The Looking Glass

Differing Debate Deductions

The final presidential debates took place on October 15th and left the American public with varying opinions of the candidates, their campaigns, and this election in general. My personal expectations and opinions certainly differed in some respect from two major news corporations, the LA Times and the New York Times; as did the aspects of the debate that I found to be most important. This is a historic election, and as such, it is especially important this year that we look at all sides of the story to understand how different opinions can affect the election in November.
I expected this debate to be something that would have a profound impact on the upcoming election. I predicted that it would be vital for McCain to do an outstanding job in the final debate in order to pull ahead in the polls. And although I still feel that the debates had an impact on the election I don’t think it was nearly as profound as I had expected it to be. I also feel that McCain did not do nearly a good enough job to pull himself into the lead. He made numerous speaking mistakes such as calling Senator Obama “Senator Government” (McCain), and making references to Sarah Palin’s child having Down syndrome, when he actually has autism; McCain simply did not win me over. For me this debate was much more about whose character shines the brightest, because when it’s this close to the election people simply are not voting on the issues, they are voting on the person. Barack Obama was the clear winner in the final debate, regardless of who had the better talking points, and whose economic bail out plan I might agree with; I believe Obama did a better job of addressing the questions and speaking before America. I found the Senators responses to “Why is your economic plan better than your opponents?”(Schieffer) to be of the utmost importance in this final debate. McCain, with the initial response to the question told us, rather than stating his plan for action, that “Americans are hurting right now, they are hurting and they are angry” (McCain). This is a statement that I think both senators could easily agree with, however their opinions differed when it came to “…who do we want to cut taxes for?”(Obama). Obama stated his plan once again, about going through the national spending plan line by line and lowering taxes for the middle class, whilst McCain attacked Obama but failed to give us a clear answer for what he was going to do. With our economic situation in this country the way it is, the responses that the senators gave to this first question are, in my opinion, key in determining who will better lead the U.S. through its economic woes.
A New York Times analysis of the debate between the U.S. presidential hopefuls differed in many respects from my analysis on what issues were most important; however the New York Times analysis came to primarily the same conclusion that I did; “The burden was on McCain, and he couldn’t rise to the occasion.”( Healy). Their analysis focused a lot on the attack tactics of Senator McCain and the responses that Obama gave when being attacked, stating that “for a punch to make a difference, the punch needs to do something to its target — to rattle, to wound, or (best of all) cause the opponent to counterpunch in a self-defeating way”(Healy). The analysis found that McCain began the debate very well composed and comfortable, however as the debate went on he “seemed increasingly inconsistent and testy” (Healy). They found the good attack tactics by McCain to bring promise to the Republican Party because according to Stuart Stevens, a Republican media consultant and former adviser for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, “Republicans want McCain to fight”. However the article also noted that “If Mr. Obama, on the defensive, showed a bit more vim, vigor and vinegar than he had in the previous debates, he also remained calm, cool and collected for the most part — showing survival skills that he learned in his brutal 16-month battle for the nomination against a tough inside fighter, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton”(Healy). The way that Obama countered McCain’s attacks was important because he entered the debate with an ever increasing lead; one that he intended to maintain based on his calm and collected performance during the final debate. The New York Times analysis of the debates further differed from my own in the questions that it found to be most significant to the debate. The article focused a lot of attention on the questions about when Obama had stood up to member of his own party and Senator Obama’s connection with William Ayers. Specifically, the article found McCain’s response to the way Obama responded to the question about standing up against members of his own party to be noteworthy. McCain stated, in response to Obama, “Senator Obama, your argument for standing up to leaders of your party isn’t very convincing” (McCain). This news source clearly found certain aspects of the debate to be of more importance than I did.
A second news source, with a different view of the debate is the L.A. Times. The L.A. Times certainly had the same expectations as I did going into the debate. The expectation that “John McCain came into the third and final presidential debate needing to somehow wrestle the campaign out of Barack Obama's arms”(Decker). It is significant to see that numerous news sources and I had the same expectations going into the debate because that shows us what the majority of Americans were looking for that night. It is also important to look at what was seen as the most important aspects of the debate. My opinions of what was most important during this final debate varied to some degree with the L.A. Times. They seemed to find that the most important part of this debate was the way that McCain reacted to Obama and how he attempted to form his attacks on Obama. The article stated that “he also spent precious minutes bickering over a domestic radical from the 1960s. He spoke of his desire to reach peaceably across the aisle, while at times exuding what seemed a barely controlled anger, his jaw clenched as he appeared to show disdain for his opponent” (Decker). The L.A. Times also found one of the key aspects of the debate to be the specific attacks that Senator McCain made on Obama and his connections with ACORN and William Ayers. McCain said, “All of the details need to be known about Sen. Obama's relationship with them and with ACORN, and the American people will make a judgment” (McCain).A final way that my views differed from those of this L.A. Times article is that the L.A. times did not see a clear winner. The article stated that, “If you like McCain, you probably thought he won, and if you like Obama, you probably thought he won”(Decker) and I certainly did.
Clearly there are differing views on how the debates went over and further differing views on what aspects of the debate were the most significant. I found the debate to go overwhelmingly in favor of Senator Obama and the way the Senators acted during the debates to be of the most important. I also felt that the question regarding the Senators economic plans for our country to the key point of the debate. However, my opinions differed in many ways from those of the New York Times and of the L.A. Times. Both of the articles analyses found the attack tactics of the candidates to be highly significant as well as the questions surrounding Senator Obama’s connections with William Ayers and ACORN, whereas I did not. These differing analyses of the debate go to show us that not everyone views events, political or otherwise, the same; and as such it is important to compare ones own experience to those of others in order to better understand what really went on.

posted by Camille @ 11:39 AM