Wow, it wasn’t clear at all what issues the candidates wanted to drum into our heads! :rolleyes: Let’s review:
Number of times Gore said “prosperity”: eight
Number of times Bush emphasized his ability to work with “Republicans and Democrats”: seven
Number of times Gore used the phrase “wealthiest one percent”: ten
Number of times Bush accused Gore of using “phony numbers” or “fuzzy math”: five
Number of times Gore referred to putting Social Security in a “lockbox”: seven
Number of times Bush referred to the previous administration not getting things done: at least eight
Number of times Gore interjected in order to “just say one more thing”: upwards of twenty
Number of times Bush used the word “scare” in connection with Gore’s Medicare plan: five
Number of times Gore sighed audibly while Bush was speaking: countless
The “Could you unload that phrase a bit?” Award: Gore’s use of the term “anti-choice”; Bush’s characterization of assisted suicide as “doctors taking the lives of our seniors.”
All in all, it was very interesting.
Bush clearly went into the debate trying for the witty remark; the bit about “fuzzy math” was planned in order to deflect Gore’s charges about Bush’s plans favoring the wealthy (in my opinion, the tactic implicitly acknowledged the surface truth of those charges, but I’m probably biased), and Bush’s line about “inventing the calculator” was waaay too obviously a prefabricated zinger.
Gore, on the other hand, was pretty much determined to make a stump speech of his own devising regardless of the content of the question. An example from the very beginning: Jim Lehrer asks Gore, “You’ve questioned whether Governor Bush has enough experience to be president; can you explain that?” Gore responds immediately with, “Well, I haven’t questioned his experience, but I have questioned his proposals, and here’s why…” and then goes into a two-minute mini-speech about policy that had nothing to do with the original question. Nice work if you can get it.
On the other hand, when Lehrer asked Bush the circumstances under which a commander-in-chief should use force overseas, it really seemed as if Bush hadn’t been prepped for the question beforehand. I say this because most of the night he was reasonably articulate, but for the first minute answering that question Dubya seemed utterly at sea. His sentence structure became disjointed, his phrases redundant, and he seemed to be grasping for words. I do think Gore’s team prepared him a bit better.
Gore’s team, in fact, probably prepared him too well–I have a suspicion they told him to get the last word whenever possible, and his constant sighs and interruptions became jarring. It seemed as if he was getting frustrated that Bush wasn’t addressing the numbers he had–typical of a policy wonk, but it played a little heavy-handed.
A couple more comments. Gore talked about the constitutional right to privacy being embodied in the Fourth Amendment–correct me if I’m wrong, Bricker and Jodi, but doesn’t that come mostly from the Ninth Amendment’s “penumbra,” explicated in Griswold? That confused me.
Also, Bush’s attempted off-the-cuff joke about “big Hollywood, big trial lawyers” fell completely flat; I think he was trying to counter the Republican shibboleths that Gore had invoked by reminding the folks about some of the Democratic Party’s own loyal constituents, but it just didn’t work…it was a little bit out there, frankly, and it caused him to stop as if expecting a reaction and then have to recover to answer the question.
When Bush was talking about what he’d do in the even of a financial crisis, I could have sworn he said that he’d have someone “get in touch with financial centers, not only here but at home.” Not only here but at home?? Did I mishear this, or can someone explain it to me?
Gore’s deflection of the character attacks in order to “talk about the issues instead” was a bit too transparent, but he carried it relatively well.
Bush brought up the Buddhists, which wasn’t particularly surprising (see my above post). What was surprising, and pleasantly so, was the vehemence with which Gore used that remark, and one about the Lincoln Bedroom, to go after campaign finance reform. He really attacked with it, talking about the corrupting influence of money in politics, and I honestly didn’t think he would (see my above post). I was impressed; I hope he means it. If he does mean it, I’d be a hell of a lot more sanguine about the prospect of a Gore presidency. Nothing, on the other hand, really caused me to view Bush more benevolently…he’s amiable, he looks like Alfred E. Neuman, and while he’s smarter than a lot of people think, I don’t think he’d be a good choice for an executive.
