So McCain has proposed a series of 10 town hall-style debates, and Obama is receptive. While Obama is still a bit busy pulling the blue team together and hasn't fully responded, it's clear that there's some disagreement on how the debates should be formatted.
McCain wants them to be 60-90 minutes long, have an independent local moderator (not, presumably, a journalist) with very limited moderation, and leave the question-asking to the audience. The Obama campaign's preliminary response is that they would prefer something closer to the original Lincoln-Douglas format.
To me, this is fascinating, and I can't help but let it stir my imagination. Each candidate wants the format to play to his strengths. McCain is great at shooting off answers that seem to come off the top of his head. It gives the impression that his instincts are well honed, that he shoots from the hip, and that he knows what he's talking about. Obama's less good at this -- he often ends up seeming thoughtfully hesitant, almost professorial in his consideration of the question, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but I suppose for many people thoughtfulness is an elitist quality. Anyway, Obama's stellar oratorical skill blows away his more terrestrial Q&A abilities.
The original LD debates were structured as follows: 7 debates, one in each district of Illinois. First one of them would speak for an hour, then the other would go for an hour and a half, and then the first would get a 30 minute rejoinder. So three hours long. They would alternate who would go first. The debates were almost completely about the big issue of the day, slavery.
Now, the Obama campaign surely can't mean it wants three-hour long debates. But they could be resized to 2 hours: 40-60-20 minutes. That's no longer than the debates we've become accustomed to. Instead of all of the debates being on the same issue, the two candidates could agree to focus on a different issue at each debate. Instead of 10 shorter debates, 7 longer ones. But what would the issues be? And where would the debates be held? Swing states? Oh boy, is this exciting.
1) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- Economy
2) Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq -- Iraq War
3) Durango, Colorado -- Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment
4) Fort Lauderdale, Florida -- Health Care
5) Las Vegas, Nevada -- Immigration
6) Madison, Wisconsin -- Civil Liberties /Civil Rights
7) Charlotte, North Carolina -- Foreign Policy
There, how's that? It's 4states Bush won in 2004, 2 that Kerry won. Swing states all. Some of them can even be conducted outside, with magnificent backdrops. I've given it the best geographical diversity I can muster, while also sticking to the biggest centers of electoral votes up for grabs.
But think about the potential of these debates! What an opportunity to rise above the dominion of the soundbite and the comeback and bring about some intelligent discourse in this country! I'll be rooting the concept on.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Words Matter Because They Mean Things
Words do matter. Words do inspire. Words do win elections and lose them. Words can carry a movement, a generation, a country. It's not usually a whole bunch of them, either, that catch in people's minds. Think: "I have a dream," or the "better angels of our nature," or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Imagine these worded poorly.
This election year, there has been a very clear word gap between the campaigns. One campaign seems to pull Weezer-like hooks together with stunning ease, and the rest seem to struggle to put together a sentence that doesn't seem corny, trite, pandering, opportunistic, or just plain stupid-sounding.
McCain, for instance, is excellent at ad libbing. You can feel the straight talk oozing out of him. But when he gives a prepared speech, it always sounds forced.
The word gap is most pronounced where it is most important to be pithy as well a convincing: slogans. Barack Obama's campaign slogans are so much better than everyone else's that now all of the other major campaigns have tried co-opting and distorting them. So far, that hasn't really worked.
There are only two of them:
It wasn't long after Obama's Iowa victory that the slogan-theft-and-contortion began. Mitt Romney, until then going with "True Strength For America's Future", tried positioning himself as the Republican candidate of change. The new slogan: "Change Begins With Us."
Clinton gave it a shot around then too. She'd already cycled through a bunch of duds, like "Let the Conversation Begin," "In It To Win It" (especially after losing Iowa), "Turn Up the Heat", and by far the least catchy: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions: Time to Pick a President." Here's a good Politico article documenting a litany of them -- and the best part is that it was written January 3rd.
Sensing that "Change" needed to be in there somehow, she went with variants of "The Strength and Experience To Make Change Happen." When that proved too bulky, she settled for a long time on "Ready On Day One." She shoved this one into every subordinate clause of every sentence she could. The crowds liked it, but, notably, it wasn't very chant-able. Instead, the wisdom of crowds landed on a curious choice:
"Yes She Will". A perversion of Obama's own slogan. The intent of "Yes She Will" was to make the point that Obama was all words and no action. And the other new Hillary slogan? "Change We Can Count On."
Notice that Clinton had been "ballparked" by Obama -- by needing to use his vocabulary, she was pulled onto his turf. But voters never, ever began to think that Clinton represented change better than Obama (as shown by exit polls).
And John McCain, until recently the candidate of "No Surrender," yesterday criticized Obama's purported naivety in front of a backdrop emphasizing that his is "Leadership We Can Believe In." Today, the big banner on his website brings a minor adjustment, with "A Leader We Can Believe In."
So Clinton and McCain both felt they had to do the same thing: out-Obama Obama. Find an opening to prove that they are the real candidate of hope, the real candidate of change (and by the way, they have decades of experience too!). In a sense, they have to let themselves be ballparked. Senator Obama captured the American imagination, and comprehended the American zeitgeist, so much earlier than his opponents that they have no choice but to play catch-up.
Their problem is they can't change that Obama does represent hope. We desperately want to believe that things can be better, that the hope Americans have always felt doesn't have to slip away. And what "Yes She Will" and "A Leader We Can Believe In" miss in our collective American longing is that we no longer trust politicians who claim to be able to solve our problems for us. No great philosophy or great policy position or great fighting spirit is going to fix our broken politics. We understand that the average American citizen has lost his centrality in American politics, and we want it back. There's only one candidate trumpeting our own power, our own innate strength and unity as a people. Because he can elucidate those contemporary American needs so clearly, we trust that he understands them well. And we find it easier to trust someone who, rather than tell us he's got the exact right blend of experience to set everything right for us immediately, expects us to keep working to achieve change for ourselves. Yes We Can. The "We" is what the other campaigns overlook, it's what got Obama the nomination, and it's what's going to make him president. It's what makes him truly worth believing in, and it's the real change being offered this time around.
This election year, there has been a very clear word gap between the campaigns. One campaign seems to pull Weezer-like hooks together with stunning ease, and the rest seem to struggle to put together a sentence that doesn't seem corny, trite, pandering, opportunistic, or just plain stupid-sounding.
McCain, for instance, is excellent at ad libbing. You can feel the straight talk oozing out of him. But when he gives a prepared speech, it always sounds forced.
The word gap is most pronounced where it is most important to be pithy as well a convincing: slogans. Barack Obama's campaign slogans are so much better than everyone else's that now all of the other major campaigns have tried co-opting and distorting them. So far, that hasn't really worked.
There are only two of them:
- Yes We Can
- Change We Can Believe In
It wasn't long after Obama's Iowa victory that the slogan-theft-and-contortion began. Mitt Romney, until then going with "True Strength For America's Future", tried positioning himself as the Republican candidate of change. The new slogan: "Change Begins With Us."
Clinton gave it a shot around then too. She'd already cycled through a bunch of duds, like "Let the Conversation Begin," "In It To Win It" (especially after losing Iowa), "Turn Up the Heat", and by far the least catchy: "Big Challenges, Real Solutions: Time to Pick a President." Here's a good Politico article documenting a litany of them -- and the best part is that it was written January 3rd.
Sensing that "Change" needed to be in there somehow, she went with variants of "The Strength and Experience To Make Change Happen." When that proved too bulky, she settled for a long time on "Ready On Day One." She shoved this one into every subordinate clause of every sentence she could. The crowds liked it, but, notably, it wasn't very chant-able. Instead, the wisdom of crowds landed on a curious choice:
"Yes She Will". A perversion of Obama's own slogan. The intent of "Yes She Will" was to make the point that Obama was all words and no action. And the other new Hillary slogan? "Change We Can Count On."
Notice that Clinton had been "ballparked" by Obama -- by needing to use his vocabulary, she was pulled onto his turf. But voters never, ever began to think that Clinton represented change better than Obama (as shown by exit polls).
And John McCain, until recently the candidate of "No Surrender," yesterday criticized Obama's purported naivety in front of a backdrop emphasizing that his is "Leadership We Can Believe In." Today, the big banner on his website brings a minor adjustment, with "A Leader We Can Believe In."
So Clinton and McCain both felt they had to do the same thing: out-Obama Obama. Find an opening to prove that they are the real candidate of hope, the real candidate of change (and by the way, they have decades of experience too!). In a sense, they have to let themselves be ballparked. Senator Obama captured the American imagination, and comprehended the American zeitgeist, so much earlier than his opponents that they have no choice but to play catch-up.
Their problem is they can't change that Obama does represent hope. We desperately want to believe that things can be better, that the hope Americans have always felt doesn't have to slip away. And what "Yes She Will" and "A Leader We Can Believe In" miss in our collective American longing is that we no longer trust politicians who claim to be able to solve our problems for us. No great philosophy or great policy position or great fighting spirit is going to fix our broken politics. We understand that the average American citizen has lost his centrality in American politics, and we want it back. There's only one candidate trumpeting our own power, our own innate strength and unity as a people. Because he can elucidate those contemporary American needs so clearly, we trust that he understands them well. And we find it easier to trust someone who, rather than tell us he's got the exact right blend of experience to set everything right for us immediately, expects us to keep working to achieve change for ourselves. Yes We Can. The "We" is what the other campaigns overlook, it's what got Obama the nomination, and it's what's going to make him president. It's what makes him truly worth believing in, and it's the real change being offered this time around.
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