Round Two...
Some belated words about the VP debate between Cheney and Edwards...
I think of all the things I've read, Dick Morris summed up the debate best when he wrote that John Edwards looked like a deer caught in the headlights. No matter what criteria you use to judge that debate, Cheney won hands down. It wasn't even close. Cheney was the stern and stoic headmaster and Edwards was the wayward student. In short, Cheney did everything Bush should have done in the first debate. And by virtue of that fact, there wasn't anything in the world Edwards could have done to mount a compelling defense.
Edwards tried to begin the debate by going on the offense. But after his first remarks of the night, Edwards was playing catchup--always trying to mitigate the effects of the knockout blows Cheney was landing. Of all the lines from the debate, the one that struck me as the most effective and devastating was Cheney's brilliant rhetorical question: "If you can't stand up to Howard Dean, how can you stand up to Al-Qaeda?" Cheney hammered Edwards by primarily hammering Kerry, forcing Edwards to try to defend Kerry's derogatory statements about the war and our allies.
The mainstream media has had a difficult time handling this debate. Cheney won, but they would never concede that the prince of darkness himself beat their johnny boy trial lawyer from North Carolina. Instead, they've been railing Cheney for saying that he first met Edwards during the debate. This points to two things. First, the fact that the media has been pointing out the times Cheney and Edwards have been in the same vicinity as one another indicates how devastating Cheney's statement was. Second, the prior run ins only bolster Cheney's point: none of the run ins occurred in the Senate where Cheney would be most likely to come in contact with Edwards. Keep in mind that Cheney made his comment in the context of blasting Edwards for his lack of attendance in the Senate.
The point has been made that someone like Bill Clinton would never have won the Presidency in 1988, before the end of the Cold War. After the Cold War, people’s moods lightened and the affairs of this nation suddenly seemed to be less serious and grave. I think 9/11 reverted the nation’s mentality back to the way it was before the Cold War in the sense that it’s not all about feeling good and being a warm affable candidate. Rather, the nation needs and is looking for a serious approach to the serious problems we face. Cheney conveyed that seriousness, that gravitas if you will, that Edwards never could. He clearly showed not only that he is a master of policy, but that he has core unshakable convictions. Convictions like that (even if at times they might lead us astray) are our nation’s greatest strength. Our military and economic might will only be as strong as the strength of our ideals and our determination not to see them comprised by threats from within and without.
If I were a terrorist, I would spend far more time worrying about someone of the likes of Dick Cheney than I would someone like John Edwards.
I think of all the things I've read, Dick Morris summed up the debate best when he wrote that John Edwards looked like a deer caught in the headlights. No matter what criteria you use to judge that debate, Cheney won hands down. It wasn't even close. Cheney was the stern and stoic headmaster and Edwards was the wayward student. In short, Cheney did everything Bush should have done in the first debate. And by virtue of that fact, there wasn't anything in the world Edwards could have done to mount a compelling defense.
Edwards tried to begin the debate by going on the offense. But after his first remarks of the night, Edwards was playing catchup--always trying to mitigate the effects of the knockout blows Cheney was landing. Of all the lines from the debate, the one that struck me as the most effective and devastating was Cheney's brilliant rhetorical question: "If you can't stand up to Howard Dean, how can you stand up to Al-Qaeda?" Cheney hammered Edwards by primarily hammering Kerry, forcing Edwards to try to defend Kerry's derogatory statements about the war and our allies.
The mainstream media has had a difficult time handling this debate. Cheney won, but they would never concede that the prince of darkness himself beat their johnny boy trial lawyer from North Carolina. Instead, they've been railing Cheney for saying that he first met Edwards during the debate. This points to two things. First, the fact that the media has been pointing out the times Cheney and Edwards have been in the same vicinity as one another indicates how devastating Cheney's statement was. Second, the prior run ins only bolster Cheney's point: none of the run ins occurred in the Senate where Cheney would be most likely to come in contact with Edwards. Keep in mind that Cheney made his comment in the context of blasting Edwards for his lack of attendance in the Senate.
The point has been made that someone like Bill Clinton would never have won the Presidency in 1988, before the end of the Cold War. After the Cold War, people’s moods lightened and the affairs of this nation suddenly seemed to be less serious and grave. I think 9/11 reverted the nation’s mentality back to the way it was before the Cold War in the sense that it’s not all about feeling good and being a warm affable candidate. Rather, the nation needs and is looking for a serious approach to the serious problems we face. Cheney conveyed that seriousness, that gravitas if you will, that Edwards never could. He clearly showed not only that he is a master of policy, but that he has core unshakable convictions. Convictions like that (even if at times they might lead us astray) are our nation’s greatest strength. Our military and economic might will only be as strong as the strength of our ideals and our determination not to see them comprised by threats from within and without.
If I were a terrorist, I would spend far more time worrying about someone of the likes of Dick Cheney than I would someone like John Edwards.
2 Comments:
The fact that Cheney and Edwards never met in the Senate has to do with a bad attendance record, but it's not Edwards. In the 4 years that he has been vice president, Cheney has presided on 3 of those Tuesday sessions. Edwards, prior to running for the presidency, had one of the best attendance records in the entire Senate. He has actually presided over more Senate sessions than Cheney.
http://forum.johnkerry.com/index.php?showtopic=88810
And the media is not spinning the debate.
"A CBS News poll specifically focused on uncommitted voters found 41 percent of respondents said they deemed Edwards the winner, 28 percent chose Cheney, and 31 percent said it was a tie."
The only polls that showed Cheney winning the debate by a substantial margin also had a substantial oversampling of Republicans. And Kerry has improved in nearly ever poll in the two days since the debate. In your eyes, Cheney won the debate...but Edwards wasn't trying to win your vote; he was trying to win the vote of the undecideds.
In closing, Cheney may have avoided eating babies, but he didn't win the debate in the eyes of the undecided voters.
John A. K.
John,
I would respectfully submit to you that the reasons Edwards is winning the battle of the polls are twofold:
1. Way too many people have an irrational dislike of Dick Cheney that has been developed by Michael Moore type hysteria surrounding sensationalized allegations like the whole Haliburton charge. For the same reason that throngs of people believe in alien abductions and that Elvis is still alive (and you know how I wish both were true), the masses of this country are easily baited into believing foolish notions. And it's my belief that their feelings towards Cheney--mind you feelings divorced from any kind of genuine policy difference--are simply foolish and uninformed. I want to be clear: I'm not saying that anyone who doesn't support Cheney is foolish. Rather, I'm saying that a lot of people aren't genuinely informed about the specifics of anything and base their opinion (in this case their view of Cheney) on an irrational pretense, such as the common notion that Cheney is the evil Lord of Darkness who occasionally eats babies. If folks have a legitimate policy difference where they know why they believe what they do and they accurately understand where Cheney's coming from, then I respect that.
2. Edwards is a better looking man than Cheney. Few people in this country are intellectually honest enough to evaluate a debate performance based on the substance of the arguments. Few people will actually think through the practical implications of a stated policy or the logical conclusions one can draw about a person based on a position he might take. Most people are visual creatures and as a result, most people allow their visual sense to comprise a disproportionately high percentage of their decision making process. The Kennedy/Nixon debate is a classic example. Kennedy was eye candy on the TV but Nixon looked scary. So most people who watched the debate thought Kennedy won. But most people listening on the radio--those who had no visual sense to draw on--thought Nixon won--because in terms of substance and policy, he was more compelling.
I believe that in the VP debate, Cheney, in terms of subtance and articulation of policy was more compelling. Of course because I philosophically agree with Cheney I find his positions naturally more compelling than Edwards. But in terms of the presentation of those positions, I think Cheney was overall more effective.
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