Let’s take a look at who the public thought won recent presidential debates (as measured by CNN and USA Today/Gallup Polls):
That’s a pattern. Even though this list doesn’t include the two Clinton-Dole debates from 1996, the Democratic candidates’ record, going all the way back to 1992, is 14 wins, three losses, and one tie.
Against Poppy Bush and Ross Perot, Bill Clinton had two wins and one draw. George W. Bush did the best among Republicans, besting Gore twice (somehow) before getting swept by Kerry. Obama’s record (5-1) is strong, but he also suffered the worst defeat of any Democrat in his first debate against Romney. And Hillary Clinton just pulled off her own sweep against Donald Trump.
I wasn’t able to find polling data on the 1996 debates, but I think I’d remember if Dole clearly won either of them.
The results largely line up with the actual results, but not perfectly. Winning all three debates wasn’t enough to put John Kerry over the top, although he might have made it if the Democrats had been in charge of the voting in Ohio. Despite losing two out of three debates, Al Gore won the popular vote and was really only denied the presidency by a flawed ballot design in Palm Beach County that spoiled enough of his votes to change history. Without that butterfly ballot, the Supreme Court would never have been involved.
Still, the overall results are consistently bad for Republican candidates. They’re bad enough across a diverse enough set of individuals that the party might be forgiven for not wanting to do debates at all.
Of course, it’s a small sample and it’s distorted by the fact that George W. Bush and Donald Trump were never very conversant with policy or facts. There’s no doubt that the Democratic list includes in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, two of the most gifted politicians in our history.
So, I don’t know how much you can draw from these numbers, but it’s a pretty strong winning record. A baseball team with that winning percentage this year would have won 127 games and finished 24 games ahead of this year’s best Chicago Cubs.
The Cubs are now one game away from reaching the World Series for the first time since 1945. If they make it, they’ll play the Cleveland Indians who haven’t won a World Series since 1948.
Maybe that can give the Republicans hope?
Are some of those flipped somehow? Romney won the first debate and lost the last two, not the other way around.
You have to go by the first name in the lefthand column. I agree that it’s confusing since the format is not constant.
that’s why he has negative numbers in the final 2 debates
The first name is the one who won the cumulative total of all 3
Booman’s statement that “George W. Bush did the best among Republicans, besting Gore twice (somehow) before getting swept by Kerry” is wrong.
First, based on the numbers in the graph, Bush only bested Gore once, in the second debate. Second, Romney had a much higher average than Bush thanks to Obama’s poor performance in their first debate. So Romney did the best out of the Republicans.
I actually think the judgements the night of the debate are less significant than the discussions, analyses and other reactions in the days that follow.
So polling “who won” measures something that is of lesser significance.
I can not, for example, think the words “Alicia Machado” affected the polls taken the night of the debate significantly, but Wow! did they ever lead to follow on significance.
It might benefit the GOP more to do a 30 minute infomercial in late October like Obama did, but thise debate audience sizes are pretty tempting.
The GOP’s problem isn’t the debates; it’s demographics. Without the debates they’d have even less of a chance when they nominate ever more extreme candidates who alienate the very people to whom they should be trying to appeal.
Trump had every chance to wipe the slate clean with the debates and put himself forward as a mainstream, normal person. Obviously he could not pull it off. But without the debates, he’d have had his rants against murderers and rapists, Judge Curiel, his feud with the Khans, his failure to disclose tax returns, his comments about an allegedly overweight beauty queen (which would have come out anyway), and finally, like a cherry atop an ice cream sundae, pussygate.
I do think people actually pay attention – just a little – even in the Summer when conventional wisdom is that everyone is out playing softball with their kids so nothing anyone says really matters until Labor day. So I don’t think Trump after the GOP convention could have shown up to the first debate and started talking and behaving like Bob Dole with much credibility.
Do you remember how close Trump drew to Clinton in the polls even after the Khan disaster? I think the first debate sank his chances because 100,000,000 people tuned in. That dwarfs the number who watched the conventions or pay attention to news cycles.
Repubs. increasingly drive sentient right wing politicians out of their party and so are left with the dregs, like Trump. No wonder they lose in debates. I think Obama Derangement Syndrome is partly to blame for this: I personally know some conservative voters who lost their minds over the past 8 years.
But even good debaters like Cruz are pushing arguments that more and more Americans just don’t buy. The Moral Majority was never a majority, at least not their kind of morality, and it’s getting smaller. Standing up for big oil, bug coal and big money doesn’t really play well in most parts of the country anymore. The wurlitzer is springing leaks and the parts are corroding. Limbaugh is out of gas and Fox News is past its prime. Their days are numbered.
The problem is that even if it is true that this current iteration of the conservative movement is waning, it will most certainly morph into some other form, and it could be one even more vile and destructive to the country. I am afraid that there will always be a sizable segment of the American people who will embrace and follow the same well worn path that we see today’s GOP following. There will, most certainly, be other Limbaughs and Trumps to carry the torch. I don’t think this fight will ever truly end.
I agree, I think a portion of the conservative movement will become more concentratedly vile as their numbers decrease; but I think that will cause them to lose support. The money people will move on. Their influence will wane, in the long run. The rest of the conservative movement is going to have to adapt or die. Part of it might be absorbed into the dem. party, or they may form a new coalition by pealing off conservative dems. Its going to be fascinating to watch it happen.
There have been a lot of predictions lately about what the future holds for the other side. If I had to place my bet, I would say that the Trump crowd pretty much owns the GOP, and it’s infrastructure, for the foreseeable future. We’ll have to see if they want to continue to live in the GOP house, or if they simply end up trashing it and burning it down. The “old guard Republicans” are going to have to pick their poison, as they have few alternatives available to them. The money guys are going to hitch their wagons to whatever group will keep their spigots open and flowing. I don’t think their influence will wane, as there will always be someone willing to do their bidding if the price is right, including some Democrats.
At some point, at a minimum, the deplorables in the Republican party will have to reach out to non-white deplorables and form a coalition of the uneducated. Before that can happen, they must transition away from racist appeals.
That’s one possible medium to long term direction the party can take. The rainbow tea party approach.
This is only possible if the ‘deplorables’ are interested in economic issues, and can find common cause with middle class POC.
I don’t believe they are. They’re interested in two issues,
I know republicans that are racists. But most republicans I know fall into #2.
Lots of people like to talk about the republican trio of evangelicals, business, and cultural. But right now it’s really a common cause of racists and PC wankers.
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Give me just a minute. I am going to close my eyes and try to envision this “rainbow tea party” coalition of the uneducated……………………..Okay, it’s just not coming to me. But Trump has made a valiant first attempt. The foundation is certainly there.
My guess is that the “money guys” will bribe the reasonable republicans and the neoliberals to play nice so they all can benefit. What form that takes is something I’m interested to see. But why wouldn’t they?
Cool, cool, considerate men…
Thesis: Debates could only have helped the minority party candidate during most of our history because the minority party can only win a national election under somewhat exceptional circumstances. Currently that minority party is the GOP, so GOP chances are best if there are debates that give the underdog a chance to win.
Argument: American history shows that normally one party or another is dominant. Periods where either party has about an even chance of winning the Presidency are relatively rare and brief. From 1860 to 1932, a period of 72 years, the GOP won 14 out of 18 Presidential elections. Then the New Deal Democrats formed a coalition that won 7 out of 9 Presidential elections between 1932 & 1968. Then Nixon adopted the Southern Strategy & the GOP became the dominant majority party again & won 5 of 6 elections between 1968 & 1992. Bill Clinton managed to win by being a vastly superior politician to Bush & because he expanded the Democratic coalition, etc. But, as 2000 & 2004 proved, he was the exception. Democrats put up fairly weak candidates in 2000 & 2004 & lost – even though Bush wasn’t very good himself.
But, the demographic changes that are relentlessly making America a minority majority country, combined with the disaster that Bush made of his presidency, made a generic Republican at a profound disadvantage going forward.
So, debates are really the only hope for the GOP to win from now on, unless:
a. the Dems put up a weak candidate & the GOP a much stronger one. (Adlai Stevenson v. Eisenhower).
b. Events: War/terrorism/economic collapse hurts incumbent party.
c. Division within party during a period of dominance gives election to other side: like the GOP splitting in 1912 between Taft & Teddy Roosevelt resulting in the election of Wilson.
The current incarnation of the Republican Party is absolutely incapable of putting up a decent candidate in the sense of Eisenhower. Further, it won’t put up a realistic candidate in the sense of Reagan. More, it won’t put up a knife fighting insider in the sense of Nixon.
The dregs of the party have control over the party at this time. In order to take back the reins, the R’s are going to have emasculate the TP Base. That is why Reince Priebus has not jumped ship.
In 1948, Leander Perez estimated that the Rooster symbol on the Louisiana ballot was worth about 100K votes. Thru shenanigans, he secured that symbol for the Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats. The fight for the name “Republican” starts on Nov 9. That name is worth millions of votes both local and nationally. Reince Priebus is currently the custodian of the name.
Buy popcorn futures, guys.
I don’t know how old you are, but I remember the Reagan years vividly (I was in college) and present-day descriptions of that time are extremely distorted. Reagan was very far from a “realistic” candidate. He was, in many ways, the Trump of 1980 — everyone on our side had to get past the sheer incredulity that such a ridiculous figure was being presented as a national candidate and was winning. Yes, he was governor of California — a legitimate politician — but he nonetheless came off like a tacky, corny idiot who didn’t know anything, shellacked his hair and wore plaid suits. The money people and the George Will types worked furiously to make him palatable but it never really took, and he had consistently low approval ratings throughout his terms. He couldn’t be beat, just like Bush I because the Democrats hadn’t come up with their own version — their own version of telegenic politics until Bill Clinton.
The rest of the arguments here and on this thread are all good. I’m just saying, Reagan was in some ways the proto-Trump, although Reagan was a total puppet, like W., whereas no matter what you want to say about Trump, he is his own man; the genuine article; exactly what he looks like: — neither Reagan nor Bush II could extemporize off script the way Trump does; it was totally impossible for them (especially Reagan, whose ignorance and stupidity have been skillfully whitewashed away but were painfully vivid at the time). It’s too bad Reagan’s been turned into this mythic figure, becuase it would behoove us to remember him clearly.
Ummmmmm…. I’m 65. I remember Reagan quite well. He was a competent candidate, was capable of performing well under pressure (as a candidate) and had a message that resonated with a large swath of Americans (morning in America).
He was also a total disaster as a president. Reagan was not particularly narcissistic, was certainly not interested in vengeance, looked like what you wanted your grandfather to look like and was sharp as a tack when prepared (re: the new Hampshire debates). He was also a two term governor.
No, Reagan was not a prototype of Trump.
He was absolutely a prototype of Trump insofar as he was a totally unqualified candidate — ignorant; uncurious; unintelligent; bigoted; dishonest — who was successfully sold to Republican voters as some kind of visionary game-changer based entirely on atmospherics and theatrical bombast.
It was the first time the forced-equivalency trick got battle-tested: the game by which a person may be said to have “won” a debate based not on actually answering any of the questions correctly or on besting anyone in an argument, but on a totally different metric where the viewer is supposed to see them as some kind of sympathetic protagonist in a story; as “standing for” some vague sense of what’s wanted, the way a movie star or popular musician does (it was no accident he was a legitimate movie star). It was the moment when American politics discarded any pretense of an Athenian/Socratic method and embraced total subjectivity: it’s not about who’s most qualified or who has the right answers; it’s about whom you “prefer” according to the most nebulous, theatrical qualities.
This is exactly how we got to Trump: “Auditioning” candidates like they’re potential spokesmodels or mascots; forcibly overlooking the reality of who they are because of the feelings they invoke. Sure, the details are different, but a Trump supporter is following a historical path that begins with Reagan supporters: embracing a candidate even though he doesn’t know how to do anything, simply because of the symbolism he evokes.
And it goes without saying that none of this happened by accident; it was the most cynical and manipulative of power-grabs: Reagan was chosen and groomed as a figurehead; Trump selected himself as a figurehead, but figureheads they both are, for a conservative public who’s been trained to prefer figureheads to legislators and leaders.
I’m a bit younger than you, but I remember Reagan well and you are right for the most part. Many thought Reagan was a far right nut, but they liked him personally. They didn’t think he was particularly smart, but smarts never won a US election. He also cultivated the image of a competant leader while portraying Carter as an incompetent. When Reagan did passable in the debates and the campaign, people afraid of his conservatism were willing to vote for change.
In contrast, most dont like Trump, few consider him presidential, and his blatherings haven’t exactly helped. Many Rs are also more conservative than him, though he yells out loud what others know to keep hidden.
Not as sharp as a tack. A journalist relative interviewed him and says he was one of the dumbest people he’s interviewed in a rather lengthy career. He was smooth, had a sense of humor and didn’t come across as mean, hostile or racist but positive and upbeat. Was a puppet of a President like Dubya was.
Agree 100% with your assessment of Reagan; and Trump. I remember the gut-wrenching shock that so many of my fellow citizens bought him hook, line and sinker; the big phony. Yikes! We had barely gotten the stench of Nixon out of our clothes.
Ironic that the Right mythologies a man we now know to have been suffering dementia. Says a lot, really.
In 1976 I was in college, and my Marxist history prof. was urging the class not to vote in the election. “Why vote for the lesser evil” he said “you’re just voting for evil.” He had some crazy left-wing view that if everybody abstained from voting the whole rotten duopoly would somehow crash down leaving room for some kind of leftist labour party in the U.S.
But, I voted for Carter anyway because I saw the Reagan delegates at the GOP convention screaming at the Ford delegates as they left the arena after nominating Jerry Ford “four more months! Four more months!” It was exactly the kind of demented Nuremberg rally from the 1930s we’ve sadly grown so familiar with from Trump. I had never seen them before, not like that, not hundreds of them all together, enraged and ready for a street war.
Reagan was their hero, in just the way that Hitler was the German Hero. Just the way Trump is to them now. And it scared the shit out of me. I was afraid that Reagan would win, just as he ultimately did.
And he won, not because of any brilliance on his part, but because Nixon had created the Southern strategy, and promised to end the war on poverty, and any attention to the inner cities, and start the war on crime, with the stated goal of cracking down on black crime and instituting mandatory sentencing laws.
And Nixon won 60% of the vote to McGovern’s 37%. Racism did that. Racism and sexism pure and simple. The Southern Democrats and northern white working class base of the Democratic party defected en-mass to the GOP over integration, women’s rights, the peace movement, etc. And over the next 24 years, the GOP won 5 elections and the Democrats 1.
What changed was that Bill Clinton was an extraordinary politician, and G.H.W. Bush was kind of an upper-class twit of the year. But, as we saw in 2000 & 2004 the country could still give Republicans about 50% of the vote. After Bush crapped all over the name “Republican” that changed of course.
One of my favorite BothSidesDoItTM suppress-the-vote arguments revolves around telling like-minded people to stay home instead of voting, because then, like, something something mass social uprising, something something Social Democratic Utopia!
Or, what actually happens: Reagan and Bush Jr.
Or Strongman Trump.
They have lost control of the party. The GOP can no longer put up a decent candidate. Joe Piscopo has been talking to Chris Christie about running for gov of NJ. Curt Schilling wants to challenge Warren for her Mass senate seat. Appears the flood gate open….Trumpism lives.
The control of “reasoned” men was lost in 2012 and 2014. Joe Piscopo, Curt Schilling and others are slithering out from under their rocks.
One minor point tho, others have slithered out before this: Todd Akin, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Tom Tancredo, Joe Miller, …. Others like Scott Brown and Ron Johnson won once and were handed their walking papers.
The phenonomenon coming to be known as Trumpism will die a slow tortured death because so many of its practioners are located together … see Red States after the election. But they will die.
Women have been instrumental as a block to counteracting the testosterone effluent coming from the right. There is no reason to expect that block to suddenly run.
In the South (Texas, Florida and Georgia are the most striking examples) the Hispanic influence is coming to bear weight. I’ll readily agree that Hispanics are much more conservative than most liberals want to acknowledge, but I maintain they are CONSERVATIVE, not batshit crazy.
Only in those places where true believing fervor drives politics (Tea Party, Fascists [Klan, Posse, Nazis, Aryans] and Xtian Fundies)do these yahoos have any chance at influencing statewide policy.
And that won’t last, because in reality, these guys hate each other. Circular firing squad is the term that comes to mind.
Be careful about lumping Georgia in with the rest of the South.
The “Georgia” people talk about being purple-ish is actually the city of Atlanta, along with a couple of other central cities, such as Athens.
Outside of Atlanta and Athens, Georgia is essentially Mississippi.
“Outside of Atlanta and Athens, Georgia is essentially Mississippi.”
Washington outside of the Puget Sound…
Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and the Mon Valley…
As much as it would be nice to imagine every state having a Vermont- like rural population it’s just more often the opposite.
I’m irrationally tying the Cubs’ success to Clinton’s. First WS victory in over 100 years? First woman president after almost 100 years of women having the vote? AND the woman president born in Illinois?
Well, that’s begging the question, almost karmaically so.
But still.
Clinton does well in debates because they play to her avowed strengths, and in this particular case, her opponent played to her strengths.
People who know her say she’s;
So she prepares, and calmly waits her opponent out. In these debates even her weakness of not being a great or personable speaker played to her advantage, in that when compared to Trumps histrionics she appeared calmer than normal. Her ability to not strike back at the constant interruptions was huge. Obama always faced the whole ‘angry black man’ restriction. Clinton has the ‘hysterical female’ restriction that she will face through her administration. So far, in the debates and at the Benghazi hearings she has passed every test of her temperament. It’s all been quite impressive. Name another prominent public figure who has spent so much time under such public scrutiny. Don’t be fooled, in both cases the plan was certainly to get her angry and frustrated, in order to play to that stereotype. Trump has surrounded himself with people who cut their teeth in going after Bill Clinton in the 90’s. They live in a fantasy world that she is weak. You could see him at the debates get angry and frustrated when she never, ever lost her cool. I’m sure his bubble told him ‘go after her, she’s nasty and will lose it’. She never did. Think about it, not one mistake, not one talking point, not one slip. At the same time as all that, she was successfully baiting him non stop.
Christ, even her clothes…..red, white, and blue. Then off pink for the catholic dinner.
She’s tough, smart, and works hard, and people claim she listens. Name me ANY republican that can match that.
At this time I always get hopeful about the president elect, so this comment reflects that.
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Honestly, you could use her debate performance as a textbook for how to handle oneself under the most trying of circumstances and in the hottest beam of a glaring spotlight. I find those who label the kinds of traits you cite as somehow a demonstration of how “cold and calculating” and “rehearsed” she is simply don’t understand that this is part and parcel of what you really need in a person who is serving in the position of highest responsiblity imaginable. Does she have faults? Damn right she does. I have no fancy illusions that she is somehow a perfect candidate or would be a perfect President. She has weaknesses. But when you see the person running to be the most powerful person in the world denigrated as being “overprepared”, I just have to simply shake my head in disbelief.
I think you misunderstand what you are calling “overprepared” criticism is about. nevertheless, I think her reaction to Trump at the Al Smith dinner is even more impressive as far as statesmanship goes. take a look at the video if you haven’t seen it. impressive
I’ve felt for some time that her stock has been oversold. She has weaknesses — very real ones. But she also has enormous strengths that have been mostly overlooked and for which she hasn’t received much credit. As Trump said, she’s one tough adversary. I’m hopeful she’ll govern as a progressive and liberals will come to appreciate her.
she may surprise us in domestic policy; i’d say not a chance re FP. don’t think she understands FP in anything but a neocon angle.
We’ll see. I still think much of her foreign policy outlook came from Bosnia — where American intervention was successful and saved a lot of lives. Our mistake there was waiting as long as we did. I’m hopeful that she’s motivated by a desire to help the helpless but in careful and thoughtful ways. We’ll see.
It looks like Paul Krugman is on the same track.
Like I said, at this time in the election cycle I try to look at the bright side. So I hope the strengths I listed overwhelm my worries about foreign policy.
I worry about two things with Clinton, her being a hawk, and Bill Clinton. One hopes she learns quickly that it’s time to ease back on war.
And I hope Bill will just embrace being second fiddle.
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When does “coversant with policy or facts” matter in a debate except when the debater is not skilled in bulling their way through?
It wasn’t Trump’s unfamiliarity with policy or facts that lost him, it was the very frame that Clinton introduced in the first debate, “A candidate who can be baited with a Tweet is not qualified to be President of the United States.” In the remaining debates, Clinton managed to bait Trump’s narcissism with the maternal tone of “Donald say”, “Donald believes”, or “Donald does”, and the pounding on his beliefs about, attitudes to, and actions against women and the other stakeholders in his businesses — custoemrs, employere, vendors, and communities.
He could delegate policy and facts to Pence, said by who(?) Kasich (?) to be his intention what the Donald, in Kasich’s words, “makes America great again.”
Thanks for sharing this post.
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