By Lydia Osolinsky & Christina Stewart, Senior Staff Writers About 100 students gathered in Nasitir Hall last night to discussthe third presidential debate with four San Diego State politicalscience and communication experts.
Many watching the debate saw improvement on the part of thepresident during the past two debates. Learning from past mistakes,President Bush appeared more confident and quite in this debate,according to political science professor Carole Kennedy.
“I think Bush has definitely improved his performance in everysingle debate,” she said. “He’s getting better and better, morecomfortable, more articulate.”
According to communication professor Peter Andersen, though Kerrydid well, he missed many opportunities to highlight what he saw asblemishes on the president’s record.
“If I was Kerry, I would have said to Bush, ‘Americans losingtheir health care is not something to laugh about,'” Andersen said,referring to an instance where Bush made a joke when asked if hisadministration was to blame.
Both candidates went into the debate with different things theyneeded to accomplish in order to claim success. According to Schoolof Communication Director Bill Eadie, while Kerry needed to show hecould appear presidential and attack the president’s policies, Bushneeded only to convince voters that the current state of the nationis satisfactory.
“On President Bush’s side, he has presumption,” Eadie said. “He isthe president. People don’t like to change horses in mid- stream.
Bush focused on why Kerry would not make a good president and didnot address the accomplishments of his own administration until latein the debate, according to Eadie.
With a show of hands, the audience at yesterday’s debate showedoverwhelming support for Kerry but few admitted to actually changingtheir vote. This comes as no surprise to analysts who say theseevents have little effect on those who come to the debate with theirminds made up and serve to solidify partisan views.
“People who are Bush are Bush,” SDSU debate coach Kim Gerhardtsaid. “They know he’s not a great speaker.”
But those with negative views of the president see his verbalshortcomings as less forgivable.
“I don’t think people should make accommodations for him becausehe’s a poor speaker,” Michael Kreizenbeck, a political science graduatestudent, said. “I think how people speak is a pretty good indicationof how smart they are.”
According to Kennedy, though debates don’t typically decideelections, they can be especially influential in very close races inwhich character is made an issue. Though analysts gave high grades toboth candidates, neither got a perfect score.
“Some people think Kerry uses too much information,” Andersensaid. “But Bush is not the most articulate candidate.”
Some raised concerns that though the two candidates coveredcertain issues repeatedly, others, including the environment, werenot addressed at all.
According to Kennedy, Bush had nothing to say about the issue ofjobs in particular and that might sway undecided voters.
“He routinely turned it to education and the No Child Left BehindAct,” she said.
Many felt that last night’s debate was a reflection of thecloseness of the race. Though some questions, such as thoseaddressing abortion rights and both candidates’ opinions on whetherpeople choose to be gay, might have forced the candidates to givepolitically risky answers, both played it relatively safe.
“I think we saw conservative strategies on the part of bothcandidates,” she said. “Nobody wanted to make a mistake.”
Because there were a lot of disputes over factual information,analysts encouraged those attending to do their own research todetermine what is true.
“It’s important that people have an opportunity to follow up andfind out who is being factually correct or incorrect,'” Kennedy said.
