Saturday, October 09, 2004
Vices Debate
So I'm buggered if I can figure out how to work the comments round here, it failed to publish and now won't let me delete.... I think I'll move to enetation.
I watched Cheney and Edwards going at each other as well, in the single vice-presidential debate. Cheney I found rather impressive, he probably doesn't pass that going for a beer test that is seemingly so important, but it makes sense that he got where he is. The two candidates seemed to me about on a par on performance, which should help Bush. Cheney's factcheck blunder may do nasty things to him, but Edwards didn't really make Halliburton hit home. He had a rather point-answering style, reminiscent of traditional debating, in that he would answer many questions by answering the previous one first. It seemed like maybe he's used to persuading juries etc. who are really listening, rather than to playing to crowds. Cheney seemed more like he's used to talking to groups who listen to less of the minutiae. My guess would be that Cheney's style might work better for this purpose, so while for quality it's a tie, in terms of the election I'd say he edged it. The balance on the tickets, of a fun guy and a serious guy, seems to be reversed between the two.
The other interesting thing, while I watched the first with no ads, thanks, was that on Fox, where I'd gone to see whether they covered the stories that hurt the Republicans, and ended up watching the VPs, there were 6 parts to the debate, with ads in between each. The ads were all army recruiting ads, with young Americans (1 black, 1 female, 1 caucasian) telling their parents that they had taken on board parental wisdom, and were thus joining up. Now I presume that there weren't ads in the TV version, so I'm wondering whether this reflects targeting in particular at Fox viewers, or at debate-viewers...
I watched Cheney and Edwards going at each other as well, in the single vice-presidential debate. Cheney I found rather impressive, he probably doesn't pass that going for a beer test that is seemingly so important, but it makes sense that he got where he is. The two candidates seemed to me about on a par on performance, which should help Bush. Cheney's factcheck blunder may do nasty things to him, but Edwards didn't really make Halliburton hit home. He had a rather point-answering style, reminiscent of traditional debating, in that he would answer many questions by answering the previous one first. It seemed like maybe he's used to persuading juries etc. who are really listening, rather than to playing to crowds. Cheney seemed more like he's used to talking to groups who listen to less of the minutiae. My guess would be that Cheney's style might work better for this purpose, so while for quality it's a tie, in terms of the election I'd say he edged it. The balance on the tickets, of a fun guy and a serious guy, seems to be reversed between the two.
The other interesting thing, while I watched the first with no ads, thanks, was that on Fox, where I'd gone to see whether they covered the stories that hurt the Republicans, and ended up watching the VPs, there were 6 parts to the debate, with ads in between each. The ads were all army recruiting ads, with young Americans (1 black, 1 female, 1 caucasian) telling their parents that they had taken on board parental wisdom, and were thus joining up. Now I presume that there weren't ads in the TV version, so I'm wondering whether this reflects targeting in particular at Fox viewers, or at debate-viewers...
