The debates will be awesome

Smellyman2

Obama will beat McCain like a drum.

Biden will run circles around Palin.

It will be a trainwork for the GOP.

Luckily, the GOP voting base doesn't care. As long as they say pro life and god bless a lot, they will continue to vote for the weak sauce.

jeffbr

Smellyman wrote:

Obama will beat McCain like a drum.

This is not not the slam dunk you want to believe. I don't believe we've seen any evidence to back this up. Obama is the master orator. He is flawless with a script. He looks great, speaks well, perfect inflection, pauses and makes eye contact. There is absolutely nothing to criticize about his ability to work off of a script. But he comes across much less secure when he doesn't have his words written out. I think McCain may come off as much more sincere when they're both speaking off the cuff.

Smellyman wrote:

Biden will run circles around Palin.

I agree.

Smellyman wrote:

It will be a trainwork for the GOP.

We'll see. I think it is dangerous for Dems to set expectations too high. They've spend the last decade losing slam dunks in spectacular fashion.

Smellyman wrote:

Luckily, the GOP voting base doesn't care. As long as they say pro life and god bless a lot, they will continue to vote for the weak sauce.

Yup. And as long as Obama says "hope" and "change" enough, his sheeple will fall in line as well.

Strangest Tribe

I believe the Obama and McCain debates will be a trainwreck.

Obama stutters around too much and McCain's skull might explode if he gets mad.

digster

I think Obama is a better debater, but I don't think either he or McCain are particularly skilled at it. Biden's going to be fun to watch; he is an excellent debater.

Speaking of which, does anyone know how Palin is as a debater?

NeilJam

I agree Obama and Biden will probably win their respective debates. Of course I think Kerry and Edwards did pretty good in the 2004 debates but Bush/Cheney still won the election.

CorporateWhore

Little known fact: Obama is an excellent speaker but a terrible debater. Just wait and see.

Smellyman2

CorporateWhore wrote:

Little known fact: Obama is an excellent speaker but a terrible debater. Just wait and see.

Little known fact: this has been a republican rumor/talking point for some time. Not true though. You will see.

flywallyfly

The debates are scripted in that the candidates usually dont actually answer the question asked but talk in a roundabout way off of a scripted answer.

Just on a visual which many undecided Americans use instead of facts or issues (which is scary but true) :

(1) Obama is much taller than McCain -- advantage Obama

(2) McCain looks like Frankenstein, or at least a hybrid of a man's face mixed with the jowl of a chipmunk -- advantage Obama

(3) McCain looks like he has a cast on his arm and shoulder the way he cannot raise his arm (from his crash injuries), just looks rather odd -- advantage Obama

(4) Obama could be used an emergency radar installation with those big ass ears -- advantage McCain

digster

CorporateWhore wrote:

Little known fact: Obama is an excellent speaker but a terrible debater. Just wait and see.

How could it be a little known fact, even if it was true? The guy has been on about 55 nationally televised debates in the past 12 months.

weenie

flywallyfly wrote:

The debates are scripted in that the candidates usually dont actually answer the question asked but talk in a roundabout way off of a scripted answer.

Just on a visual which many undecided Americans use instead of facts or issues (which is scary but true) :

(1) Obama is much taller than McCain -- advantage Obama

(2) McCain looks like Frankenstein, or at least a hybrid of a man's face mixed with the jowl of a chipmunk -- advantage Obama

(3) McCain looks like he has a cast on his arm and shoulder the way he cannot raise his arm (from his crash injuries), just looks rather odd -- advantage Obama

(4) Obama could be used an emergency radar installation with those big ass ears -- advantage McCain

If I may, fellow Austinite....
(5) Obama is quick on his feet (intellectually) while McCain's thought processes work slowly - causing him appear to be not as bright as Obama. But the Repubs will probably juice McCain up with some drugs to get those synapses firing faster.....

cincybearcat

Smellyman wrote:

Obama will beat McCain like a drum.

Biden will run circles around Palin.

It will be a trainwork for the GOP.

Luckily, the GOP voting base doesn't care. As long as they say pro life and god bless a lot, they will continue to vote for the weak sauce.

What's a "trainwork"?

LikeAnOcean

Smellyman wrote:

Obama will beat McCain like a drum.

Biden will run circles around Palin.

It will be a trainwork for the GOP.

Luckily, the GOP voting base doesn't care. As long as they say pro life and god bless a lot, they will continue to vote for the weak sauce.

I don't know. I thought Kerry ran circles around Bush in '04 and look how that turned out.

mca47

CorporateWhore wrote:

Little known fact: Obama is an excellent speaker but a terrible debater. Just wait and see.

Yet Hilary Clinton is known as an excellent debater and as far as I could tell Obama did just as well as she did in their debates.
Also, since when has any debate response not been 90% a pre-scripted reply?

Like others have said, Kerry and Edwards did better in the debates than Bush/Cheney and they lost so who knows what effect it will have...

Pats54

Smellyman wrote:

Little known fact: this has been a republican rumor/talking point for some time. Not true though. You will see.

He is terrible without a script in front of him. He was average at best out in CA at Saddleback Church.

Pats54

weenie wrote:

If I may, fellow Austinite....
(5) Obama is quick on his feet (intellectually) while McCain's thought processes work slowly - causing him appear to be not as bright as Obama. But the Repubs will probably juice McCain up with some drugs to get those synapses firing faster.....

I don't agree that Obama is quick on is feet. He is average w/o a teleprompter. Bill Clinton was a master at this as was Reagan. People just think that Obama can do no wrong and has no weaknesses

digster

Pats54 wrote:

He is terrible without a script in front of him. He was average at best out in CA at Saddleback Church.

He's not terrible; it's not like there's not much evidence of his debating skills. I checked; 27 nationally televised debates in the past 12 months. If he was terrible, you'd think we'd know it by now? No one says he's the greatest debater, but I haven't heard anyone other than the people in this thread say he's terrible. If he was awful, there would have been some kind of consensus on it by now. Of course, if you're blinded by partisanship, it can make alot of difference.

DOSW

The thing about Obama's debating skills is that while he doesn't have the smoothest style of debate speech (he tends to pause mid sentence a lot, searching for words) he is always very substantive with his point. Substance over style. Which really helps him because of the smears against him which claim he's got no substance, only style.

Obama vs McCain will be a good debate. Biden should destroy Palin though... if he doesn't I'll be very disappointed. It would be like the Houston Texans of a couple years ago beating the New England Patriots.

brokenarrow

It's really too bad the 6 people who are running for the Presidency aren't all going to be up on stage for the debates so we, as the citizens of this country, could actually hear what they all have to offer.

Only 2 out of the 6

Oh, and what a surprise, the 2 participants happen to be members of the 2 major parties who also changed all of the rules for Presidential debates after little Ross Perot scared the shit out of them.

The CPD, Commission of Presidential Debates, hosted by the D's & R's.

Nothing like kicking The League of Women Voters in the ass while they were at it.


Got on for a short ride, but I need to get off at the next stop of the Moving Train.

digster

I think Obama vs. McCain will be a good debate simply because neither would likely blow out the other; neither of them are very good; McCain himself has said he's not such a great debater.

Debates these days are such bullshit anyway; I don't think your ability to condense your point, removing all intelligence from your answer so you can fit it into a one minute soundbite, is a good test of your abilities as a president.

Enkidu

I think Sarah Palin has the edge in the swimsuit competition.

Oh wait - am I getting the debates mixed up with something else...

mca47

Pats54 wrote:

He is terrible without a script in front of him. He was average at best out in CA at Saddleback Church.

Why, because he didn't get as many cheers from the religious nut-bags in the audience?

Please! He was in the lion's den on that forum.


Sure, his responses took longer but they were more thought out than McCain's one line and often one word responses.
I wish everything in life is so black and white that could be summed up in half a second, but unfortunately it isn't.
God for bid we get someone who thinks rather than just reacts.