Saturday, September 27, 2008

How do you "win" a debate?

I continue to relive my high school student election during this campaign.  Within 30 seconds after the end of last night's debate, the talking heads were telling us who won and who lost.  We have to know the score, ladies and gentlemen, otherwise this just ain't worth it, right?  Maybe this is why Americans don't like soccer---all that running and maneuvering and kicking to end up in a tie??  Gag me!  

For the last 20+ years, we in the media have covered elections like sports contests---and we're not very good at it.  Put me down for promoting the sports editors to the national political desks and let them have at it.  Will be a much more interesting read.

In the meantime, I was at three debate events on the upper west side last night---one pre-debate dinner, a debate party at David's, and then at home with J for a post-mortem.  We all loved Barack for his debating style--subtle, reasoned, passionate but not loud, acknowledging the strengths of the opponent, clarity about differences etc.  I still fear that this is not a winning combination, but we'll see how it plays.

I am completely out of touch with how most Americans react to political events of this nature. From my perch on the upper west side, we are all fair-minded, politically correct, astute liberals. What happened to the rest of 'them' out 'there'??  



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