Thursday, October 2, 2008
Get me a pen, I'm keeping score of the Debate!!
As I watched the vice-presidential debate tonight, on CNN, there were 6 round "Analyst Scorecards" in which six different political analysts keep score of the debate. When the analyst thought that a candidate had said something very helpful to their cause, they gave them a point on the plus side. When they said something that was hurtful to their cause, they gave them a point on the minus side. There were 3 analysts that seemed probama, 1 procain and 3 in the middle. I think this thing is terrible. If someone turns the debate on in the middle, or towards the end, it could possibly have an impact on the way they vote. If someone is on the fence, and they want to know what happened in the first part of the debate, they might just look at the scorecards and see what the "professionals" say, which is wrong. People deserve to hear what other people think, but I think keeping a scorecard of the debate is a little over the top.
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3 comments:
i agree with you. the score card is very stupid and could really hurt someones campaign. it should be left to the public to decide on who to vote for. different people have different opinions on who won the debate and it shouldnt be left to profesionals to make the desicion for the public.
I agree that the score cards were a bad idea. I was watching CNN also. I found it really interesting how some of the analysts were very involved with the score cards and were marking it after each point that was made. Others had only put three or four points up on their score card. I feel like the score cards were off much of the time and not accurate. In my head I would be thinking "wow, _____ made a good point," and I would end up looking over at the score cards and watching to see if that candidate recieved another point. I found that much of the time I was paying more attention that the score cards than the debate itself, hoping that the candidate I favored would pull ahead. Overall, in my opinion, I do not think that the scorecards were helpful. They were distracting and prevented that audience from foaring their own opinions.
Jer-Bear,
Good ideas here on an important topic. The scorecard method is modeled after boxing scorecards -- and that metaphor of presidential debates as heavyweight fights is ancient at this point.
You're right that "experts" and their "ratings" are really code for partisans sometimes. Check out a recent On the Media (Oct. 17th) that explores this topic in a bunch of other ways.
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