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View Poll Results: Who won the September 30th U.S. presidential debate?
G. W. Bush 22 35.48%
J. F. Kerry 34 54.84%
(No clear winner) 6 9.68%
Voters: 62. You may not vote on this poll

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  #31   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 01-10-2004, 21:50
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

The Princeton Review actually rated the candidate's speaking level to a grade school scale, based on their closing arguments. They did this all the way back to Lincoln. (11th grade) Bush's was at a 6th grade level (same as 2000), and Kerry was at a 7th grade level, while Gore in 2000 got an 8th grade rating.
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Unread 01-10-2004, 21:57
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joshua May
The Princeton Review actually rated the candidate's speaking level to a grade school scale, based on their closing arguments. They did this all the way back to Lincoln. (11th grade) Bush's was at a 6th grade level (same as 2000), and Kerry was at a 7th grade level, while Gore in 2000 got an 8th grade rating.
I find that very hard to believe. I don't know many 6th graders that could deliver a speech as well as Kerry, or others could, even in a debate format with nothing prepared beforehand
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Unread 01-10-2004, 22:07
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
I find that very hard to believe. I don't know many 6th graders that could deliver a speech as well as Kerry, or others could, even in a debate format with nothing prepared beforehand
Yeah, something tells me that the Princeton Review is a bit off their mark with this one...I mean, neither candidate is overwhemingly impressive in their oratorial skills, but c'mon, a 7th grader?

In any event, the Vice-Presidential debate should prove much more appealing for those in search of a good debate.
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Unread 01-10-2004, 22:31
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Here are the readability scores for both candidates closing remarks using several well known methods.

Kerry:
Kincaid: 5.8
ARI: 5.5
Coleman-Liau: 7.8
Flesch Index: 81.9
Fog Index: 9.3
Lix: 32.0 = below school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 8.9

Bush:
Kincaid: 5.0
ARI: 4.6
Coleman-Liau: 9.8
Flesch Index: 78.8
Fog Index: 8.5
Lix: 33.4 = below school year 5
SMOG-Grading: 8.8

You can google for those different readability indexes if you are interested in how they are derived.
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Unread 02-10-2004, 00:39
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Kerry did quite a good job debating himself last night and the other positions he's held
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Unread 02-10-2004, 04:06
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Kelly
Kerry did quite a good job debating himself last night and the other positions he's held
It’s a flip-flop when Kerry and Democrats change their minds, yet it’s wholly ignored or referred to as revising one’s standpoint when Bush or Republicans change their minds on an issue? You’re starting to scare me into thinking you’re actually falling for that crap David.

Two right wing links deserve two left wing ones… I read/watched yours; you should do me the complimentary favor.

http://www.compassiongate.com/promises/
http://www.americanprogressaction.or...JcP7H&b=118263

Maybe we can agree that both candidates changed their minds on lots of different issues, and leave it at that? It’d be much more constructive to talk about their actual platforms, instead of dwelling on the past.

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Unread 02-10-2004, 18:54
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
Not to mention his vocabulary was small. How many times am I going to hear the word inconsistent, freedom, and other words he said 30 times or more? If one is going to win this race by the way he speaks, he should have a good vocabulary to desribe in concise details how he is going to go about his policies.
Kerry did the same thing. He just repeated differnt words over and over again. Please don't think it was just the one candidate.
Quote:
Tax cuts provided the bulk of the tax "relief" to
higher income Americans.
I always wondered about this. The place where middle and lower class Americans get hit the hardest is with the state taxes. Even this websites states this but can the federal government do anything with the states tax system?
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Unread 03-10-2004, 00:00
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Y.
The place where middle and lower class Americans get hit the hardest is with the state taxes. Even this websites states this but can the federal government do anything with the states tax system?
Well, that's interesting; In the U.S., drinking age limits are set by the states individualy--but nation-wide, there's a minimum age of 21. Why? Because the federal government exerts a little pressure on the states--"21, or we take away your cut of gas tax revenue" (or something like that...the exact details escape me). So yes, the federal goverment can squeeze the states in that sort of way, by threatening to reduce or remove some subsidy or another that the states receive. They can't exactly legislate away state taxes, though.

On another note, I keep thinking about what people don't get about this flip-flopping issue: the fact that it is (in theory) a perfectly logical approach.
Quote:
Logical? Not true! It's indecision, and we can't have that in a strong, fearless leader!
Enough of the complaining. If you have an opinion (say, you believe that there are weapons of an unusually destructive sort in Saddam Hussein's basement) and you gather some evidence (like marching in and taking over his basement, and subjecting it to a thorough search), and the overwhelming majority of the evidence doesn't support the initial belief...why do you still believe it? But I used a Bush example, and he doesn't flip-flop. So let's take a Kerry example.
Quote:
He voted for the war, then he voted against it.
That's right; but he went through the same process. He believed that the war was justified, due to an oppressive leader, and some assurances from other branches of government (and votes for it). He then gathered some evidence (like watching what Bush is doing, and what Saddam Hussein is doing, and reading the morning intelligence briefs) and finds that the notion of further increasing government spending on the war is not exactly supported by the evidence (maybe influenced by his sense of fiscal responsibility, in whatever small and insignificant measure it exists in a Democrat), and votes against the $87 billion dollars. He is then vilified as a "flip-flopper".

That series of steps described above had damned well better sound familiar to most people--it's called the scientific method, and you were supposed to understand it in elementary school (eighth grade, at the latest, where I come from). Like arithmetic is to mathematics as a whole, it's a fundamental concept in the sciences--but like arithmetic, it is wholly applicable to everyday life. Substitute hypothesis for belief (similar, but less structured), do an experiment (one way to get evidence) and draw conclusions, with which you modify the hypothesis (or belief). It's the same thing, and John Kerry, whether he's familiar with the concept or not, has applied it to at least one important issue as a senator. Whether Kerry is right or wrong, he's apparently calling it as he sees it (if his explanations during the debate were any indication), and is being picked on by the ignorant and the blatantly partisan for applying a logically consistent strategy to his decisions. Mr. Bush got as far as collecting evidence, but he seems to have drawn a different conclusion. That's fair enough (he's entitled to do so), but why then has he changed his explanation of his original motivation so many times? WMD, chase the bad man, institute democracy, get those terrorists, etc.; all potentially valid, but he never claims to have used as his primary justification to go to war any combination of the above--it's always one or the other. That raises questions about his sincerity, irrespective of the validity of any or all of those reasons. It isn't proper to change a hypothesis ex post facto, and insist that it hasn't changed, and has always been that way. It is proper to change your mind when new evidence comes to light. That's why a wrongful conviction can be overturned; that's why hypotheses like the phlogiston theory of heat are dead and buried; that's how we try to right our wrongs.

Now, before someone jumps on me with some incident of flip-floppery that doesn't fit the pattern, I have another possible scenario that may suffice as an explanation. Maybe Kerry is sucking up to his audience:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saturday Night Live
That is not flip-flopping, that is pandering, and America deserves a president who knows the difference.
This is a very valid explanation for some of the alleged flip-flops. Pandering (e.g. to pro-/anti-war crowds) is typical of politicians, expected of politicians, and largely distasteful. America ought to itself know the difference.
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Unread 04-10-2004, 07:40
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
On another note, I keep thinking about what people don't get about this flip-flopping issue: the fact that it is (in theory) a perfectly logical approach.
It really makes perfect sense why Kerry has trouble with his record. It's because he works in congress. It's a lot harder to form a record when you have to be nuanced and not form any enemies. A governor usually makes yes or no descisions. The only other president that was a senator was Kennedy.
Quote:
Well, that's interesting; In the U.S., drinking age limits are set by the states individualy--but nation-wide, there's a minimum age of 21. Why? Because the federal government exerts a little pressure on the states--"21, or we take away your cut of gas tax revenue" (or something like that...the exact details escape me). So yes, the federal goverment can squeeze the states in that sort of way, by threatening to reduce or remove some subsidy or another that the states receive. They can't exactly legislate away state taxes, though.
Thanks. I guess that is the only way.
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Unread 04-10-2004, 08:52
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Here's a /. article on how Bush lied about the WMD in Iraq.

http://politics.slashdot.org/politic...id=226&tid=103
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Unread 09-10-2004, 07:02
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

I didn’t want to start a new thread on political issues, but if moderators want to split this off that’s fine by me.

President Bush seems to have an uncanny knack for counting his chickens before they hatch (and he doesn’t even want to use the stem cells from the ones that don’t hatch for medical research, either*).

In their first debate he famously nit-pickingly corrected Kerry by warning him not to forget Poland in the “Coalition of the Willing.” Just days later Poland announced a time table for pulling all of their troops out of Iraq.

In their second debate President Bush held up Afghanistan as if it were some sort of model of how we can succeed in impressing democracy upon people. This morning the 15 candidates campaigning against interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai have denounced Afghanistan’s elections as fraudulent and illegitimate. This doesn’t bode well for the current administration, if this is any indication of how elections might occur in Iraq in January (assuming they aren’t delayed or cancelled entirely due to violence and instability).

What claim or statement will backfire on him next Wednesday?

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Last edited by Bill Gold : 09-10-2004 at 07:08.
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Unread 09-10-2004, 07:59
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Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Oct. 8)

Last night the candidates had the chance to present their case to the common people. Kerry made their “common-ness” clear when he pointed out that his tax hike would not apply to the audience, just to the three rich guys on the stage.

One thing we know for sure is that it’s the commoners who collectively adjudicate common sense. One tenant of such is to recognize that hindsight is 20/20. Who among them does not know at least one Monday morning quarterback? How many have read Thomas Paine’s lament about times that try men’s soles and the summertime soldiers and the sunshine patriots who succumb to those times? How many will not put two and two together and recognize Kerry for what he is?

It’s probably true that few, if any, in the audience went to Ivy League schools. But they know how to add. As much as the have-nots are inclined to envy, they will come to the conclusion that Kerry cannot cure all of our ills by bleeding the rich. They will realize that it’s their doctor, builder, lawyer, plumber, and maybe the grass cutter who’ll get hit first. They will know sure as anything that the cost will get passed on to them. They will know that it’s still not enough.

Will they be happy to find they’ve entered the ranks of the wealthy once the Kerry tax hike applies directly to them?

Common sense tells us that health insurance for all will not make us all healthy. The evidence of that is seen across our northern border, where a government committee decides how many hip replacements there will be every year – irrespective of how many people actually need one. We see that the overflow – the ones who can afford to – have to come to America. Common economic sense tells us that Kerry’s plan to pump money into the health care demand side would only work to drive up the market-clearing price of insurance. So, the thousand dollars per person would end up enriching only the likes of BC&BS – who, by the way, could then better afford to enrich the ambulance chasers who are sucking us dry.

There’s a line in a film about the quintessential common man that goes: “I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.” How many in that audience didn’t look at Laura and just know she loves George? Is it not obvious to them also that Teresa prefers Heinz to Kerry. History is rife with instances where the common man would revolt against the Aristocrats who would “let them eat cake.” I can’t imagine the heart of America endearing a First Lady who would have them “go naked for a while.” Common sense tells us to judge a man by the company he keeps.

At the end of the day, common sense should tell us that Bush won the October 8 debate.
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Unread 09-10-2004, 08:52
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

Quote:
In their first debate he famously nit-pickingly corrected Kerry by warning him not to forget Poland in the “Coalition of the Willing.” Just days later Poland announced a time table for pulling all of their troops out of Iraq.
Well if you really want to get nitpicky..... It's not thirty countries like Bush and Cheney said but 24 that are allied with us in Iraq. Six dropped out.
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Unread 09-10-2004, 11:46
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Sept. 30)

My posting history is enough for anyone to know who I would think won. I will leave it at that.

This is another political thread about how much Kerry or Bush is an idiot and how the country will be in shambles if one or the other is elected. Thus warned: let me take Tytus's fine example (seriously, he has the neutrality thing well done I believe) and attempt to analyze.

Stage presence:
Debate 1) President Bush was nervous and Senator Kerry didn't appear nervous.
Debate 2) President Bush was much more confident, Senator Kerry remained roughly the same.

Information Flow:
Debate 1) President Bush stated some true and untrue facts. Senator Kerry stated some true and untrue facts.
Debate 2) President Bush stated some true and untrue facts, Senator Kerry stated some true and untrue facts.

Demeanor:
Debate 1) President Bush attacked Senator Kerry. Senator Kerry attacked President Bush.
Debate 2) President Bush attacked Senator Kerry. Senator Kerry attacked President Bush.

"Who won" is merely a question of what side you vote for. I haven't seen deviation from original party standpoints since we started debating this election on Chief Delphi. Despite lead changes, which are also biased, I feel it is more appropriate to view these debates as a form of education on President Bush's and Sentor Kerry's plans and platforms. My biggest interest as well as what my family has told me is domestic issues, which will be discussed in the final debate. I look forward to it.
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Unread 09-10-2004, 14:07
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Re: Who won the U.S. Presidential Debate? (Oct. 8)

Jack, you win the award for most frequent use of the word "common" in a single post, however, common sense does not equal good sense. If (hypothetically) you lived in a nation of fools, would you advocate fools' sense? You are appealing to popularity (a logical fallacy) by claiming that Kerry ignores common sense, when you ought to be claiming that he ignores good sense (which is hopefully quantifiable, and not necessarily subject to the whims of a largely ill-informed populace).

Incidentally, regarding Canada, it is disingenuous to state that "a government committee decides how many hip replacements there will be every year". It isn't a matter of the government putting down a number, and the surgeons following it--it is a matter of the surgeons doing their procedures, and the government keeping track of the number performed, then budgeting resources to cover the cost of about the same number of procedures in the next year. In essence, they are fundamentally in touch with the needs of the patients, rather than conceiving of arbitrary funding formulae. Because of the larger influence of government, the public healthcare system requires patients to take a place in line and wait for their (major) procedures, rather than paying their way to the front of the line (as is often possible in America, with private clinics and the like). Of course, if it is medically necessary to have a procedure performed forthwith, it is done (and still paid for by the government) without any further questions asked. Waiting in line may be frustrating and painful, but consider that by paying your way ahead, you're simply prolonging the same situation in those who cannot afford to jump the line. (Note that partaking of the services of a private clinic is the same, since it could just as well perform the procedure on a poor person, as on a rich one.) This isn't just a matter of liberalism or conservatism, it's most importantly a matter of ethics.

In Canada (specifically Ontario), health insurance is government-run, and funded by taxes. All you have to do to receive medical services is show proof of medical insurance, which is issued to (essentially) every citizen and resident in the form of a "health card". We cringe at the idiocy of a system that doesn't guarantee medical services to its citizens and residents--the American politicians talk nonchalantly about millions of people without health insurance, people who, if faced with a life-threatening condition, would likely be bankrupted by the cost. Perhaps those people are fools, gambling that they will never be ill, and not planning for that strong possibility. More likely, they are reasonable people, who cannot afford to pay for it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Jones
Will they be happy to find they’ve entered the ranks of the wealthy once the Kerry tax hike applies directly to them?
The anti-taxation spirit of the Boston Tea Party lives on in America, though there is no longer a monarchy that amasses its revenue from exploitation of the colonies; the vehemence of it all is amusing, but rather disturbing at the same time. They ought to be happy that they're rich. They ought to realize that it won't kill them to reduce their standard of living slightly, so that America can reduce the rampant poverty that plagues its cities. Perhaps they should learn to suck it up and pay, because getting cheated by a few who defraud social programs is preferable to forcing innocent, but nevertheless poor people to live in a ghetto. Once again, it is a question of ensuring a minimum standard of living for all--and if it means taxing the rich, or even the middle class to achieve that standard, so be it.

And Jack, regarding this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Jones
There’s a line in a film about the quintessential common man that goes: “I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.” How many in that audience didn’t look at Laura and just know she loves George? Is it not obvious to them also that Teresa prefers Heinz to Kerry. History is rife with instances where the common man would revolt against the Aristocrats who would “let them eat cake.” I can’t imagine the heart of America endearing a First Lady who would have them “go naked for a while.” Common sense tells us to judge a man by the company he keeps.
I'm sure that you have evidence of the very specific statements you made above. For example, show that "Teresa prefers Heinz to Kerry"--if it's obvious, you've probably good ironclad proof. Indeed, enlighten us as to approximately "[h]ow many in that audience didn’t look at Laura and just know she loves George?" I suspect that the rationale behind these statements is approximately equivalent to the rationale that Bush is unfit to lead, because he nearly choked on a pretzel, or fell off of a Segway. In other words, it's just stupid.
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