Author Archives: Tin Man

1992 VP Debate

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On Thursday night we’ll get to see Joe Biden and Sarah Palin debate each other.

This reminds me that one of my favorite national debates ever was the VP debate in 1992.

It was a clash between two iconic politicians: the up-and-coming Al Gore and the embarrassing incumbent VP, Dan Quayle. How could you not watch? Quayle was scrappy and aggressive, tearing into Bill Clinton at every opportunity, while Gore was relentlessly on message, barely concealing his contempt for his former congressional colleague. In the middle was James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s bizarre running mate, interrupting the brawl with odd moments of unintentional humor.

As Maureen Dowd wrote, “With an evidently overcaffeinated Mr. Quayle bouncing from rant to rant to his right and with Mr. Gore relentlessly reeling off speech-chunks to his left, Mr. Stockdale appeared in something of the role of a bewildered grandfather who has wandered down to the rec room in search of his slippers to find himself in the middle of an impassioned teen-age debate on the merits of Ice-T.”

Elizabeth Kolbert: “[F]or those who like to watch politics in its purest form — as a kind of psychological gang warfare — the Vice Presidential debate was one of the best shows the campaign has offered so far.”

Here are the opening statements of all three candidates:

Here’s one of my favorite moments, because it illustrates the tenor of the whole evening:

Here’s the moment where Stockdale says his hearing aid wasn’t turned on:

And here’s another short clip: “pull a Bill Clinton”:

The First Debate

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Who won the debate?

It’s a silly question and I hate it. It doesn’t make sense, because these things we have every four years are not formal debates. Now, I was never on the debate team or in a debating society, but from what I know, a formal debate covers a single topic. For example, “Resolved: Fredonia should enter into an alliance with the League of Planets.” Or, “Resolved: truth is more important than beauty.” One side argues for, the other side argues against. Afterwards, a panel of judges decides which side had the better argument, and that side is the winner.

These presidential debates aren’t like that. There’s no single topic — there are a bunch of different topics.

On the other hand, there really is a single topic, a meta-topic. “Resolved: Candidate X would be a better president of the United States than Candidate Y.”

But again, the question is academic. Kerry “won” his debates against Bush (“You forgot Poland!,” “Need some wood?”), but he lost the election. Debates can help, but they’re not decisive.

So the question is fluid and subjective, and “who won the debate?” doesn’t automatically determine who gets elected.

Also, the actual debate is only half of what happens. The other half is how the debate gets spun. Perceptions will gel after a day or two. I thought Gore wiped the floor with Bush after their first debate in 2000, but then this little meme spread around that Gore kept “sighing” and that he therefore lost. What utter bullshit. (God… to look back on 2000 and see that so much turned on so little.)

There’s some chatter now on Talking Points Memo and Andrew Sullivan that McCain never made eye contact with Obama tonight and that it strikes some people as odd. Part of me says, so the hell what? Eye contact doesn’t matter. But the other part of me thinks it would be nice payback for 2000.

Tomorrow night will be equally as important as tonight. Tomorrow night is when “Saturday Night Live” will do its debate parody. “Makin’ progress!” “It’s hard work!” “Lockbox.” “Strategery.” Those are what I remember most from SNL’s debate parodies in the last couple of elections. Darrell Hammond or Fred Armisen — whose Obama portrayal still makes me cringe in its utter inaccuracy — will speak some lines that will be watched and replayed all over TV and the web, and that’s what will take hold.

Who won the debate? (1) It’s the wrong question, and (2) we’ll know the answer on November 4.