Given that the elction is coming up, I read in another thread about the debates between the democrat and republican nominees.
Are they required?
Could Bush refuse them for any reason and would this be allowed?
Would it affect his chances?
Isn’t he a lousy debater?
As far as I know, the debates are entirely optional. Dubya’s daddy spent a very large portion of the 1992 campaign avoiding nailing down debates with Clinton. There was no penalty, other than being followed around the country by a guy in a chicken suit who heckled him for being a coward (“Chicken George”) about debating.
Given, Poppy did in fact enter into debate agreements for that election, but it was a LONG slog to get him to do so.
I’ll make a wager right now that there will be at least two Presidential debates. Furthermore, once again Bush will exceed expectations and do surprisingly well.
Are they required? no
Could Bush refuse them for any reason and would this be allowed? yes and yes (per the first question)
Would it affect his chances? Depends. If he were WAY ahead in the polls he might wager that he had nothing to gain by debating. He’d have to be far ahead, though, as it probably would turn some people off.
Isn’t he a lousy debater? The concensus last time around was that he “beat” Gore and Gore was thought to be a good debater. Gore came off as arogant (remember the sighing?) and that cost him. I wouldn’t say Bush is a good debater, but saying he’s lousy is just a cop out. There are many ways to do well in a debate, not just being the guy with all the facts and all the debating tactics.
I agree with Sam on this. It would be highly unusual for there to be no debates. And this is going to be a very close election. Two debates seems to be the general rule, so that’s a good bet. More likely, whoever is farther ahead in the polls will use that leverage to push for a debating format and venue that favors his strengths or plays to his opponent’s weaknesses.
Thats not much of a wager.
Exceed whose expectations?
Well according to who?
Has there been in recent tims, a president who wouldn’t agree to debates?
In what sense was Gore thought to be a good debater? He was thought to be pretty bright, I think, but as you point out, that doesn’t make a good debater (outside of high school).
That’s true. All the analyses of the Gore-Bush debates that I heard concluded that while Gore knew his stuff moreso than Bush, Bush came off better because he came across as more “guy-next-door” (or something). The impression that I was left with was that winning a presidential debate meant coming across as someone the people would want to go out for a beer with.
Personally, there have been very few presidential candidates lately that I’d want to hang out with, but my impression is that the “let’s grab a beer” criterion would have correctly predicted the winner of the last few elections.
Jay
Sure, but that’s only because he’ll manage to pronounce more than three polysyllabic words correctly, and everyone will be too busy marveling at his newfound elocution to note that what he actually said was nonsense.
If I recall, the most recent president to decide not to debate was Jimmy Carter. It was the 1980 election, the year John Anderson was running as an independent, and Reagan was running as the Republican.
Anyway, Carter wanted to debate Reagan mano a mano, but Reagan wanted to allow Anderson into the debates. Of course, this was not entirely out of the goodness of his heart. Carter, as the incimbent, was going to be the target of two opponents picking him apart as opposed to one. Also, if I recall, Anderson was a moderate, but had views more similar to Reagan than Carter.
Reagan wanted the three to debate, as did Anderson. Eventually, because of Carter’s intransigence, Reagan and Anderson held a debate without Carter. Reagan won that one, and Reagan and Anderson made Carter look like he was afraid of an honest debate in public.
Finally, after Anderson became a nonfactor, Carter and Reagan had a debate on the eve of the election, due in large part to Carter’s lagging in the polls and the public image problem he had to deal with as someone who didn’t want to debate Reagan and Anderson, and as someone who didn’t like third parties to participate. Reagan, though he beat Anderson, looked like the advocate of the little guy, the third party accomodator, and such. Carter tried to erase his image of being afraid.
“There you go again.”
The rest is history.
Sad, isn’t it? It would be nice to live on a planet where the person who made the most intelligent points won the debate. I can still hear Bush’s asinine bleating: “That’s fuzzy math!” “That’s fuzzy math!” :rolleyes:
I’ve read that; the American public doesn’t want someone as president that they perceive as being a lot smarter than them.
If true, I guess we are stuck with Bush. 
I don’t think that’s quite fair, or accurate. Bill Clinton was obviously very smart, he had a bit of what you might call the common touch. I think reasonable people (which is not everyone, granted) don’t mind smart people who don’t lord it over them.
Shrub did initially try to avoid debating last time by trying to get Gore to debate him on cable instead of network television. Gore was much better informed that Bush in the debates and beat him on substance but the public at large doesn’t respond much to substance. The public reaction to the Bush/Gore debates was basically predictably partisan and despite proclamations of a “consensus” that Bush won them, don’t forget that GORE won the popular vote in the election.
The debates are completely scripted and controlled anyway. No handler would let his candidate go out there not knowing every question beforehand and without having rehearsed every answer (including the scripted one-liners) for hours before the event.
No candidate has any legal obligation to participate in a debate but it would be politically damaging for one of them to refuse flat out. They would look cowardly and be handing ammunition to their opponents.
The only interesting angle for the debates this cycle is the possibility that Bush (a draft dodger and a deserter) may have to explain himself to a war hero (either Kerry or Clark) when pushed about his lies vis-a-vis Iraq.
I had a hard time hearing Gore’s intelligent points. I was so distracted by his eyeball rolling, dumbass facial expressions and sighs. He had the brains, but his attitude killed him. Another president with no self-control was not what we needed. His campaign manager should have pulled the fire alarm. :rolleyes:
[This is in no way an endorsement of Bush]
Guess I wasn’t watching the same debate, because I didn’t see any of those “dumbass facial expressions” that you did. What was he supposed to do? - say, “O.K., George - you’re right. You’re not proposing giving a big tax break to the weathiest 1% of the country.” In the debate I saw, Bush was getting his panties all in a bunch because Gore wouldn’t let him get away with his bullshit. Personally, I feel like rolling my eyes every time I hear Bush speak.
I just kept picturing Gore talking to some foreign president, with those facial expressions. Since it turned out votes didn’t matter in that election, it’s not important. And I do have to live forever with the shame of knowing that I voted for Bush.
And yet we ended up with a president who does embarrass us in meetings with foreign presidents, such as repeatedly and publically referring to the President of France “Jacques” during a press conference with the man, and choosing the opportunity to get extremely petty and snippy with a correspondent who spoke both French and English.
I guess the guy you’d have a beer with doesn’t always equate to the guy you want holding a press conference with foreign leaders. Perhaps we should start drinking more beer with smart people.
I’ve never felt debates were significant, with the exception of Kennedy-Nixon. Most that watch have already decided who their choice is, and fans of both sides automatically declare their man the winner. Perhaps if we opened up the rules a bit and let each man question his opponent, they’d be worth watching.
I came away with the impression that Gore lost the election based on the debates. By coming out ‘feisty’ in the first one and then changing when it was criticized into ‘sensitive’ and then a third option he undercut his support by confusing the public with who he was.
1st rule of marketing: don’t confuse the prospects with multiple offers.
Gore did it and it cost him. If he’d stayed within himself in all three debates he might have won.
I doubt you were characterizing Clinton as a draft-dodger in the lead-up to the 2000 elections, so it’s disingenuous to do so now.
Nor do I agree that Bush is a draft dodger.
However - I do agree that in spite of yourself, you make a good point. Both Kerry and Clark have the credentials to challenge Bush on military decisions; Dean, just to pick another example, can easily be dismissed as a hysterical peacenik. But Kerry and Clark cannot be brushed aside with such distractions, and this is why I had such high hopes for the Dean candidacy.
I dunno, pandering to public opinion seemed to work really well for Clinton. In this day and age, it seems to be an unfortunate political reality.
Anyway, the whole thing galls me. Gore was constantly and mercilessly criticized for being boring; then when he showed some backbone in the debate, he got criticized for that. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…