October 01, 2004
The Debate and the Flip-flop Issue
These different strategies were clearly reflected in the breakdown of which one of the two was more frequently the subject of criticism: In Bush‘s comments and replies, 75.7% of his statements where about himself and his administration’s actions and achievements, while 24.3% were on Kerry. Conversely, Kerry criticized Bush in 71.9% of his statements and promoted his ideas in 28.1%. Charts can be found here.
These are some of the results from the real-time analysis of the first presidential TV debate. Media Tenor, a non-partisan media research institute, will analyze all debates during the presidential campaigns and immediately release the findings on its website at www.mediatenor.com.
The flip-flop issue
Most of the accusations of inconsistency in opinions and decisions - largely about the decision whether or not the United States should have gone to war with Iraq and in which manner - where made by George W. Bush.
Of the total number of comments by the candidates about each other alleging inconsistency, or “flip-flopping,” 67% were made by Bush about John Kerry and only 33% was Kerry speaking about Bush. While Kerry ultimately did come up with a response to Bush's charges - that his changes of mind were dwarfed by Bush's failing policies - it was not enough to effectively counter them. Bush's equation of consistency with leadership thus successfully prevented Kerry's arguments from gathering momentum. In the 90-minute debate, Bush accused Kerry of inconsistency approximately once every 9 minutes, making the issue a crucial point of discussion and a subject that Kerry could not disassociate himself from.
Charts at http://www.mediatenor.com/debate0930.htm
The “flip-flop” issue, fostered by Republicans' criticism of Kerry, has increasingly damaged the image of Kerry in the last months. In July, TV networks’ evening news reported the matter in 13 news stories; 53.8% of them were negative in tone. In September, the number of reports on Kerry on this issue added up to 167, and 84.4% of them were negative in tone. Charts at http://www.mediatenor.com/flipflop.pdf
“After nine months of not taking the bull by the horns, Kerry missed an opportunity to hit the right tone to capture the media's and public's attention - at least for the next few days. Since the media tends to focus more on the horse race aspect of the election than on content, tonight's draw does little to alter the public's perception after weeks of weakness and criticism. Thus, Bush will likely stay ahead in the polls next week, bringing the Kerry campaign one step closer to defeat in the general election.” Says Roland Schatz, CEO of Media Tenor Institute, who will be writing on the performance of the candidates on the debates and the influence of media in public opinion during the next weeks at www.mediatenor.com
…Seems self-evident that the challenger in a political race is going to spend time criticizing the incumbent, what exactly is the point of this article?
As for the accusations of “flip-flopping”, again, what’s the point of showing percentages in this case? Bush floundered and faltered and repeated the same attacks over and over again and Kerry deftly countered. Nearly everyone who saw the debates last night, Republicans included, agree that Bush look tired, flustered, not in command of the facts, and all around out-argued by his opponent. Is this article just an advertisement for a right-wing website, or is it a joke?
Posted by: I ain't Eddy at October 1, 2004 03:20 PMI swear to God Almighty that this and many other articles like it is just another vehicle the Bush team is using in thier grass-roots campaign strategy. The Bush campaign is so damn good at spreading these obscene generalizations among us common people. Random shit like this appears everywhere. I can’t take a drive without seeing 8 million stickers with that ominous W staring at me. It makes me sad.
And damnit it is working. People are convinced Kerry is a flip-flopper. Others actually are alarmed by the fact that Kerry makes accusations of Bush. These are BOTH completely regular and accepted ways of practicing politics! That’s what goes down! Flip Flops and Finger Pointing.
I completely realize that it is President Bush’s job to spread these kinds of opinions about the people. I am just pissed off that he is so good at it. Can nobody see that everyone does the things they accuse Kerry of doing? Is it not obvious to everyone that statistics—voting records in particular—are inherently misleading? Why can’t people learn to take this shit in moderation? Every time some jerk with a pie chart claims to unlock the secrets of the universe, I wish a little more for this all to end. Every time some idiot quotes a sound bite from one of those ridiculous commercials I die a little bit more.
Which, I would like to point out, is absolutely insane because I already feel dead. I am so sick and tired of all this crap. The worst part about it all is that I really shouldn’t even care about any of this crap. But naturally, I too have a role to play too in this all too simple world drawn by articles like this and some of the 30 second commercials—I have to be an insane disbelieving conspiracy theorist liberal. I am what is wrong with this country.
Screw those graphs, screw articles like this and screw the election. Isadora Badi—if you are just a citizen and not an actual registered tool of Rove and friends—don’t post articles like this. They are hurting me. It just causes the both of us to feed ourselves to the machine, me in my way and you in yours. BOTH of us need to STOP.
Maybe it’s just because I’m in Georgia, maybe it’s because I am insane, but God but it is so hard to stop. All this pent up frustration, like a geyser that keeps blowing off my inhibition. Especially over the internet, I feel so little. We are all dead. This is making us dead. DEAD
By the way if you do actually work for the Republican Party, my compliments. You guys are doing a great job of manipulating the hell out of millions of people. Even your opposition is playing into your hands. I really really really hate it.
What became evident to me is that Bush doesn’t have a strategy going forward to deal with Iraq. That troubles me a lot… I am voting Kerry now.
My take on the election is that the Bush campaign is making the bet that people really are either too stupid or too lazy to actually challenge the assertions they make. I’m both interested and frightened to see if the bet pays off. Little that Bush asserts stands up to verification, but I suspect that most people either don’t question it (stupid) or don’t bother to verify it (lazy).
Posted by: Dan at October 1, 2004 10:24 PMMust Be, I’ve got family in Georgia (all Democrats), and they feel the same way. You’re not alone.
Just to give you some perspective, all of America isn’t like Georgia, nor is all the world for that matter. I’m in Singapore, and 95% of the Americans here are Democrats. All over the world, and even in Georgia, Democrats are working their butts off to get Kerry elected. Cheer up and vote.
[rant on]
Isadora, thanks for the analysis. For every time Bush said “mixed messages”, Kerry should have said, “Strong but wrong” or the slightly longer winded “There was a right way to disarm Saddam and a wrong way. And the president chose the wrong way.”
I mean, screw taking time to debate the issues. Bush didn’t debate the issues. Bush’s response to every charge (except when he had to go into damage control mode, “of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that.”) was “you’re a flip-flopper”.
Bush doesn’t want to talk about the issues. Most Americans don’t care about the issues, or they wouldn’t put up with the crappy job the media is doing covering them - or not covering them, mostly. Kerry should just spend the next month shoving “Strong but wrong” down Bush’s throat.
[rant off]
Must be- I have no family in Georgia and I have never been to Georgia but I do feel the same way as I’m sure a lot of people do.
I mean where is the person who will give us the straight talk. It seems it can be done in areas like drug and alcohol abuse and smoking. The messages are always true and factual and they use tactics that will scare and alarm you to wake you up and show you what you are doing is wrong.
Something similar needs to be done with politics. Each canidate should say their peace about what they think should be done about the issuse and why they think that is the best way to handle it and leave it at that. Let the people decide wheather or not they think the canidates have the right ideas, without all the slander and manipulation.
Now just so everyone knows this is coming from someone who is downtroddened by all those idiotic comercial adds and idiotic people who repeat commercial adds as why they are voting for certain canidates.
Posted by: TLC at October 2, 2004 04:52 PMWe all know what’s comming in the next domestic policy debates. The following is the answer I think we “should” hear from the president:
When John Kerry charges the President with losing more jobs than any other president
there is an answer for it, the truth.
He’s been out on the campaign trail saying “let’s get real”, So let’s get real!
Reality is that we had an inflated economy in the 90’s referred to as the tech bubble.
Money invested in tech companies drove jobs in every sector
and when many of those companies failed to produce and the tech bubble busted,
we lost alot of jobs.
Reality is, considering all this, our recovery has been strong, proving my plan
for tax cuts has worked.
Now my opponent knows this but insists on attacking because it helps him
politically. Once again, he says what he thinks you want to hear
when you want to hear it.
Bush to be Secretly Coached During Debates
President Bush was fitted with micro receivers in his ear canals in preparation for the next two debates. Sources say the President will be secretly coached with facts and verbal prompts to give the appearance that he is intellectually superior to John Kerry.
you have to be kidding….
he’ll probably think it’s jesus talking to him…..
Posted by: rob at October 4, 2004 03:35 PMGreat post Isadora. But you have to try and remember, when you post facts, you make the left very upset.
While you gave no inclination on which side you were on, you also failed to give them spin material. So, as you can see by these posts, they have to resort to name calling and fabrications.
Great job!
