Louden] This entry is provided by Ashley Muddiman who is completing her MA at Wake Forest University. Her research focuses on Internet and candidate image.
We grab our snacks and sit in front of the hi-def TV to discuss strategy before the main event - not the baseball playoffs or college football, but a presidential debate. My friends, fellow graduate students and faculty members have followed the election with detail bordering on obsession since before the primaries. We've heard the stump speeches, read the blogs, watched the interviews and discussed each nuance of the Obama and McCain campaigns.
Needless to say, we knew how we would vote before the presidential debates began.
The candidates weren't trying to persuade us. The group of `undecided voters,' which is hovering around 7% according to Pollster.com, received much of the attention in the media. However, I have watched each of the debates with groups of people who already supported either Obama or McCain. We would not be swayed by the `other side' no matter who `won' or presented the best arguments. So why do we, who have already made our decisions, dutifully gather together to watch the debates?
Social Involvement
I opened this post with a conscious comparison to sports - the epic clash between the `good teams' and the `bad teams' translates well to political debates. We want to watch our side succeed, and we want to do it in the presence of others. When the candidate we support misses a chance to correct his/her opponent's statements, we cringe together. When our side presents a clear argument for his/her positions, we clap together.
Saturday Night Live parody of the Hofstra debate uses Joe the Plumber as its main stick. Joe the skit worked about as well as it did in the real debate. Best part was the extended critique of the negative aspects of the campaign.
The funny SNL Clip below fold, with more SNL debate commentary
I predicted fireworks. Indeed, there were several fuses lit, but each fizzled before reaching the powder keg. And it wasn't for lack of trying on McCain's part. He raised the specter of character and suspect policy on dozens of topics. Yet it would be hard to point to any one that stuck.
I was reminded in watching collegiate debaters when they cross examine each other. Many debaters ask telling questions, but don't know how to ask the follow-up questions, the ones that tag their opponent with ownership of an untenable position. You can see how the argument would change the debate's verdict, but the application has to be nailed by the one making the argument.
Obama won the debate last night, and the fault is not a fawning media or a once too clever Barack. The responsibility rests with McCain; he alone raised the telling questions, stumbled in rebuttal specifics, and couldn't fix the focus. At some point he has ownership of his own performance.
McCain did hold sway in the early stages of the debate, hard charging, on the offense. Yet Obama, often with a passion reminiscent of Dukakis, systematically parried each accusation.
Even if one charitably called the debate a push, the political landscape leaves Obama the winner. And it is more than that. Obama prevailed in rebuttal specifics, political consolidation, and presidential deportment. Obama was conversational, McCain insistent; Obama precise, McCain shotgun; Obama composed, McCain agitated. Translation, Obama was not just "presidential enough," he was presidential.
As I collect my thoughts for this first impression of the 3rd and final presidential debate of 2008, I am invigorated. In many ways this was the closest we've come to an actual debate. It was intense, compelling, and should offer voters a clear choice between the candidates on the issues that matter the most to them. I haven't listened to the spin room or the punditry, so I have little idea what will actually play in the morning. However, if this was a "win or go home" moment for McCain, he didn't win. In fact, he lost and lost badly. When he needed to persuade us to vote for him, he left us with a feeling that we might not even like him.
Substantively, Obama evinced a seriousness of thought as well as a tenor and tone that should "seal the deal" for many undecided voters. As I said after the second debate, McCain appeared that night to be in the middle of a strategy shift. This debate offered further evidence that the fluctuations in strategy have taken their toll on candidate McCain. In this debate, more than any other, he seemed...surly and unlikable. He had one shining moment where we could feel a genuineness start to percolate when he looked at Obama and said, "I am not George Bush." Unfortunately, that moment of authentic emotion was lost in the haughtiness, condescension, and disagreeableness that followed.
The video is the context for "Joe the plumber," who was the off screen star/foil for tonight's debate.
Notes:
Obama took 6 minutes to really go into detail with Joe, and enacted his mantra of disagreeing without being disagreeable, being patient and asking Joe to be empathetic.
Ask yourself: was McCain fair and respectful to Joe by invoking him as he did to cover every generic GOP talking point?
The time spent in the give and take with Joe was more informative of the depth of the Obama policy than any 6 minutes of tonight's debate.
Join us in the comments below as we liveblog our reactions to tonight's third and final debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, The last of some forty or more debates if you count all of the primary debates and fora of the two parties.
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My advice to Obama: have an answer to the Herbert Hoover argument McCain has been making. McCain says raising taxes and restraining free trade is Herbert Hoover again. Obama needs to say that reducing federal spending (the McCain freeze) is Hoover, and that he, Obama, supports tax cuts and is pro-trade, just for fair trade which is a great populist move.
In case you think this debate will slide into Ayers territory, for those arriving early, here's some pre-debate entertainment:
Raising expectations, goading McCain aggressions, inoculating issues, pre-rebuttals on issues, and repeating talking points; the Obama pre-debate memo sure is busy.
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MEMO: John McCain's plan to "whip" "That One's" "you-know-what"
TO: Interested Parties
FR: Bill Burton, Obama-Biden Campaign National Press Secretary
RE: John McCain's plan to "whip" "That One's" "you-know-what"
DA: October 15, 2008
In tonight's debate, Chuck Todd of NBC News says, McCain needs to "figure out how to disqualify Barack Obama." Time Magazine's Mark Halperin writes, "McCain will have to produce a major memorable moment." The NY Daily News says the debate is "do-or-die for McCain's campaign." However they put it, people agree, John McCain needs a game-changer.
On the big issues, this debate is one last chance for John McCain to do what he has failed to do throughout this entire campaign: explain to the American people how his economic policies would be any different at all than the failed Bush agenda he has supported every step of the way. It's his last chance to somehow convince the American people that his erratic response to this economic crisis doesn't disqualify him from being President.
Just this weekend, John McCain vowed to "whip Obama's you-know-what" at the debate, and he's indicated that he'll use Bill Ayers to attack Barack Obama. Even though Senator McCain has said he doesn't "give a damn" about Bill Ayers, his campaign has admitted that if he talks about the economy, he'll lose.
