Team Obama is agreeing to just three standard debates.
Yet, the article continues
Not a huge shock really. But I am still a little disappointed.
I suppose that this is a good tactical decision for Obama. But still. It does make him afraid of the venue. Maybe there is still hope of some mutual town hall but now agreeing to that would get portrayed as a flip flop.
Okay, what’s the debate? How about - will this help Obama or McCain more?
While Obama’s plan would help Obama, now that it has become an issue it will work against him. He’s given McCain another arrow for his quiver. It makes Obama look afraid. But more importantly, it allows McCain to seize the mantle of wanting to provide the electorate with the most information. And that he’s happy to do so in a less controlled environment. This will definitely hurt Obama, and I think he is well aware of it. I guess he’s determined that it won’t hurt him as much as having more debates.
It’s hurting Obama now, but it will help him later on.
Right now it looks like Obama seems worried about going toe-to-toe with McCain and wants to keep the debates to a minimum. But frankly I feel Obama would defeat McCain in a debate in just about every aspect. The few debates would amplify his wins against McCain, since the fewer the debates the lesser the chances of McCain making him look bad or just plain beating him. If Obama wins the 3 debates or even 2 he looks much better than if there were 6 debates and Obama won 3, especially if McCain comes on top on the last ones.
Also less debates means more speeches, which are Obama’s strong suits and McCain’s weaknesses. It’s better for Democrats to have the press compare the two candidate’s speeches than their responses or interactions in a debate.
Typically, the leading and/or most charismatic candidate has little to gain and everything to lose from debating. Thus, the major call for debates almost always comes from the trailing candidate, who always claims that the other guy is afraid to debate. Nothing new here.
(An example of how the leading candidate can lose by debating: Gore was expected to mop the floor with the less articulate, supposedly less educated Bush. Virtually all observers (and the pollsters) agreed that Gore was seriously hurt, both by the fact that Bush handled himself much better than expected, and by the negative public response to his reaction shots (sighs, eye-rolls, etc.).)
I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, more debates sounds better, but generally they seem so uninformative that I don’t think it matters much if they have three or five.
I also have to question the “just” three thing. Three has been the standard number for some time.
You people who think this makes Obama look afraid of McCain crack me up. I think it makes him look in control of McCain.
Obama was not hurt by not debating Clinton at her demand and he won’t be hurt by not debating McCain at his demand.
I think Obama would whip him bad enough in debates that people would feel sorry for McSame and he might pick up some sympathy votes. I don’t see any way that Obama loses in debates except possibly by appearing to pile on the score.
It’s just SOP. There’ve always been three debates.
Why can’t it be both?
Obama SHOULD be worried about too many debates. He did not perform especially well in the Dem primary debates. It’s not his strength, and McCain sounds better when explaining himself in detail than he does in sound bites.
But avoiding something you’re worried about is just smart campaigning, is it not? Obama would be stupid to engage in more debates when it’s probably to his opponent’s advantage. It’s wise of him to do this - good, smart campaigning.
The candidate that’s losing always wants more debates. The winner always tells the loser to get fucked. It never affects anybody’s vote. When it comes to appearing in public, side by side with bama, I think McCain better be careful what he wishes for. Obama had to hold back in the debates against Hillary. He needed to avoid alienating her supporters. He doesn’t have to pull any punches with McCain. I don’t know why the McCain camp thinks that putting their guy in a side by side comparison with an opponent who’s taller, smarter, better looking, better spoken and infinitely more charasmatic than McCain is. Throw in the fact that McCain is also on the wrong side of every issue, and you have a recipe for a trainwreck.
Yep. I was also surprised how mediocre Obama did in the primary debates.
Personally, I’d rather see them concentrate on improving the quality of the debates before they worry about increasing the quantity.
Oh, that’s hilarious. Obama doesn’t want to debate McCain, because he’d beat him so badly that McCain would pick up sympathy votes? Are you kidding? Do you seriously believe this?
Obama has not shown himself to be a particularly good debater. He is far less experienced than McCain, and far less knowledgeable on issues of security and military issues. McCain has lived through a lot more recent history than Obama has, being 25 years older, and was right in the middle of some very momentous decisions. They’re probably about equal on economics - neither of them know what they’re talking about. Obama’s obviously more knowledgeable on issues such as law, but they aren’t big debate topics.
If I were Obama, I’d be worried about McCain saying things like this:
“In the first Gulf war, we chose to do X and Y and Z. I was on the committee that evaluated those choices. Given what you know of those issues, what would you have decided, Senator Obama?”
“What did you think of the Security Council resolution passed in '92 which set up
condition X?”
“Senator, your strategy is not at all similar to the approach taken towards the Fulda Gap in the cold war. Why do you think yours is better?”
In short, there are a million ways McCain can probably trap Obama, simply due to his greater experience and intimate knowledge of events that happened while Obama was still in school. If Obama has to say, “Senator, I’m not familiar with those events” too many times, he’ll be in trouble. If he tries to fake it, he could step in it badly.
Obama has said a few things which make me question his general knowledge. I’ve seen no evidence that he’s schooled in a whole lot outside of his narrow interests, and certainly not on defense and the military. That makes him vulnerable to McCain more than say someone like Mitt Romney.
Considering McCain’s recent issues, I’d consider these questions more likely:
“In the first Gulf War, the war against Malta and high gasoline taxes, we said we’d follow James Dean to hell and back and then to hell again! I’ll find a hundred billion dollars and a fast car tomorrow!”
“What did you think of the Security Council resolution passed in '92 which means that I don’t have an opinion on condoms?”
“Senator, your strategy is not at all similar to the approach taken toward the Martian in the First Martian War. Should I go lie down?”
Oh agreed that Obama has more to lose than does McCain in a greater number of debates or town halls. But McCain has shown himself to have a very poor mastery of those things called facts, Sam. He fumbles and misspeaks and has a hard time remembering who he is supposed to be pandering to today. I’ve listened to McCain giving some town halls and he is pretty awful, my friend.
QFT. This is pure kabuki theater.
But it doesn’t matter how McCain or Obama actually do in the debates–it’s all about how the media portrays it. And if Obama is still out in front by then, the media will be inclined to call it a draw or even call it for McCain as long as he doesn’t actually crap himself on stage.
Outside of the political implications, three seems about right to me. I think that the endless primary season showed definitively that more is not necessarily better when it comes to debates.
Yeah, McCain could also crash and burn. He didn’t fail miserably in the primary debates, but he also didn’t distinguish himself. But still… Unless McCain is a complete moron (and I don’t believe he is), he’s got a lot more facts at his command regarding modern world events than Obama does, and can ‘pull rank’ in a lot of ways that could work for him in a debate.
But this notion that Obama is obviously so incredibly superior at debating that the big risk would be beating McCain so badly that he’d get sympathy votes is pretty crazy.
Getting confused about his “facts” in a debate like hes been doing almost weekly so far in the campaign would also be a lot more damaging and get a lot more coverage than his mostly ignored gaffes do now.
Boy, just imagine if McCain challenged Obama to a debate, and have it be at the Iraqi-Pakistan border! You *bet * Obama wouldn’t do it!
I’ve seen no evidence of this whatsoever. I’ve seen just the opposite, in fact. McCain doesn’t know the difference between Sunni and Shia or between al Qaeda and the insurgency. He doesn’t know when or why the “surge” started. He thinks Pakistan is on the border of Iraq. He thinks he can walk around the Baghdad Market without a bodyguard, etc.
Okay, if you guys are going to pull slips of the tongue or slight malapropisms as examples of McCain’s stupidity, I’ll have to point out that:
[ul]
[li]Obama thinks there are 58 states.[/li]
[li]Obama thought 10,000 people were killed in a Tornado in the U.S. Quote: "“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll - 12. I actually think this one is fairly serious, because anyone with half a brain or a shred of numeracy would have known that number was out of whack. Obama apparently didn’t.[/li]
[li]Obama is totally confused on the status and negotiations around Jerusalem.[/li]
[li]Obama doesn’t know that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan speak different languages. Quote: "“We only have a certain number of <translators>, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” [/li]
[li]Obama claims he knows nothing about the Hanford nuclear waste site, despite it being a major political and environmental issue for decades. Not only that, he’s voted on a bill involving Hanford.[/li]
[li]Obama sees dead people: “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today.”[/li]
[li]Obama didn’t know that Auschwitz was in Poland, and claimed his uncle helped liberate it. [/li]
[li]Obama thinks the president can serve for 8 to 10 years[/li]
[li]Obama doesn’t have a basic understanding of how the military works. Quote: “I’m going to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and give them a new mission, and that is to bring the war in Iraq to a close”. The Joint Chiefs are not in the chain of command. They are advisors to the President. Obama apparently did not know this.[/li]
[li]Obama told Larry King on CNN – asked about that anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton YouTube ad, a doctored version of a spot created for Apple computers – “We don’t have the technical capacity to create something like that.” It was actually created on a Mac - by one of the people who worked on his campaign.[/li]
[li]Obama is ignorant of a critical period of U.S. history - the Cuban Missile Crisis. He claimed that John F. Kennedy’s 1961 summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna helped with the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, it partially caused it, because after the meeting Khruschev declared that the Americans were too soft to fight.[/li]
[li]Obama thinks that Roosevelt and Truman met with their enemies to negotiate (he said this when asked about his comment that he would negotiate with Iran without preconditions). In fact, neither Roosevelt nor Truman met with any axis powers, and both demanded unconditional surrender and no negotiations. If he meant that Roosevelt met with Stalin, the Soviet Union was an American ally at the time. In addition, when North Korea attacked South Korea, Truman did not ask for negotiations - he responded immediately with military strength. [/li][/ul]
Isn’t this fun? Does this list really mean anything? No more than the list of McCain’s supposed gaffes. It’s a long, tiring campaign. Candidates trip up on occasion, say stupid things, get facts twisted, whatever. Of course, if it’s your guy who does it, it’s just an ‘honest mistake’, or a ‘clear stumbling of words and not what he meant’, or ‘exhaustion’. When the other side does it, it’s unambiguous evidence of idiocy. Right?