Friday, October 01, 2004
First Reactions
Last night I found myself sitting at a bar with two friends. One was a Bush skeptic and the other was anti-Bush. Amidst much scotch, whiskey, and noise, we saw a chunk of the debate. Ergo we had to read the words as opposed to hearing it.
We all agreed that Kerry was flopping. Every answer seemed contrived and negative. Much to my chagrin, everyone else seems to have seen Kerry as the winner. This includes The Corner, Mickey Kaus, and Daniel Drezner. The Post seems to have called it a draw. What is going on?
Assuming I am not delusional, I think we had a Kennedy-Nixon moment. In the famous debate of the 1960 election the television viewers thought Kennedy had won and the radio listeners thought Nixon had won. By focusing on the words on the screen, my friends and I missed the tone of each speaker, their body language, and their reactions to each other. We became the radio listeners. By limiting our impression of the debate, we limited our analysis.
I am going to confirm this by re-watching the debate on CSPAN tonight.
We all agreed that Kerry was flopping. Every answer seemed contrived and negative. Much to my chagrin, everyone else seems to have seen Kerry as the winner. This includes The Corner, Mickey Kaus, and Daniel Drezner. The Post seems to have called it a draw. What is going on?
Assuming I am not delusional, I think we had a Kennedy-Nixon moment. In the famous debate of the 1960 election the television viewers thought Kennedy had won and the radio listeners thought Nixon had won. By focusing on the words on the screen, my friends and I missed the tone of each speaker, their body language, and their reactions to each other. We became the radio listeners. By limiting our impression of the debate, we limited our analysis.
I am going to confirm this by re-watching the debate on CSPAN tonight.
