My non-coverage of the debate
I went to bed. Yep. Didn’t watch it, didn’t listen to it and haven’t even read much about it this morning. I could say that part of the reason was that I was exhausted from sleeplessness the previous night and just had to crash, but I might not have watched it anyway.
At this point, do you not feel like both candidates are known quantities? What did they say in the debate that truly illuminated their positions in a way we hadn’t heard previously?
You don’t know because you didn’t watch it!
You’re exactly right! I don’t know, but I’m reasonably confident in my guess that no one who has paid any attention to this point knows any more today about Bush or Kerry than they knew yesterday.
I’m particularly disinterested in anyone’s opinion as to who “won” the debate; a completely academic exercise with no bearing on whether any voters’ opinions were changed or in which direction.
As the complete partisan that I am (at least until after the election) I was content to let the Bush folks give their perspective on Kerry’s answers in the newsfeed to the right. If you want more thorough and, possibly, balanced coverage I suggest starting with Instapundit.com. Professor Glenn Reynolds’ eyes are everywhere and he’s linked more than a dozen sites that have transcripts, scorecards and commentary ad nauseam.
3 Comments
October 3rd, 2004 at 4:56 pm
I watched it, and it was very boring. I kept instinctively going for the remote to change channels, but stopped myself because we only have five channels, and the only channels without the debate were HBN (the Heresy Broadcasting Network, aka TBN) and WB, and I wasn’t in the mood for the Gilmore Girls.
It was also hard to watch because Bush is an awful, awful speaker, and Kerry is a maddening speaker. In some ways I wish that we had the Lincoln-Douglas format for debate . . . first question, forty-five minute response, thirty minute rebuttal, second question, etc. Maybe by the forty-third minute or so they’d run out of their cliches and start saying some stuff they truly believed. Both campaigns have been so taken over by marketing that they seem to espouse the same ideas (they’re both against abortion but don’t want to outlaw it, they’re both against gay marriage, they’re both for the war in Iraq, they both want tax cuts, they both want a balanced budget, they both want cheescake, etc.) I might just vote for the Constitution party this year, I don’t know.
October 4th, 2004 at 12:42 am
I understand where you’re coming from, and the weariness of ‘candidate homogenization’ in general, but I think that in this election a vote for any third party would be, at best, a strategic blunder and, at worst, an abrogation of responsibility. This coming, mind you, from someone who actually cast a vote for Perot!
When it comes to Kerry vs. Bush, such differences as can be discerned should be sufficient to decide your vote. The country may still go to heck in a handbasket under the weight of increasing entitlements, but if positive ground can be gained on the abortion and FMA fronts I think we have to make that effort.
October 4th, 2004 at 10:14 am
I agree, but if SC remains as solidly red as it is right now, I might make a little protest vote. In some ways I hope that the campaigns’ relative weeniness in declaring what they actually believe starts a push for a more “third-party friendly” ballot, such as the instant runoff ballot.