How Will You Know Who Won the Debate?

Published on October 13, 2004 By blogic In Politics

There are two ways to talk about who won the debate: One is to talk about how you would have scored the debate were you a judge. The second is to talk about how viewers and -- once the spin gets going -- non-viewer voters see the debate.

I'm always more interested in how the debates will be interpreted by the viewers and other voters. Personally, I've thought every debate other than the first was a draw. That's a copout, I know, but I think the candidates have performed well except for Bush in the first.

In the end, though, my opinion doesn't matter; nor does that of the JoeUser "street". What's I'm really curious about is how the audience sees this, and how America sees it a week from today.

My predictions is that the big story tomorrow will be that Bush was strong tonight. We'll see if that's reported as a Bush win, but it'll be a big story. Bush's mistake/lie regarding bin Laden will be a story, along with an other major lies/mistakes by either candidate. If Bush made any more major misstaments, that will be news because people are sensitive to it after the debates so far.

The thing to watch is what independents thought of all this. Otherwise, everything's basically tied up.

Comments

T_Bone4Justice

on Oct 14, 2004

Hi blogic, from what I've seen on television so far, they have been pointing out the gaffes of both candidates. And you are right, the most important opinion is the public's opinion, however, polls do reflect a snapshot of what the public's opinions are at that time. I don't think either one of us is naive enough to believe that the polls or the debates are the here-all-end-all of the race. Twenty days in politics is like 20 weeks during which anything can happen. Personally, I think it's going to be external events (Ex. Iraq or something else) that is going to push the undecideds off the fence and those events might also influence voter turnout. We'll just have to wait and see.

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