Opinion

Through the political looking glass

The aesthetics of head-to-head political debating

By Mike Hartwell

Posted on Oct. 04, 2004, at 12:00 a.m.

After last Thursday’s foreign policy debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry, the citizens feel it is important to declare a winner. Democrat-friendly CNN.com reports “A majority of Americans believe Sen. John Kerry won the first presidential debate of the 2004 campaign, putting him in a virtual tie.” Breaking-news.com reports that Bush still has a slight lead in the polls. I’m not sure what a “virtual tie” is, but it appears to be very different from a regular tie.

It’s established that the average citizen believes Kerry won. Let’s look at that a little closer. CNN cites such innocent reactions as audible sighs and eye-rolling as some of major criteria for why Kerry won. There were a couple of times when Bush didn’t have an answer right away. This little fact is seen as the last nail in Bush’s coffin. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything. The longest pause was all of five seconds. It feels like an eternity when you’re the one behind the podium, but when you’re watching someone answer an important question, it’s perfectly understandable.

It appears the polls aren’t based on the issues, but on public speaking skills. It’s common knowledge that Bush is a lousy public speaker. That isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Most people know that the public had trouble deciding the winner of the Nixon-Kennedy debate. People who listened to it on the radio thought Richard Nixon was the winner. People who watched it on television, however, thought John F. Kennedy won. JFK was clean and polished, while Nixon looked like he just stumbled out of a bar.

Now it’s happening again. People are turning the presidential race into a beauty pageant. If this is the case, the upcoming Cheney-Edwards debate has already been decided.

This isn’t politics, this is theater. Kerry really didn’t say much of anything; he was just a better speaker. Bush actually had some stances, although he didn’t support them with facts. Maybe that’s why the debate was so boring; neither said anything worth listening to.

There is a little fact that needs to be cleared up. Kerry told America that he is against bringing back the draft. What he failed to mention was that a Democrat wrote the bill, and it’s been on the table for two years. Neither party wants to bring it back. Ignorant people who get all of their political ideals from the Internet have been duped into thinking the Republicans want to bring back the draft. It’s not true. The military already has a surplus of personnel.

Fox News reports that 80 per cent of Democrats think Kerry won, 70 percent of Republicans think Bush won. The truth is, the debate had no clear winner. Both candidates used the event as a venue to squish their campaign rally speeches down into little sound bites. Everyone I’ve talked to says the party they belong to won. The only logical conclusion to this I can make is that the debate was a waste of 90 minutes. People are just seeing what they want to see.

Mike Hartwell is junior journalism major.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 4th, 2004, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.