I have noted several times in the past that the election was Bush’s unless he did something really stupid. I wonder if his poor showing at the first debate could be the start of it. Polls the race is now close, and intimate the debate affected that. I have no reason to disagree.

Additionally, for some fun facts on the debate, this piece (HT: Michael) tells us some things we’d rather not have known about the debate. My favorite is:

(2.) Important issues are locked out by the CPD debate rules and party control.

“Really important but sticky or tough issues get axed, because the parties control the questions and topics,” Rice says. “For example, in 2000, Gore and Bush mentioned the following issues zero times: Child poverty, the drug war, homelessness, working-class families, NAFTA, prisons, corporate crime and corporate welfare.”

Our candidates will not (or can not) address complex issues. Why? No doubt, fear of losing some of the base or because they don’t know enough about the issue. There will, for example, never be a serious public discussion on the benefits and costs of the drug war because the issue is too complex.

The question I really have is: Complex for whom?

Is it complex for me, a simple Joe-voter? Or too complex for our candidates? Do they think I’m not sophisticated enough to understand these complex issues or is it because they can’t form good, concise sound bytes since these issues are so complex?

Posted in uncategorized on October 4th, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |