The Great Yank Gabfest Ends

THEY call it "the spin"—the strange sideshow of politics which has become a game of salesmanship, analysis and revisionism. Less than five minutes after the San Diego presidential debate on October 16, Bob Dole라이브 바카라 spokesman, John Buckley, was explaining to reporters how the Republican nominee had just clobbered President Clinton. White House spokesperson Mike McCurry interrupted this impromptu briefing to tell the assembled press the exact opposite: "It was a very good night for us." Normally confined to Washington, "the spin" travels in election years to cities outside such as Hartford, Connecticut, St Petersburg, Florida, and San Diego—the site of the final presidential debate. Reporters, of course, are conspirators, although there are no real winners or losers in these spin wars.

But who won the three debates? Was it the Republicans with their new attack-dog policy or was it the lower-key Democrats, determined not to lose their cool and maintain their almost unbeatable lead? Most analysts agree that it was the Democrats who triumphed, even though Bill Clinton played the dove in San Diego and let Bob Dole play the hawk and rip him apart. "What all the debates have lacked was the sort of cataclysmic moment that could redefine a race tilted in the Democrats’ favour," said campaign consultant Brian Lunde.

바카라 웹사이트Polls after the three debates found Clinton the clear winner. An ABC Poll showed that 56 per cent of those watching thought the President won, while 27 per cent picked Dole. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll showed Clinton winning 59 per cent to 29 per cent. Analysts caution that there are shifting allegiances on the part of the ‘soft’ voters, mostly independent, who are not strongly committed to either candidate.

바카라 웹사이트"Dole needed to do the same thing he라이브 바카라 been unable to do for the last six months, which is fundamentally transform the race," said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "That라이브 바카라 what it was about in June and July and August and September, and that라이브 바카라 what it is still about. Nothing has changed."

바카라 웹사이트How many people actually watched the debates? Many political junkies did. But many people simply tuned out, preferring to watch football or baseball playoffs. After the vice-presidential debate in St Petersburg, Florida, Judy Howard Smith of Bowie, Maryland said: "Unlike me, I don’t think many Americans were tuned in from beginning to end. I went shopping to Wal-Mart about 7.30 pm and asked many people if they were rushing home to watch it, and most of them acted like they didn’t even know it was on."

바카라 웹사이트According to some critics, the debates brought few revelations and would have minimal impact on the election. "I think it was very predictable and expected," political researcher Stanley Russ Conway said. "I didn’t hear anything new brought up by either candidate this year."바카라 웹사이트

What were the main issues? Predictably, it was domestic policy that dominated the agenda—health care, family leave, welfare, social security, Medicare, affirmative action, jobs, the economy—all topics where the polls give Clinton and his party the advantage. Foreign policy was only of peripheral interest.

Of the 20 questions asked at San Diego, only two concerned foreign affairs, and one of which moderator Jim Lehrer had to solicit from the citizen questioners. Asked why there were not more questions on foreign policy and why it should play such a meagre role in presidential politics today, Virginia University researcher, Tom McManus said: "With the Cold War over, Americans no longer fear a nuclear holocaust or militant communism. Nor are there radical divergences between the Dole foreign policy and Clinton라이브 바카라. Both are internationalists in the sense that both see a unique role for the United States. People are no longer as concerned as they used to be about foreign policy."바카라 웹사이트

Analysts are also saying that despite a ring of truth in both candidates’ statements, their criticism of each other often involved stretching the facts and that both demonstrated a greater commitment to triumph than the truth. Said the Washington Post: "They parried with selective facts, lunged with misrepresentations, and generally left viewers farther from objective reality."바카라 웹사이트

After 90 minutes of gentle jousting in the first presidential debate, the talkathon staged in Hartford on October 6, Clinton and Dole each left the podium with a bounce in his step. Each was convinced he had achieved his objective and wowed the people. Clinton was able to brag about the strength of the economy without appearing boastful. Dole came across as a jocular centrist—a far cry from the scowling ogre in editorial cartoons.

"The Hartford gabfest was intentionally designed by the two candidates to avoid detailed discussions of the issues," said analyst Harry Mellman of the first debate. "The candidates’ handlers had coached every bit of spontaneity out of them, insisting on a robotic repetition of ‘the message’ in place of genuine give-and-take. What was left, in the end, were little more than free infomercials."

바카라 웹사이트"Dole needed a powerful showing to shore up his own base and begin to crack through to new constituencies, like moderates and independents," said John Zogby, a pollster for Reuters news agency. "It had to be one hell of a show. It wasn’t quite that. Nothing happened in this debate to change the dynamics of the race. The context for this election was set long ago and there is no one event than can turn it around."

바카라 웹사이트In contrast to Hartford, the debate in San Diego used a town hall format, with audience members posing questions to the candidates. Lehrer said they were chosen "to represent a rough cross-section of America." The issues asked about included the economy, welfare, health care, foreign policy, the rights of gays in the workplace and affirmative action.

Dole repeatedly challenged Clinton on ethics and broken promises, but the president completely ignored the attacks and, at one point, suggested that Dole라이브 바카라 critiques were a diversion from the major problems facing the country. "I don’t want to respond in kind to all these things," he said, adding, "no attack ever created a job or educated a child.... No insult ever cleaned up a toxic waste dump." Although Dole nicked Clinton on the character issue, he failed to make the president squirm long enough for the decisive victory desperately desired by Republicans. Largely gone in San Diego was the aura of respect the two men displayed in Hartford. Their words were sometimes tense and contentious. Dole라이브 바카라 aggressive posture reflected the decision made within his campaign that his best hope now of overtaking Clinton라이브 바카라 lead in the polls rested on getting voters to rethink their support of the president and to remind them of the many things they disliked about his presidency. Although Dole succeeded in making the president appear defensive, he never compelled Clinton to lose his cool.

DOLE’S decision to focus on the personal issues—the basic message being that "my word is good," and Clinton라이브 바카라 is not—gave the President the opportunity to draw a comparison in policy terms. And since the unscripted questions focused almost entirely on domestic social programmes, Clinton was operating for most of the encounter on turf where Democrats tend to be more trusted by voters than Republicans.

Asked what he thought about the San Diego debate, Arkanas legislator, Senator Jum Keet, (Republican, Little Rock), said, "Frankly, I was a little disappointed. I thought that some of the answers were not as explicit as they might have been, and both candidates seemed to be evasive at times and stayed on their own themes and avoided the questions that were asked." He also pointed out that a small group of informed citizens with good questions did not translate into national interest in the debate.

The vice-presidential debate on October 9 focussed on the economy, with Republican nominee Jack Kemp insisting that wide-ranging tax cuts were needed to spur growth and Vice President Gore arguing that the GOP plan was dangerous and irresponsible. Kemp was typically optimistic; sometimes passionate and animated and occasionally un-Republican. In contrast, the vice-president was dispassionate, chanting a mantra in defence of President Clinton라이브 바카라 record and agenda and repeating at every possible turn his claim that the election of Kemp and Dole represented a threat to "Medicare, Medicard, education, and the environment". Gore also said Dole라이브 바카라 victory would turn the clock back on the gains the Clinton administration had made in the last four years. Gore stayed low-key throughout, trying to find wedges between Kemp and Dole—and, what should please the Clinton camp, usually succeeded.

After the vice-presidential debate, some polls indicated that Dole had closed the gap between himself and Clinton, but the numbers bounced back, suggesting volatility on the part of the undecided voters. "While vice-presidential debates might help focus attention on a race or make a ticket more attractive, they never decide a race. Nobody ever votes for a vice-president," said Mellman.