Wrappin’ It Up
Posted on October 7, 2008 at 11:10 pm
It certainly was an experience consuming a debate this way amongst the hustle and bustle of the national media just yards away from the actors on the stage.
Watching the reality of the “Spin Alley” you hear and read so much about up close and personal was an eye opener. Listening to local and national political figures spouting out prepackaged, fluffier-than-fluff instant reactions to reporters desperately sopping every tidbit they could to make deadline or get a story instantly up on the web was something to behold.
Is this process really that conducive to the pursuit of truth? Yeah, that’s a rhetorical question.
Anyway, here are some of the quotations I was able to get amongst the crowds of the national and local press pursuing truth.
Harold Ford, Jr.: “Overall this debate will not change the dynamic of race in any meaningful way. Obama is ahead nationally and in the swing states. Obama did good tonight, very good and I think the polls will bear him out as the winner tomorrow.”
State Rep. Beth Harwell: “Senator Obama, while he performed quite well, really contradicted himself in several meaningful ways tonight. For instance on taxes he said things tonight I don’t remember hearing before. I remember hearing the opposite. I think that will hurt him.”
Phil Bredesen: “[Obama] looked like a president out there tonight.”
The one gem I found out there came in the form of reaction to McCain’s proposal to bailout individual homeowners. Both Bredesen and Ford also seemed intrigued by the idea. Their answers seem to indicate either a departure from or a lack of direction from Obama handlers, although I could be wrong.
Bredesen called it “an interesting idea.” Ford echoed that sentiment, “The way he proposed it tonight by sort of throwing it out it there was interesting. It obviously needs to be fleshed out. I don’t know if it is feasible but it certainly requires some thought.”
As for my take, while McCain certainly delivered a capable performance hitting his talking points and staying on message, Obama really did bring it home with some finely nuanced answers to questions.
Just as in the first debate, Obama took no hits and delivered a presidential level performance. Like I said earlier, tie goes to the man ahead. That man is Obama.
With the economy the way it is without a game changer, either in the final presidential debate or somewhere else, it’s pretty clear where this thing is going absent a serious and unforeseen Bradley Effect.
SEE ALSO: More pics from Spin Alley.
The Instant Gratification Express
Posted on at 4:48 pmI have to concur with the Brainstem on this one. Much has been made of John McCain prowess in the town hall debate format but just because that is how the man prefers to campaign does not give him an advantage.
As far as I know, John McCain has never faced a Democratic opponent in such a format. While John McCain may be one of the better Republicans at this style of debate, the town hall is the Democrat’s natural habit.
Bill Clinton was a master of the format. It wasn’t just that he was an excellent politician with an ability t connect with the average person, it was that in a town hall the candidate is directly addressing the voter. The voter stands there with his particular personal concern waiting for the candidate to solve his problem, hear his specific grievance, yes, and feel his pain.
It is the format best suited to the panderer. Now, don’t get me wrong. John McCain can pander with the best of them, but Barack Obama has an answer for everything (not necessarily a good thing). Not only that, he has a program for everything. Whatever problem you have, whatever ails ya, he has an offer of government assistance or intervention.
A Republican, by definition, cannot hope to compete with this. A Republican will always fall short because in the end they cannot offer everything a Democrat can and will. This is not to critique the candidates or their ideologies. It is just a fact.
This debate will feature a cavalcade of real people with real life concerns. Even if they are fundamentally conservative peopl,e they will not be looking for talk about ending earmarks or the constitutional limitations of power. They will want the candidate to offer some kind of direct assistance to relieve their plight. This debate, like the ones before it in this format, will be the immediate gratification debate.
John McCain simply cannot compete with in this arena. The format, as well as the expectations for McCain, have doomed him to fail.
This will not be a good night for Senator McCain.
Let Me See Your War Face: A Note From The Demilitarized Zone
Posted on at 9:26 amWhat a difference a day makes. Yesterday, when I made the trek to the media tent here at Belmont University, the site of the second Presidential Debate, it was a relatively smooth process. Of course, I had to park at Greer stadium and be shuttled onto the fenced off-campus but the shuttle bus made the two to three block journey, rolled right on in and dropped us off exactly at the media tent.
Today, a little different. Only a short distance into the campus, we were met with a barricade manned with numerous secret service personnel and cops. After proceeding through the barricade we were met with another group of law enforcement personnel a few yards down the road. The bus stopped and what I can only assume was a bomb sniffing dog made a full sweep of the bus.
The shuttle then moved a few more feet down the road and dropped us off. This was quite a few yards away from the place the bus dropped us off yesterday. Upon disembarking, passengers were then shuffled through an area strongly reminiscent of a airport checkpoint.
The only difference: I got to keep my shoes on. Other than that. IDs were checked. Metal objects were removed from pockets. Bags were x-rayed. Although, I must say, security personnel were ever so nice. The Secret Service agent who checked my ID laughed at the picture embossed on my credential just as if we were old friends.
After that whole process, and only after that process, were passengers allowed to proceed to the media tent where I am right now.
They Don’t Want No Civil War: The Belmont Civility Forum
Posted on October 6, 2008 at 5:35 pmPhil Bredesen’s civility forum this afternoon sponsored by the Tennessee Business Roundtable and the Freedom Forum featuring both political and media bigwigs turned out some extremely enlightening discussion over the state of political discourse in the nation.
The headliners of the event, Phil Bredesen and Senator Howard Baker, were not part of the geberal panel discussion but did set the tone with short speeches
Howard Baker explained that while excitement for cause and party are part of the process those stimuli should not result in us losing our way to the extent we have.
“Not withstanding the enthusiasm of debate, people must come with an open mind about what people have to say,” Baker said.
Phil Bredesen said that as we hit the “home stretch of one of the hardest fought campaigns” in memory, it is in our interest to “hit the pause button” and reflect.
Bredesen credited his wife Andrea Conte, for spearheading this effort.
Both Bredesen and Baker called for a new respect for governing rather than the uber-concentration on raw politics.
“Politics is a contact sport. Anything we can do to put respect back in the process is essential,” Bredesen explained.
After the speeches by Bredesen and Baker, panelists former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, NBC News VP Mark Whitaker, Bill Nichols of the Politico and moderator Bernard Shaw were introduced.
After taking their seats the assembled audience was treated to an mini history of political advertising.
Starting with the 1964 campaign’s Daisy Ad, the videos showed ads from Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford crescendoing into 1988’s Willie Horton ad as well as the “swift boat” ads of 2004. Advertising from both John McCain and Barack Obama were also featured.
Haley Barbour started out the discussion outlining his barometer for appropriate negativism campaigns. Barbour asks only two questions, “Is it true and is it relevant?”
Barbour went on to argue that this decline in civil discourse is not a result of any change in politics but a change in media.
“What’s happening is not new,” explains Barbour. “There is just more media to broadcast it.”
While Patricia Schroeder did not disagree, she put the coarsening of our political culture chiefly on the way Congressional districts have been drawn. Reapportionment, she asserted, led to districts which are reliably either Republican or Democratic. These safe districts, Schroeder argues, encourage extremism.
“These people are scared of getting primaries, not losing general elections,” explained Schroeder.
Mark Whitaker chimed in with an interesting assertion. He argued that it was not just the candidates and the campaigns will to win that led them to go negative.
He said that political donors hold sway over politicians not only when they govern but when they campaign as well. Candidates get pressure from big partisan donors to attack — and they often get what they pay for.
Haley Barbour offered the observation that in the era of 24 hour media and McCain/Feingold campaigns don’t control their messages anymore. They could not stop the negativism even if they wanted to. Third party groups and the attacks they produce often shape the political discourse in ways that campaigns cannot control.
Bill Nichols concurred pointing to the advent and prominence of underground viral email campaigns such as the emails detailing wildly inaccurate connections of Barack Obama to the religion of Islam.
When Bernard Shaw asked what had happened to fundamental respect, the discussion again turned to reapportionment that the safeness of certain district has a polarizing effect.
Most interesting was the discussion of Harold Ford, Jr., who was in the audience. He was held out as an exception to the rule, that despite the safeness of his Memphis district, Ford was willing to work in a bipartisan fashion.
Haley Barbour, though, subtly called a bit of shenanigans on that assertion noting that Ford, for a long time, had been looking at a statewide political future.
“He was thinking of Tennessee not some narrow congressional district,” explained Barbour.
The former Mississippi Governor also pointed out the reason why Governors seem to be less polarizing figures than those in Congress.
“Senators talk about doing things. Governors actually have to take action…Governors get judged on results. Period.”
The dean of journalism John Seigenthaler brought the panel to a close noting that while the word civility is not in the forty five words of the First Amendment, it is still nonetheless an important goal to strive for.
Seigenthaler emphasized that there is marked a coarseness in our political culture which is dangerous.
“When will the people say enough?” asked Seigenthaler. “Will we wait too long?”
Hey There, Civility Guy, What Was This About?
Posted on at 12:20 pmAs we close in on a talk here at Belmont’s Troutt Theater with Sen. Howard Baker, Gov. Phil Bredesen and Bernard Shaw regarding the state of civility in modern political discourse, I am reminded of this little ditty from our Honorable Phil Governor from 2003:
“The president, I can’t even say our president or my president anymore,” Bredesen said. “We all know there are problems. I don’t need someone to come here and tell me we got problems with public education. I need someone with some damned solutions
Welcome To The Jungle
Posted on at 11:47 amIn a Q&A session following some welcoming remarks to the assembled media here at Belmont University (which includes very little of the celebrity journalists one might have expected), Governor Phil Bredesen gave a preview of the civility forum he and Senator Howard Baker will be participating in later today.
While Bredesen views some of Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s recent remarks as “over the top”, the Governor said that both candidates were guilty of excess and assaults on positive civil discourse.
“Both candidates have taken the campaign deep in a gray area, ” Bredesen explained. “I am looking forward to this afternoon when we can hit the pause button on some of the excesses of the campaign.”
On the subject of a Tennessean story recounting his hiring of a personal media consultant earlier in the year to help him traverse the national media’s interest in his national superdelegate primary idea, Bredesen said the speculation about the hire has been overblown.
He is not interested, nor is he angling towards a job in a potential Obama administration. And the media consultant he hired is no longer in his employ.
“I don’t even know where she’s working right now,” Bredesen said matter of factly.
As to whether he will be advising the Obama campaign any further in the weeks ahead, Bredesen laughed and said simply, “No, I will not.”
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Debate Door Prizes
Posted on October 1, 2008 at 1:02 pmColby Sledge has the good word on what kind of paraphernalia national media types will be getting compliments of Belmont University when they arrive in Nashville to cover the debate.
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