Early Voting
This year there has been a record number of early votes. Although McCain has a slight lead in Florida, Obama has the edge in battleground states like North Carolina and Ohio. With the way things are going now, McCain needs these states in order to win this election. The Republican committee has been targeting voters that don't usually vote in elections to get out and vote this year. Is this a good way to try and win in these battleground states? Will enough Republicans vote on Election Day?
Mediated Event
On October 15th, 65.5 million Americans tuned in to watch the third and final presidential debate of the 2008 election (O’Callaghan). Each person came away with distinct impressions. Some called the debate “spirited” while others considered the debate to be a “disappointment” (Rutenberg; “The Last Debate”). Some felt that the debate was John McCain at his best; others resolved that Barack Obama outperformed him. Comments have critiqued and described nearly every aspect of the debate from Obama’s tax policy to McCain’s persistent blinking. Although no impression is wrong, each account fails to capture the true spirit of watching the event.
I had my own impressions going into the final presidential debate. In the week leading up to the event, Barack Obama gained a more definite lead in the polls. In order to boost his own campaign, John McCain relied on casting doubt in Obama’s capabilities as President. The debate played out like a sports game between archrivals John McCain and Barack Obama. Moderator Bob Schieffer served as referee, doling out the ball to be wrestled for amongst the two opposing teams. It was a fierce and close match between competitors, yet heading into the second half, team McCain made a foul that cost him the game.
From the start, the debate was much more intense than previous debates. Obama and McCain laid out their positions and were quick to argue and question one another. McCain stated that Obama did nothing to repudiate attacks made by Congressman John Lewis that had been “so hurtful.” Obama responded that 100% of McCain’s ads have been negative, which led into an “it’s true, it’s not true” dispute.
However, as the debate progressed, McCain turned the event into a time slot for personal attacks on Obama. McCain associated Obama with William Ayers, “an old washed up terrorist,” and ACORN, an activist group that has been accused of voter registration fraud. While discussing free trade with Colombia, McCain commented that Obama would have to travel there in order to “understand it a lot better.” Obama appeared calm and confident, smiling or nodding his head during McCain’s comments. While Obama could have easily attacked McCain in return for the personal attacks that were made against him, he resisted. Obama clarified the attacks made against him before referring back to the issue at hand. McCain is responsible for straying from the issues and turning the debate into an attack. He put too much focus in ridiculing Obama and thus, McCain ruined his own image. Obama put it bluntly that “the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me.”
An article from the Washington Post describes the presidential debate in an entirely different manner. “The Last Debate: John, Barack, and Joe the Plumber, on the Future of the Country” sees the debate as a replay of the candidates’ different viewpoints, mentioning the discussion on free trade, governing agendas, and abortion. The article notes that despite moderator Bob Schieffer’s suggestion to “tell the people tonight some things that they haven’t heard,” both Barack Obama and John McCain failed to do so. It brings up Obama’s disappointing response to prioritizing and making adjustments based on the economic circumstances in the country. According to the article, Obama listed off everything that he thought was important but failed to really answer the question. In what could have been an interesting debate, the “fireworks fizzled” and left viewers feeling like “jurors in an interminable trial” (“The Last Debate”).
My impressions of the debate versus the impressions given in the article are clearly contrasting opinions. Whereas I found the debate to be heated and full of personal attacks, the article describes the debate as disappointing. My impressions are opinionated and favor one candidate over another; the article gives an opinion without taking a definite position. Neither account is wrong; they come from different purposes and experiences in watching the debate. After gathering with fellow college students, my purpose in watching the debate was not so much to hear the candidates reiterate their positions on domestic policy, but to root for my candidate and boo and critique the opponent. The people I watched the debate with shaped and emphasized some of my overall impressions. While it would have been difficult to not notice John McCain’s blinking, seeing other people poke fun of him made it a more memorable part of my impressions of the debate.
A journalist’s perspective will be much more objective going into the debate. While my opinions will be shared in a casual setting amongst classmates and friends, his or her impressions will be published. The more biased an article appears to be, the less credibility it will be given. Thus, in order to represent the Washington Post as a credible source of information, the article makes the opinion that the debate was “disappointing,” yet is careful not to take sides.
My impression, the account given in “The Last Debate,” and any other account of the debate are all limited in how much can be conveyed to others. It would be impossible to describe everything that occurred in the final presidential debate. In describing the debate, all witnesses are forced to omit some information. A reader is then provided an incomplete description. Furthermore, all accounts lack the emotions associated with watching the debate. Words are limited and can only give so much insight into the event. No matter how often someone describes McCain’s incessant blinking, without seeing it in context a person cannot know the ridiculousness of it all. Words fail to capture the spirit and excitement from witnessing the event. In order to truly understand the presidential debate, or any event for that matter, one must see it to believe it.
Works Cited
“The Last Debate: John, Barack, and Joe the Plumber, on the Future of the Country.” Editorial. Washington Post. 16 Oct. 2008: A.18.
O’Callaghan, John. “Final McCain-Obama debate had 56.5 million viewers.” Washington
Post. 16 Oct. 2008. 27 Oct. 2008 .
Rutenberg, Jim. “Candidates Clash Over Character and Policy.” New York Times. 16 Oct 2008: A.19.
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.
The Last Straw
The evening of October 15, 2008 concluded the final presidential debate of the 2008 election. Many citizens around the United States have made up their decision of whom to vote for, making this debate focused toward the few swing voters remaining.
Republican Senator, John McCain, made his last push towards the middle-class Americans by referring to “Joe the Plummer” saying “Joe wants to buy the business he has been in for all these years, worked 10, 12 hours a day. And he (Senator Obama) wanted to buy the business but he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes…Now Senator Obama talks about the rich, very rich. Joe, I want to tell you, I’ll not only help you buy that business that you worked your whole life for and be able – and I’ll keep your taxes low and provide available and affordable health care for you and your employees.”
Barack Obama responded “What I’ve said is that I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans, 95 percent. If you make more – if you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, then you will not see your income tax go up, your capital gains go up, your payroll tax. Not one dime. And percent of working families, 95 percent of you out there will get a tax cut.”
There is no doubt that America is in the largest financial crisis in recent history. Tax cuts would serve a relief for many families throughout the country. I think Obama made a good
statement when implying that independent studies proved that his tax relief plan for the middle-class families was better than Senator McCain’s.
CNN News claimed the true winner of the debate to be Joe Wurzelbacher, informally known as “Joe the Plumber”, an Ohio plumber who is about to purchase a plumbing company. Overall, I believe that the last debate was a stalemate, in terms of who won. The debate consisted mainly of economic topics; fitting considering the economic stand in America. McCain wants to stop deficit spending completely. Obama says deficit spending freeze just won’t work. The United States apparently doesn’t take in enough money to keep itself out of debt. In that case, cutting deficit spending wouldn’t make a difference. We need to continue to use deficit spending in order to keep with other countries in technology, economy, etc.
One question that was not directly related to economics was “Why would the country be better off if your running mate became president rather than his running mate?” This question intrigued me the most because I was anxious to see what Senator McCain would say about his running mate Sarah Palin. Senator Obama mentioned his running mate Joe Biden to have been one of the finest public servants that has served this country. It’s hard not to like what Biden has to bring to the table. He comes from Scranton, fighting on behalf of working families, and knows what it’s like to see his father lose his job and go through an economic twister. Obama says that as a consequence, his persistent pattern throughout his career is to fight for the little guy. That’s what he has done relating to economic policies. He fights to do whatever he can to get the lower-class families a boost in the economy. Biden is a feature fit for the lower-class and middle-class. He has proven that he will work hard to make sure they see their benefits.
Following the discussion of Joe Biden was John McCain’s discussion of the highly touted Sarah Palin. I was anxious to hear what McCain would say about not just a possible predecessor of the President of the United States of America, as well as the Vice President, but the possible first woman president in the history of the United States of America. Senator McCain had quite the plethora of positive things Palin has done in her time as a government official. McCain stated “Americans know that she’s a role model to woman and other reformers all over America. She’s given money back to the taxpayers. She’s cut the size of government. She’s negotiated with the oil companies and faced them down, a $40 billion pipeline that’s going to relieve the energy needs of the United -- of what they call the lower 48.”
It’s hard not to support someone with the background of Sarah Palin. There has never been a woman that has stretched as far as she has into government positions, in particular the presidential election. I thought McCain focused too much on autism and how it relates to Palin. Autism is on the rise like he said, although upon the outlook of America financially, it’s indecisive to say that we need to put much of our focus and money into learning and trying to find the cure for it.
Bob Schieffer followed by asking Obama if he thought Palin was qualified to be a U.S. President. This was a question that had to be carefully answered by Obama. He couldn’t afford to respond with an answer that could have been portrayed as sexist or prejudice. I believed he answered it perfectly by saying it should be left up to the American people to decide if she’s capable. He said that she’s obviously more than capable and has excited a base in the Republican Party. I liked that Obama touched base on what I had said about the autism topic.
He said he wanted to point out autism and other special needs programs would cost additional funding if we were to take it to serious terms. Senator McCain believed that Biden was qualified by many rights but pointed out he’d been wrong on many foreign policy and national security issues. In the final debate of the election, I believe the last straw, or the final swing votes, didn’t go toward either candidate. The candidates went back and forth winning topics. As CNN News stated, “John McCain came out of the gate strong, but Barack Obama gained strength as the night progressed Wednesday in the final presidential debate where each candidate tried to convince voters that he is better equipped to steer the nation through these troubled times.”
The Great Debate of 2008
The national media. The thoughts and responses of one Tyler Luhman. Which one of these is not like the other? To find out, I compared my initial thoughts on last Wednesday’s presidential debate to those of the national media—or in this case, one alternate source. Does the media skew the event in one direction or another? Do they become soft and avoid any possible accusations of bias? May the best man win, as the anticipated matchup between Tyler Luhman and the national media begins. Do your worst my friends—I will not go down without a fight.
After watching the debate, I thought the most important topic that was discussed was economics, and the debate on how we should fix our current economic crisis. Hardly anything else was mentioned over the course of the debate, and even if something else came up, the conversation quickly switched over to the economic side of things. The candidates were asked to state their economic plans, and then to compare their own plans to that of their opponent’s. One thing I noticed is that after a candidate described his plan, they failed to make any sort of comparison to the other candidate’s plan. In fact, disregard for the mediator’s questions occurred throughout the entire debate, with the candidates instead pursuing their own agendas by talking about what they wanted to talk about. This happened frequently, and at times mediator Bob Schieffer had to intervene and cut off the candidates—either they would completely avoid the question, or talk longer than the time allowed. Overall, both candidates seemed to avoid conflict at the beginning of the debate, but as time wore on, more and more personal attacks were brought to the table, with John McCain delivering a majority of the blows. Instead of analyzing the debate using what both candidates did as examples, it is easier to take a look at which each candidate did individually.
Senator John McCain’s performance during the debate was one heck of a roller coaster ride. At the start, McCain seemed unprepared and nervous, often repeating phrases such as ‘American Dream’ and ‘Joe the Plumber’. In my opinion, McCain’s strategy during the debate was to become personal with the American public by trying to be specific and attempting to relate to the middle class. In the early stages of the debate, McCain held off from attacking Barack Obama, instead he tried to make himself seem like the victim. He did this by citing instances where Obama’s campaign and its supporters falsely or unethically accused McCain of certain things. Over the course of the debate, though, McCain’s tone changed drastically. He began to attack Obama often, announcing that Obama would “spread the wealth” of Americans, and that he wanted the small business owners of America to suffer. McCain’s attacks turned harsher towards the end of the debate when he accused Obama of associating with Bill Ayers, a leader of a terrorist group in the 1960s. Also, McCain questioned Obama’s association with Acorn, a group which allegedly registers ineligible voters. McCain’s objective by bringing up these two organizations was to instill a connection between them and Obama in American minds. It did not really matter if the two groups were still associated with Obama or not because all McCain wanted to do was bring them up and the negative things they have done. McCain’s trip through the debate was an unconventional one, and in my opinion, his tactics ultimately failed. He started off slow, acting every bit of his age, showing nervousness and a lack of preparation. As time went on, McCain calmed down, and became smoother in his speaking. With the change in his demeanor came a change in his tactics as well. Instead of avoiding the attack, McCain chose to attack Obama on all fronts—a questionable tactic. Although McCain did recover and compose himself, he provided a poor image of himself by attacking too often.
Unlike John McCain, Senator Barack Obama’s performance throughout the debate was linear without much change at all. Compared to McCain, Obama was strong at the beginning of the debate, appearing comfortable and conversational. Although Obama seemed prepared, he still avoided answering many of the questions directly, and instead discussed unrelated material. To be fair, Obama’s main reason for avoiding the questions was to refute some of John McCain’s accusations against him. In my opinion, Obama did a great job defending himself from McCain’s attacks, appearing confident and comfortable in his refutations. When John McCain accused Obama of associating with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, Obama—without hesitation—denounced the claim saying that Ayers had never been involved with the campaign, and that he never will be involved. Obama almost seemed to know the attacks were coming, and he was confident and prepared in his responses. My overall impression of Obama was that he seemed cool and collected throughout the entire debate—which is of the greatest importance in a televised event. Even if Obama’s policies and stances were sub-par compared to those of McCain, it wouldn’t matter, because appearance and demeanor means everything in publically televised events like these. Because of this, Obama ‘won’ the debate, appearing much calmer than his opponent on the national stage.
Compared to the National Media’s Opinion
“US presidential debate: John McCain fails to dent Barack Obama's lead” (Spillius).
The title of Alex Spillius’ article sums up his thoughts in one line—although he tried, John McCain failed to change the status quo by the end of Wednesday’s presidential debate. Spillius’ article centers on topics such as Joe the Plumber, Bill Ayers, and the Acorn community group. The article references John McCain’s harsh tactics towards the end of the debate, including his accusations of Obama associating with Bill Ayers and Acorn. Spillius gives information regarding McCain’s tactics, saying that his approach “seemed to have backfired, with snap opinion polls by US television networks all scoring a large victory for Mr. Obama” (Spillius). The overall focus of Spillius’ article is on McCain and how he attempted—but failed—to make a comeback in the national polls. The article is unbiased, and presents an honest opinion of the results through analysis and summarization.
I agree with a majority of what the article describes as the main parts of the debate, although I feel Spillius left out some important information. McCain’s nervous demeanor in the beginning of the debate is not described, and as a result of this, the reader is not provided with a clear description of what happened. In my opinion, he does this to not appear one-sided, and lose his objectivity. This is understandable, because it is important to appear non-partisan in the national media, so even though I think McCain’s appearance should have been included; it makes sense why it isn’t.
After comparing my reaction to the debate to that of the media’s, there didn’t seem to be many differences. The lasting image of the debate is obviously McCain and how he performed, and he became the centerpiece of both Spillius’ and my analysis. The main difference between my reaction and Spillius’ is that I was able to be partisan if I so wished, while he wasn’t. The inability to be biased almost limits the national media into providing a loose summary of the event, without being able to (sometimes) accurately report a story. As a result of this comparison, it is now my belief that in certain cases opinion articles may be more reliable than articles from the national media. The belief differs from my previous belief that opinion articles were all nonsense, while I put my trust into the national media. I am glad this experiment has opened my eyes to alternate ways to receive the news, and this may be the only time I can say that opinions overpower the facts.
Election Day
With Election day in less then a week, people are getting very excited. The ridiculous amount of advertising will finally be over and more importantly we will have a new president! I'm just wondering how everyone else is feeling about this historic campaign coming to an end...
Some shots of the assembly . . .
Media Coverage in the Presidential Election
On October 15th, 2008 the third and final debate between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican Candidate John McCain took place at Hofstra University in New York. My entire freshman seminar class gathered to watch the debate at the University of Minnesota. We watched the debate on a large projection screen in Wimbley Hall. The point of all of this was to observe people as the debate was taking place and try to sense a certain feeling in the room. Our class was joined by only a handful of other people, so our experience didn’t turn out as we thought it would. I wrote a brief paragraph on what I thought were the main points of the debate were before I was told by news stations such as CNN or FoxNews what was important in the debate. Media coverage influences voters by putting the most important issues, according to them, on the forefront of shows like “The O’Reilly Factor” or “Larry King Live.” The different news stations focus on only issues that they choose to cover or what they believe is newsworthy.
When I sat down and decided what the most important issues were I concluded that the economy was the most important. The state of our economy is the worst that it has been since the Great Depression. That night, the DOW Jones Industrial fell almost 800 points, which is the second biggest fall in a single day, and neither candidate mentioned the stock market demise. Almost everyone will agree with me by saying that the economy needs to be improved in the next term. The candidates debated on only the main topics in the hour and a half that was provided. Most of the topics ended up coming back to either the economy or Joe the Plumber. Both McCain and Obama failed to answer questions completely. For example Obama and McCain were both asked where they would cut funding if they were elected into office, and both responded by saying what The United States needed to spend more on to solve other problems. At the beginning of the debate, I felt that McCain went on the offensive and pressed Obama about raising taxes and affiliations to Bill Ayers and ACORN. I thought the debate was somewhat childish, but in my opinion it helped McCain win his first of three debates. McCain was sharp, crisp, and had a great game plan to alienate Obama. The only flaw in McCain’s tactics was the reference to Joe the Plumber which became sickening by the end of the debate. After my reaction to the debate I wanted to see what the media had to say about the debate.
On “The O’Reilly Factor,” Bill O’Reilly discussed the economy for almost a full three minutes to open his show on the day after the debate. O’Reilly is sometimes criticized for being biased toward the Republican side when his show is suppose to be unbiased. O’Reilly says that “every hard working American lost the debate last night. Neither of the candidates addressed the collapse of our financial system.” O’Reilly frequently took shots at Barack Obama’s economic plan by saying it will put America more into debt by instituting government sponsored healthcare, 150 billion dollars for the energy crisis, 70 billion dollars for tax rebates, and another 18 billion for education. O’Reilly then explains, “If I were John McCain I would have bolted out of my chair and said ‘are you kidding me? Who is going to pay for all of that?’” Later in the show, O’Reilly explains that if Obama raises corporate taxes then they will raise prices, move to Bermuda, or fire workers. He even went as far as to say that Barack Obama’s economic plan is “insane.” “If John McCain were even half as mad as I am right now, he’d be President,” said O’Reilly at the end of his program.
On the homepage of the CNN website there is an advertisement for Barack Obama on the right side. It is a picture of him smiling and then white words rolling across the screen that say, “Help elect Barack Obama for president. Visit the official Barack Obama website now.” I know that anybody can buy an advertisement but it still seems that CNN has a bias toward Barack Obama, so by having an Obama advertisement rather than McCain it adds to the skepticism of CNN’s bias. A story on CNN news says that the candidates clashed over taxes, healthcare, abortion and issue number one: the economy. “However, McCain’s message did not resonate with a majority of the debate watchers surveyed by CNN, who said Obama would better handle the financial crisis, 56 percent to 35 percent.” Another article on the CNN website says McCain won in two categories. Eighty percent of debate watchers polled said, “McCain spent more time attacking his opponent,” while only seven percent said Obama spent more time on the attack. Fifty-four percent said, “McCain seemed more like a typical politician during the debate.” The reason the economy is the number one issue is that America is in such a large amount of debt and we are experiencing a recession at the same time. Every American wants change to happen quickly, but both candidates know that this recession will take more time than everyone expects.
The second most important issue to me in the debate was education. Education received little if any media coverage. The United States spends more per capita than any other country on education. By every international measurement, The United States trails most countries. College affordability for all students is another important issue. Obviously people that don’t have children and have already been to college do not care about this issue very much, which could contribute to the lack of media coverage. Each candidate has different plans to get education get off the ground. McCain would like to use vouchers, and not put any more money into the system. Obama, on the other hand, wants more money and more reform. They both agree that the teachers need to have better teaching themselves and higher pay for the system to succeed.
Media coverage influences voters by putting the most important issues, according to them, on the forefront of their programming. FoxNews seems to be more biased toward Senator John McCain while CNN is thought to be biased toward Senator Barack Obama. By paying close attention to both news channels anyone can see why they both are considered to be biased. By just incorporating their favored candidate in everyday news, it can influence the average American voter.
The Bradley Effect
We discussed the Bradley Effect a little bit in class. Essentially the concept refers to Tom Bradley, a black man lost the 1982 California Governor's race even though he was ahead in some voter polls. The Bradley effect says that some voters tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, yet, on election day, vote for the white opponent.
What do you think about the Bradley Effect is a legitimate concern, especially with Obama appearing to be ahead in the polls right now?
This article warns about the Bradley Effect
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/13/obama.bradley.effect/
This one argues that the Bradley Effect does not need to be worried about
