1. Obviously, two-sided debates lead us to suppose that there must be one winner and one loser, but can we let go of the overworked and tired and brain-damaged metaphor that poses political debate as a prizefight? "There was no knockout," said several talking heads about last night's debate, and a headline following the Biden/Palin debate claimed no blood was drawn, and always this is then qualified with the idea that one or the other "won on points." But -- the Gore/Quayle/Stockdale vice presidential debate of 1996 aside -- what would a knockout even look like, in political terms?
2. As a corollary, if pundits are going to call the debate like a boxing match, they've got to be willing to discuss the blows feinted, landed, or missed. This means discussing policy, as opposed to (or at least, more fairly, in addition to) focusing on response poll results, the behavior and appearance of candidates, and "truth squadding" discernable facts. Since television is a visual medium, there's no escaping the beauty contest element (and, all apologies to Walnuts, the congeniality issue), but the reason the post-debate polls have been so strongly in favor of Obama have to also reflect, I would think, on what is actually being said.
3. In proposing an additional bailout specifically for the housing market, McCain risks losing some of his conservative base. The suggestion that health insurance should not cover hair transplants will certainly cost him a significant portion of the bald-and-loathing-it contingent, a population which has kitchen table immediacy in my extended family. The suggestion that $3 million is too much to spend on a planetarium almost surely cost McCain the Sam and Caleb vote, since they are all about the moon and stars lately.
4. McCain does deserve some moxie points for trying to suggest to the American people that this overhead project er is pretty much the same as that one in your 9th-grade Geometry class. (As I'm sure you and Sam and Caleb will be interested to know, it turns out that the Adler Planetarium in Chicago is putting up a show that introduces kids to astronomy with the help of Big Bird and the Sesame Street Muppets. So McCain hates science and Sesame Street now?)
5. Due to the risk of counting chickens or looking at the mouths of gift horses, and with our modest and Midwestern superstitions -- the sort whereby one does not mention that the children are sleeping well as that sort of thing ultimately leads to a 3am wake-up -- fully in mind, I am not going to start celebrating yet, but I will say -- with fingers crossed, and qualifications in the case of some unforeseen calamity and with what may be the sort of amorphous verbiage that Wallnuts might call pre-conditions -- I think we've f*cking won.
2. As a corollary, if pundits are going to call the debate like a boxing match, they've got to be willing to discuss the blows feinted, landed, or missed. This means discussing policy, as opposed to (or at least, more fairly, in addition to) focusing on response poll results, the behavior and appearance of candidates, and "truth squadding" discernable facts. Since television is a visual medium, there's no escaping the beauty contest element (and, all apologies to Walnuts, the congeniality issue), but the reason the post-debate polls have been so strongly in favor of Obama have to also reflect, I would think, on what is actually being said.
3. In proposing an additional bailout specifically for the housing market, McCain risks losing some of his conservative base. The suggestion that health insurance should not cover hair transplants will certainly cost him a significant portion of the bald-and-loathing-it contingent, a population which has kitchen table immediacy in my extended family. The suggestion that $3 million is too much to spend on a planetarium almost surely cost McCain the Sam and Caleb vote, since they are all about the moon and stars lately.
4. McCain does deserve some moxie points for trying to suggest to the American people that this overhead project er is pretty much the same as that one in your 9th-grade Geometry class. (As I'm sure you and Sam and Caleb will be interested to know, it turns out that the Adler Planetarium in Chicago is putting up a show that introduces kids to astronomy with the help of Big Bird and the Sesame Street Muppets. So McCain hates science and Sesame Street now?)
5. Due to the risk of counting chickens or looking at the mouths of gift horses, and with our modest and Midwestern superstitions -- the sort whereby one does not mention that the children are sleeping well as that sort of thing ultimately leads to a 3am wake-up -- fully in mind, I am not going to start celebrating yet, but I will say -- with fingers crossed, and qualifications in the case of some unforeseen calamity and with what may be the sort of amorphous verbiage that Wallnuts might call pre-conditions -- I think we've f*cking won.
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