Debate Number One: Dry As Toast

Is there anything more toneless than two senators debating? After my eyes unglazed, I decided to jot down my first impressions of this debacle -- I mean debate.

With the headlines in the news today, such a gutless exhibition was totally unexpected. Obama seemed like his only focus was in being amicable. McCain's focus was on how often he could insult Obama while keeping a horrible plastic smile on his face.

Over and over Obama said "John is right" and seemed incapable of looking at McCain. After McCain's antics of the last few days, I thought the ball was on the tee and Obama failed to even swing at it.

McCain on the other hand sounded like a broken record of someone's boring history class. How many times did we go through the last four decades as seen through the eyes of McCain. When he wasn't shooting zingers Obama's way, he was stammering and obviously trying to filibuster. You could see in his eyes his fear of the economic issues. But he kind of kicked ass on foreign policy.

Now, I am supporting Obama for so many obvious reasons. I don't have barrels of money and I'm not stupid enough to vote against my own interests. But the great mass of folks according to the marketing statistics, have an eight to fifteen second attention span. Obama has never said anything in less than fifteen seconds. I am concerned that his campaign staff may be letting him down. Someone needs to put him through a crash course on how to stand up to Republican gutter tactics. A case in point is when Obama took two or three paragraphs to say "John, you sang bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!" By the time he spit it out, the timing was gone.

I am much more critical of Obama because I expect so much more from him. McCain did make one very good point tonight. He has been around so long that everyone knows him well. That's why I got exactly what I expected from John McCain.

What is bothering me the most is that this week's events meant at least we should have received butter and jelly with this piece of dry toast debate.

Comments

[reasonshouldrule]

I've read this so much now I'm totally out of patience. If Mr. Sanders or anyone else can't focus on a discussion of the issues (along with some factual errors), then you all should stick to watching Dirty Sexy Money--or maybe simply cartoons. It would appear that a number of people only watched the debate to see a political version of the Jerry Springer show.

[R.W. Sanders - Huffpost Blogger]

Mr. Reason, perhaps you missed my point. I am not saying that I or very many that I know have such a small attention span. During my second career which began in my thirties, I was in publishing. I was lucky enough to hold Advertising Director, Publisher, and General Manager positions in four different newspapers and owned a golf magazine. The under thirty second concept has been taught since before I began in the business. It simply means that if you don't get the person's attention and make your point in the first thirty seconds or less, you have lost them. It has nothing to do with a Jerry Springer mentality. It's simply that to communicate effectively you must make clear, concise statements. Not three paragraph dissertations.

My criticism of Barak is only that he could be more effective among the swing voters if he would keep this in mind. And let's face it, an undecided voter is very hard to reach. The differences between these candidates are so vast, that it's hard for me to figure out how anyone who is well informed can be undecided.

I hope I have cleared up any question because I appreciate your opinion and welcome any comments you have in the future.

[reasonshouldrule]

Yes, you do make a good point, and I should have recognized it. I'm an academic, and we're used to speaking and listening to long-winded information providers. However, I taught communication, and you're absolutely right about the 30 second rule. In fact, a speaker sometimes has even less time. In addition, you have a lot of company in your complaint--and to rephrase the old marketing adage--the audience is always (or at least almost always) right.