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Telegraph Blogs, UK with the top ten moments in US debates.
1. The first televised presidential debate was a turning point in the tight battle between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960 – but not because of what either candidate said. Kennedy oozed charm and confidence. Nixon, who was just out of hospital, applied chemist store make-up to his five o-clock shadow, looked pale and shifty and perspired heavily. Presidential candidates opted not to appear in televised debates for the next 16 years.
2. In 1976, President Gerald Ford bewilderingly insisted: “”There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” He lost shortly afterwards to Jimmy Carter.
3. Ronald Reagan, the former Hollywood star, was not surprisingly a natural in front of the cameras. In 1980, he fatally wounded Carter with his delivery of the simplest question to viewers. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The Romney ticket is asking the same question this year.
4. In 1984, Democrats tried to make Reagan’s age an election issue – at 73, he was America’s oldest president and had performed shakily in his first debate with Walter Mondale. But when asked about his age in the final debate, he replied: “I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Even his rival laughed and shortly afterwards Reagan swept the country. …
Newt Gingrich has much on past debates and some advice.
… Newt’s advice: Relax and be prepared
I tell the stories to make the point that too much debate preparation is cognitive, fact-filled, rational and focused on verbal game playing.
The most important aspect of a debate is how you feel.
Mike Deaver, the great media adviser to President Reagan, used to assert that television is 85 percent visual, 10 percent how you sound and 5 percent what you say.
In every Presidential debate I participated in I always remembered Deaver’s rule.
More important than what Romney knows is how he feels.
Is he confident?
Is he relaxed?
Is he in command of himself?
Can he stand up to both the media and the president?
These body language issues are far more important than the specific things he says.
Be assertive and be on offense against both Obama and his media
You can be on offense without being offensive.
The strongest reactions I got to my debates came from people who were desperate for someone to stand up to the media and redefine the questions and reframe the assumptions.
Americans are sick and tired of the unending liberalism and suffocating groupthink of the elite media.
If you look at my strongest applause lines virtually every one was taking on the media. …
Interesting post from Pajamas Media on 10 things to expect from the first debate.
The very poor, a battle of government-run healthcare, “economic patriotism,” and much more!
With Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) portraying Mitt Romney and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) acting as President Obama, the 2012 presidential hopefuls are crunching in their last days of prep before facing off for the first of three nationally televised debates Wednesday.
The University of Denver event, beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern time, is a domestic-policy gauntlet moderated by Jim Lehrer. Subject to “possible changes because of news developments,” Lehrer picked the topics: three parts on the economy, and other 15-minute segments on health care, the role of government, and governing.
We’ve seen and heard much from Romney and Obama on the campaign trail, but what might we hear in their first debate?
Cayman Islands
Don’t expect Obama to go Full Harry Reid and accuse Romney of not paying taxes. Obama has learned by this point that it’s Reid’s job to say crazy stuff, and it’s his job to either nod politely, nod enthusiastically, or pretend like he didn’t hear it. The Obama camp is more than happy, though, to go after tax shelters as a double-edged weapon: use it as proof to convince Congress that the rich are dodging taxes and therefore Bush-era tax cuts shouldn’t be extended for upper-income brackets, and use it on the campaign trail to try to convince the electorate that Romney is out-of-touch wildly wealthy. An unwise rebuttal would be the Ann Romney route of telling a reporter that they don’t even know what’s in their blind trust. A wise rebuttal would steer the conversation to the small-business owners who fall in those upper-income brackets and may have to cut jobs if their taxes went up.47 percent
Obama just might as well prop up an old-school projector and loop Mother Jones’ undercover fundraiser video, because he wants to have those dim tabletop candles and Romney words branded in voters’ minds from now until Nov. 6. “As I travel around the state, I don’t see a lot of victims. I see a lot of hardworking Nevadans,” he cooed to his Las Vegas audience last night. The big question here is if Romney will be able to go on the offensive against Obama on this issue of government dependency. The Romney camp wishes the tape would disappear, but there are three debates to get through questions about the 47 percent (yep, I wouldn’t put a dropping of that digit past Obama in the foreign policy debate), and where the GOP hopeful does not want to be is on the defensive. …
David Harsanyi says Romney must make Obama own the economy.
It’s simple. During the upcoming debates, no matter what question is thrown at him, Mitt Romney has to dump the economy onto the lap of its rightful owner. The president, Romney might suggest, shouldn’t be judged on the economy he campaigned so hard to inherit, but the recovery he has botched. As it stands, Obama is the owner of the most pathetic economic revival in American history. A recovery so weak, it’s difficult to believe that voters even think of it as one.
So, when the president starts unfurling his economic vision of growth through wind-powered fairness factories, Romney has to bring it back to reality. Mr. President, you passed $831 billion special interest “stimulus” plan that you promised the American people would spark growth, yet it has had a negligible impact on economic growth.
It was your administration that claimed growth would climb to 4 percent during your first term if we passed the stimulus. This year, growth is under 2 percent. And it was your economic forecasters who told us that the stimulus would help avert an unemployment disaster. But the unemployment numbers we’re now facing are actually worse than the ones your administration predicted we would have had without the “stimulus.”
Nowadays, the president and his advocates are compelled to cobble together ludicrous claims of success. “In the last 29 months,” Obama will say, “our economy has produced about 4.5 million private-sector jobs.” Or, under the Obama administration “we’ve created more private sector jobs than George Bush’s entire term.”
Romney can’t get bogged down deconstructing these ridiculous cherry-picked assertions. Mr. President, he has to explain, if labor force stood where it was when the Bush administration handed it to you, rather than being depleted by millions of Americans who have given up hope of finding a job, the unemployment rate would be somewhere around 11 percent. That’s what you own.
More than that, the economy has only seen a net gain of around 300,000 jobs over the course of your entire administration. If you’re telling the American people that it takes trillions in extra government spending to create those 300,000 jobs, I say your philosophy is an abject failure. Considering those numbers, it is, in fact, more likely that your policies have hampered the private sector economic growth then helped it. …
Since the government will not stop making laws, perhaps our salvation will come from wise juries. A counter culture blog named Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance has the story of a dairy farmer harassed by ag bureaucrats and saved by jury nullification.
Last week a Minnesota man charged with violating the state’s restrictions on raw milk sales was acquitted in what he and his supporters called a victory for consumer freedom. Alvin Schlangen is a peaceful farmer who connects people with the food sources that meet their high standards for health by providing private access under lawful ownership of farm animals. the member owners pay the Amish farm family for labor to milk the leased 100% grass-fed cows, manage the pasture, store the feed, etc. This co op is a sustainable farming effort where the value of food supports the cost incurred, without government subsidies or harm to the environment. The balance of food options are purchased by the club, for the members. The group has multiple farm sources providing real food to member families- very efficiently, with lots of volunteer effort.
Over the past two years, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture has illegally raided Alvin’s van, warehouse, and farm resulting in the multiple charges that were decided upon in court last week. Technically, Alvin was guilty of breaking the laws in question, even though the laws are totally ridiculous and unjust. Luckily this jury was informed about the process of jury nullification, and their legal right to rule in favor of the accused for breaking unjust laws. …