These will be interesting. The candidates for President will meet three times, while the candidates for Vice President will meet once. Here is the schedule.
Each debate will begin at 9 p.m. ET and will run for 90 minutes, with at least 16 questions.
First Debate
Bush vs Kerry - Sep 30 - University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. It will be moderated by PBS’s Jim Lehrer. Under the agreement, the first debate will focus on foreign policy and homeland security
Second Debate
Bush vs Kerry - October 8 - Town Hall forum at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. ABC’s Charles Gibson will moderate. Questions posed by an equal number of “soft” supporters of each candidate chosen by the Gallup Organization.
Third Debate
Bush vs Kerry - October 13 - Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona. CBS’s Bob Schieffer will moderate. Will deal with economic and domestic policy.
Vice Presidential Debate
Cheney vs Edwards - October 5 - Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
All major Networks, including CNN, Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC will cover these debates, live. So check your local listings.
Some more interesting tid bits, before we get down to serious business.
The two candidates will be seated on stools for that debate, but for the other two debates they will be standing behind podiums.
In each debate, according to the agreement, “the candidates may not ask each other direct questions, but may ask rhetorical questions.”
Senior Bush and Kerry sources said one of the last things the campaigns were negotiating was how the candidates would get their cues. Ultimately, a compromise was reached: Timing lights will flash when there are 30 seconds, 15 seconds and five seconds remaining. An audible cue will then go off to note the end of time for a response, and the moderator will step in.
Most national polls show Bush sporting a job approval rating around 50 percent and clinging to a small, but not insurmountable lead over Kerry.
Bush practiced a couple of hours Saturday and then another two hours Sunday. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire, played Kerry. Mark McKinnon, media adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign, was the moderator.
Kerry had one practice debate with sparring partner and friend Greg Craig last weekend in Boston.
The Agreement on Debates by both parties is pretty interesting in its specificities.
The whole thing is so carefully choreographed, that it seems more a question of who can deliver the script better. I doubt there will be any spontaneous combustion by either candidate.
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*Originally posted by Faisal: *
The whole thing is so carefully choreographed, that it seems more a question of who can deliver the script better. I doubt there will be any spontaneous combustion by either candidate.
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Cross your fingers, Bush's earpiece could always malfunction.
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*Originally posted by Faisal: *
These will be interesting. ...
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Well back in Pakistan, we are hoping Bush wins.
Demo-karts are so anti-Pakistan. Did you guys see the post where some "Star Demo-kart" was raving and ranting about Pakistan?
Lets focus on the Presidential Debates in this thread, and not the broad specter of candidates and elections as a whole. For that we have a separate thread. By the way, the name you mis-spelled is probably Barak Obama.
WASHINGTON: A sigh, a glance at a wristwatch, a five o’clock shadow.
After all the weighty words are passed back and forth in a presidential debate, it is often a simple gesture or a quick quip or a difference in appearance that remains in the memory.
In 2000, Republican George W Bush and Democrat Al Gore faced off on the issues of the day with key words like “lockbox” and “compassion” filling the air.
But it was sounds from Gore that appeared to be sighs while Bush was speaking, plus the odd make-up used by the Democratic vice president, that may best be remembered today.
Presidential debates in the United States have a relatively short history. The first was not held until 1960, when Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat John Kennedy faced each other on the new medium of television.
They discussed the hot issues of the day, such as what might happen to the tiny islands of Quemoy and Matsu off the China coast. But what came across on the screen were Kennedy’s cool and Nixon’s five o’clock shadow.
So it is likely to be again this year when the two presidential rivals - Republican President Bush and Democratic Senator John Kerry - square off for what is now a quadrennial slugfest.
After the Kennedy-Nixon debates, there were no more for another 16 years when Republican President Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter re-established the practice. A vice presidential debate also was added in 1976.
The revived event got off to a rocky start when a short circuit in some television equipment lost the sound transmission from the first debate. For nearly a half-hour, the two candidates just stood behind their podiums, not moving, not talking and not doing anything that might look unpresidential.
It was during a subsequent debate on foreign policy that Ford made a mistake that might have cost him votes in the very close election. Answering a question about the Soviet Union, Ford said - despite two decades of history to the contrary - “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Carter won but faced a far different debater in 1980: Ronald Reagan, the former California governor and movie star.
Many political pundits thought Reagan was too conservative or intellectually lightweight to be elected president. But just as the 1960 debates buried concerns about Kennedy’s youth, the ex-governor’s 1980 performance calmed many of those fears and made voters comfortable about voting for him.
“There you go again,” he kept chiding Carter in a friendly conversational manner, and in the end, he asked voters a question that seemed to go to the heart of the campaign: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Four years later, Reagan found himself in trouble when he seemed befuddled in his first debate with former Vice President Walter Mondale, admitting at one point, “I’m all confused now.”
But he rebounded in the next encounter when he put the age issues to rest by quipping: “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
“I knew he had gotten me there,” Mondale said later. “That was really the end of my campaign.”
In 1988, Republican Vice President George Bush painted his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, as an “iceman” lacking in passion. Dukakis helped him out by responding with a straight policy answer against the death penalty when asked how he would feel if his wife was raped and murdered that seemed to prove Bush’s point.
Four years later, it was Bush who some critics said had fallen out of touch with American voters. During one debate with Democrat Bill Clinton and independent Ross Perot, he was twice caught looking at his wristwatch to see how much time was left.
Clinton took naturally to a new format introduced for some of the debates: a “town meeting” at which the public asked questions instead of a panel of journalists. In 1996, he roamed the platform like a talk show host, leaving Republican Robert Dole looking uncomfortable with the new style.
Although the main spotlight is on the presidential debates, probably the most memorable lines uttered in the political exchanges came in a vice presidential debate.
Republican Senator Dan Quayle, blasted by Democrats as too lightweight and inexperienced for the job, tried to answer the criticism by pointing out he had as much congressional experience as Kennedy did when he reached the Oval Office.
Like a wolf jumping on a lamb, his Democratic rival, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, turned to look directly at Quayle and responded:
“I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”
For a rare moment in presidential campaign debates, a candidate was speechless.
These debates will be quite interesting as both debaters posses a different style of debate. While Kerry is composed and detail-oriented, Bush usually responds in short but punchy sentences. I think that current debate format will suit Bush more than Kerry but Kerry is an accomplished debater. So lets see.
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*Originally posted by Faisal: *
........
In 2000, Republican George W Bush and Democrat Al Gore faced off on the issues of the day with key words like "lockbox" and "compassion" filling the air
.....
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Any predictions about the buzzwords for this debate.
Kerry better get a good make-up guy to cover up his orange skin. I bet the advisor who convinced him to get into the tanning machine has been "promoted" to spend the rest of the campaign in Alaska.
^ I agree. And Cheney better wear a corset to hide his beer belly .. he looks like the dorky short legged weasel who drinks blood for fun I saw in one of the movies.
In each debate, according to the agreement, "the candidates may not ask each other direct questions, but may ask rhetorical questions."
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The organizers really shouldn't be advocating Rhetoric. I was looking forward to watching a debate, but it appears there won't be one. Just live versions of campaign commercials.
The organizers really shouldn't be advocating Rhetoric. I was looking forward to watching a debate, but it appears there won't be one. Just live versions of campaign commercials.
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The Presidential debates never are real "debates." The rules this time are not substantially different from the rules of the last several "debates."
The most any candidate can do is appear Presidential, not lose his cool, and project an image that the majority of the American people will feel comfortable living with for the next four years. Going into the last election, everyone knew Gore had the resume to be President. Bush was an unknown. Bush "won" those debates because enough people came away thinking that he had the attributes necessary to be a President.
Kerry must persuade enough undecided voters that he is Presidential. That he is someone likeable. That we can feel comfortable knowing he is calling the shots.
They say this debate is already helping the economy. In fact, millions of people are buying large screen TV sets so they can see Kerry's entire head."–- Jay Leno
"I tell you, Bush working very hard getting prepared for these debates. He got one of those hooked on phonics tapes." –- Jay Leno
Edit: In all seriousness, I have met with John Kerry a number of years ago. The man is as boring as watching paint dry. The one thing the debaate will expose is his utter lack of charisma. perhaps his handlers have been able to program in some charismatic quips, or some warm and fuzzy moments, but the man is about as exciting as a lamp post...
If George can manage to pronouce "nuclear", he will have it made... Frankly I can't stand to watch GWB debate either, it is like fingernails on a blackboard...
Kerry will remind America about Bush’s lack of focus in the fight against terror. The evident of that is how he turned away from fight to take a detour, which landed the U.S. in Iraq which has shown to have been a colossal misdirection. Kerry will sell himself as someone who will first and foremost re-engage the war against terror by shifting resources to it and by re-energizing the broad support America had just post 9/11.
Well back in Pakistan, we are hoping Bush wins.
Demo-karts are so anti-Pakistan. Did you guys see the post where some "Star Demo-kart" was raving and ranting about Pakistan?
I think his name was something like O'Bomba.
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After all that do you think this really matters? One dumbhead exchanged with another. But then ill go for Kerry i guess.
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*Originally posted by ahmadjee: *
^ I agree. And Cheney better wear a corset to hide his beer belly .. he looks like the dorky short legged weasel who drinks blood for fun I saw in one of the movies.
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It was once thought that women would vote for the more "attractive" ticket. Well, the truth is that a lot of women marry guys who could stand wearing corsets to hide their beer bellies. Truth is, if they are good enough to marry, they are good enough to vote for. Surprisingly, the polls show that Bush/Cheney is ahead among female voters over the DEM dream ticket of JFK II and Edwards.
For whatever reason, Bush & Cheney seem to look, act, speak and be more like average guys than Kerry and Edwards who come off as effette, liberal, silver spoon rich guys. Part of the objective of the DEM ticket during the debates will be to come off a little more human and a little more average.
At least as important as the debate itself is what the media commentators say afterward. CBS and CNN will for sure play up how well Kerry did and/or how poorly Bush did regardless of what happens.
Fortunately, more people will be breathlessly waiting for the fair and balanced analysis provided by Fox News. I'm keeping my fingers crossed becasue you never know how Fox will analyze the debate.
since when did women start having problems marrying rich guys?
P.S. to safeguard this from the On-topic-Nazis.. i'm looking forward to a lot of fake smiles.. and let's see how Bush postures on a stool!! it'd be his turtle on a fence post scenario .. literally.
Fortunately, more people will be breathlessly waiting for the fair and balanced analysis provided by Fox News. I'm keeping my fingers crossed becasue you never know how Fox will analyze the debate.
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MV, even with all the policy differences and differing judgment of Bush's tenure that we have, I really didn't think you fell into the category of those who believe the BS that Fox News is fair and balanced. IF CBS and CNN are predictably biased toward democrats, then FOX is assuredly biased toward Republicans. It's not even close. Who provides the balance? Mousey Colmes who lets Hannity walk all over him? Greta who wouldn't give a political opinion if her life depended on it? Did you watch the beach balls O'Reilly lofted Bush's way and the continued praise of Bush's performance since? It's a joke.
As to O'Reilly. Tough questions. Did you see all the undecideds who loved the interview??? Does Kerry have the balls to go on O'Reilly??? Does he have the balls not to??? O'Reilly promises to play the whole interview the day before the election and has also promised to play the interview of Kerry if he consents.