Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Cleveland, Ohio in the spotlight -- Finally ;)

I just got home from the festivities surrounding the "Race at Case" or better known as the Vice Presidential Debate at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. I had a GREAT time even though we the students were sort of bitter that we didn't really have a chance at tickets to the actual debate. (my mom's high school got more tickets than Case did!)

For once, Cleveland and Case had the chance to sign in the national spotlight. The campus looked more vibrant than it ever has, and the national media broadcasted a ton of shows from the campus -- I could actually here CNN's Anderson Cooper's show from my apartment. MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, MTV, and local networks from around the country all broadcated live from Case. I might have shown up somewhere in the back of a few of the shows with my home-made signs (which are awesome, if I do say so myself). We got a lot of comments about our signs today, so it was worth the time we spent making them.

The debate was quite good, and even though it was less than 50 degrees (frost was forming on the ground!) outside, and it felt like our fingers and toes were going to fall off. My friends and I watched the entire debate on two jumbo-tron screens set up on camups (they had a few set-ups of different screens) and after the debate, our favorite local and national leaders hosted a rally in the freezing cold. Even better, we got to see our favorite canidate of the four that are running for president and vice president live, and he gave a very rousing post-debate speech to a huge audience.

It was wonderful to see Case get national recognition, especially since the last time we were recognized on the national scale was last year when a crazed gunman went on a rampage through the business school. It's wonderful to have my university in the spotlight for the wonderful job it did hosting the debate .

We took a lot of pictures to remember this night forever. We even took pictures of our signs . They are quite partison, though, so I won't post them here.

- Laura (still reeling over how amazing this night was!)

Thanks for posting this, Laura. Having watched the debate last night, I found your observations interesting. I'd be very interested to know people's perceptions of the debaters, given how very important this particualr election is but I know there's a censorship rule in effect on these mbs.
Tough job for the moderator last night - questions avoided and some very loose use of so-called facts. Hope that last comment is ok.
Great that your campus is being shown in a more postive light this time.

cc

Hey, Laura, thanks for the insider's view <g> I was thinking of you last night, 'cause I was almost certain that was your school. I'd love to have been there. Though I doubt I'd have liked your partisan signs anymore than you'd have liked mine

Carol, when I posted awhile back, I was *not* advocating censorship, just reminding everyone that these can be pretty explosive topics, with FOLCs on all sides of the issues, so we need to tread carefully and make sure we keep things civil.

My impressions from last night are that Edwards is a very good debater, which was no surprise. He was a very successful lawyer, so he'd have needed those kinds of skills. But I still think Cheney mopped the floor with him -- substantive answers, a good level of detail on various issues, and the occasional zinger.

Gwen Ifill did a very good job, I thought. Solid & sharp questions for both parties. Though I agree with you, Carol, that there was a lot of "okay, I'll answer that question on healthcare, but first let me comment on Israel..." or whatever. But hey, they're politicians, what do you expect?

All in all, it was way more entertaining than last week's Presidential debate. I'm hoping Bush will be awake for the next one

PJ

I, too, thought the debate was much more entertaining than the first one. I was cringing through most of that one, feeling almost sorry for Bush. He seemed to be just wishing he could go home after the first 20 minutes. <g>

The Cheney/Edwards debate, however, was much more evenly matched. Both very good debaters, which made it much more interesting to watch. I will strongly disagree with you, though, Pam, that Cheney "mopped the floor" with Edwards -- I think they were very evenly matched and both did an excellent job. I think Edwards lost a bit of his focus near the end, and Cheney was letting himself get too hot under the collar early on (and thus coming across as an unpleasant person), but overall, I felt it was a "tie" if anything.

As for Gwen Ifil, wow, did she do a great job or what? She asked some *very* tough questions, I thought. I actually turned to my husband and said "Well, if she was on slate to moderate any of the Presidential ones, she'll be let go -- Bush would be insane to allow her anywhere near him." (And I'm talking ability to debate here, not politics per se, though it's no secret between Pam and I that our votes tend to cancel each other out. <bg>)

Thanks for the insider's view, Laura. I was thinking about you during the debate and wondering if you had tickets. But then I figured that you would find it physically painful to remain perfectly silent during the debate itself and that you'd be much happier freezing outside where you could hold your sign. [ducking and running very fast! ]

Kathy (who thinks it's nice to have a place where people can discuss these issues without lowering themselves to personal attacks and flames ... at least I *hope* that will be the case.)

Speaking as a very interested outsider, I look forward to seeing everyone's views. Over here, we see much less of Kerry on our TV screens than we do Bush (for obvious reasons), so it's difficult to form an accurate impression of the man. As for the vice-president and his opposite number, I couldn't even tell you what either of them look like <g>. Yes, I could have stayed up until 2am last night to watch the debate live on TV, but I'm not quite *that* dedicated to world politics yet.

Yvonne

Yvonne, I can understand not staying up til 2am I probably shouldn't have stayed up til 11pm! <g> However, if you're interested, I thought I'd point out that you can watch the video of it on the web. I know FoxNews.com has the video, and I expect other major news sites do, as well. This is how I watched most of the speeches at the Republican convention, since they started too late for me to watch live.

I love the Internet

PJ

LOL, Pam! Exactly. We probably would have made faces at each other and yelled inflamatory things across the police barrier . But we would have watched the debate in different places, I am sure. You would have loved the student that was dressed up as flip-flops and the college republican booth where the students had flip-floping games.

I agree that Gwen Ifill did a great job as moderator for the debate, but I disagree that Cheney "mopped-the-floor" with Edwards . . . obviously . I thought Edwards held his ground very well against the much more seasoned Cheney -- and he came off as a likable guy with strong ideas (well, at least to me).

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had quite a bit of trouble keeping my mouth shut. It probably was a good thing I was watching the debate outside with a group of Edwards supporters . I am far less argumentative when I am with people who agree with me .

For Carol, here are a few more general observations of the debate.

First, I need to get this off my chest about the news coverage of the dabate:
1. FOX news has portrayed the debate as the "Race for Case". Actually, it was the "Race at Case". Not a big deal, but I don't think the small population at Case Western Reserve University is going to sway the election.
2. Our university is not called Case Western! It is called Case Western Reserve -- formed by the merger of two prestigious universities, Case Institute of Technology (or the MIT of the midwest ), and Western Reserve University (the poor man's Harvard ) in 1968. None of the news outlets treated it that way. I might be over sensitive to that, though, because my dad actually went to Western Reserve University, and my sorority was founded at Western Reserve University. Plus, Case Western makes us sound like we are a Western Campus of some other university, when the Western comes from early American history when the Northeastern Ohio territory was Conneticut's "Western Reserve" before Ohio became a state.

Okay, now for observations about partison things -- not really about the issues, because I don't want to start a debate:
1. I was *shocked* at who my advisor is going to vote for. He is a millionaire (billionaire?) from Texas. Let's just say, he is voting the same way I am because of Iraq.
2. I thought the debate was pretty evenly matched -- with my own emotional edge to Edwards. It was very entertaining to watch -- especailly when Edwards didn't follow the rules and kept saying "John Kerry" when the question specifically was to not use their running mate's name. I also liked how he was complimentary of the Cheneys and their lesbian daughter, although I think Cheney would have won some gay/lesbian voters if he would have admitted that he wants his daughter to be happy. I thought Edwards did a good job, but Cheney is a skilled debator, but I have trouble listening to his voice, so I am probably not your best impartial opinion. I did have a problem where he lied and said he had never met Edwards before. Yes, he was trying to illistrate that Edwards had missed a lot of senate votes while on the campaign trail, but he distored the truth pretty badly. I am not going to comment about any of the other things they talked about in the debate. I may have a pretty big crush on a certain v.p. canidate, and I am obviously biased.
3. One interesting thing I noticed with the canidate's post debate rallys: one was held on Case's campus, encouraging students to attend. The other was held downtown -- where students needed a car to get there (and the streets around campus were closed), kind of discouraging students from attending.
4. John Edwards' little kids are *adorable* -- a very good campaign tool.
5. Cheney comes off like a robot to me. He is pretty emotionless.
6. Both canidates avioded certain questions and directed conversation to issues that weren't at all related to the question. I lol'd several times when both canidates made cracks about how the other wasn't even answering the question that was asked. They both had an agenda. They both accomplished their agenda. How many times did Cheney use the word "terrorism"? How many times did Edwards use the words "health care" -- how many times did he say "John Kerry"? I will just say that there is a canidate that plays on people's fears and a canidate that tries to be the optimist. I am not sure which is really right.
7. Our country is so divided right now, and for every Pam, there is a Kathy, for every Roger, there is a Laura, etc, and we all feel equally strongly about the issues -- only the opposite views . To me, it's kind of scary that a country can be this divided, but I don't really see a way that the two sides can be brought together.

For Yvonne, here is a picture of the two men running for vice president:

On the left is Senator John Edwards, the Democrat running for vice president, and on the right is Dick Cheney, the Republican incumbent vice president.

I also have quite a few links that cover what each presidential canidate's views are over different issues -- because I have to write a non-partison pre-election issue of the Biopotential to get BME grad students to get out and vote. Here are just two of them.

The Canidates\' Views on Science -- an interview by Science Magazine
Canidates\' Views on Various issues -- Side-by-side Comparison -- AOL/Time

- Laura

Hi Laura, I'm your counterpart here to offer my opinion of the debate.

Surprise, surprise, I agree with Pam that Cheney mopped the floor with Edwards, who was clearly stuck on his talking points. So we didn't learn anything new from him that we hadn't already heard before.

Meanwhile, Cheney zinged him many times. The new items that haven't been covered yet in this campaign:

* Hey, John Kerry actually has a record and wasn't born last week. It was a travesty that Jim Lehrer didn't bother to ask a single question about his record.

* Cheney linked Saddam to payments of $25,000 per suicide bomber against Israel and that attacks have gone down since Saddam went out of business.

* Cheney reprimanded Edwards for disrespecting our current allies, including the many Iraqis who have died for their freedom. Anyone surprised to learn that Americans took 88% of the casualties in Desert Storm?

* Cheney gave the wrong URL, http://www.factcheck.com instead of the correct URL, http://www.factcheck.org for the non-partisan Annenberg report on how the Democrats are utterly wrong about Cheney and Halliburton. The Democrats immediately bought the .com domain and forwarded it to George Soros's website.

* Cheney zinged Edwards and Kerry for their votes on the $87 billion defense appropriations bill because they couldn't stand up to Howard Dean. "If they can't stand up to Howard Dean, how can we trust them to stand up to al-Qaeda?"

* Cheney got Edwards for his legal evasion of Medicare taxes. By declaring a subchapter-S Corporation, Edwards gave himself a small salary and declared his remaining income as dividends. Since Medicare's 1.45% taxes are paid on ALL income, Edwards ducked a tax bill of $600,000 (wow, income of $41.4 million), thus helping to add to the increase in Medicare premiums.

* Cheney really did meet Edwards before that night.

Gwen Ifill was a very good moderator. She asked tough questions of both men, unlike Jim Lehrer whose questions to Bush were: "Why are your policies a failure, Mr. President?" and to Kerry were "Why do you think President Bush's policies are failures?"

Laura, that's really cool that you got to hang out where the candidates are. Sounds like a lot of fun. I would have enjoyed trading insults with the people across the way, in a light-hearted manner, of course.

I've only been popping in and skimming this thread, but finding it interesting how two people can watch the same thing and come away with two totally different impressions, depending on their allegiences.

Not got much to add really, except to say that I didn't watch the debate itself, but for what it's worth, the political analysis I've seen since over here all seems to be of the impression that it was a solid tie and both VPs had moments of strengths and weaknesses.

I'm kind of curious to see what the poll results were and which opinion the wider US public agrees with. Anyone know?


LabRat

I'm not going to weigh in on my personal views about the debate because I am far too emotional about this election to do so in an unbiased or friendly way. I know my own limitations. <G>

However, I did want to clear up one thing that has been posted because I have heard this a lot lately and I think it's an important fact to clear up.

"The Democrats" had nothing to do with the website forwarding. They did not buy the site and they did not instruct the owner to redirect their web traffic.

Here is an article explaining what happened from today's Washington Post. I'm pasting it in its entirety rather than linking to it because it's a relatively short article and the Post requires registration in order to view articles.

LabRat, you were asking for polling results. Here's one from Rasmussen, who does a 3-day rolling average tracking poll.

Of likely voters, 43% believe Cheney won the debate while 37% believe Edwards won the debate. Of those not affiliated with either major party, the nod went to Cheney by 42-33%.

68% believe Cheney is somewhat or very qualified to be VP (47% very, up 7% pre-debate) while 53% believe Edwards is somewhat or very qualified (25% very, unchanged pre-debate).

Thanks, Annie. I heard the original story in a number of different places, so I guess it was incorrect.

About polling results. Different polls show different results. Most are very close so that it almost could be called a draw. Again, it's who you ask. Ask 10 different people, you'll probably have 5 people say Edwards and 5 people say Cheney.

I am not going to answer the things that Roger said -- although there are appropriate Democrat responses . I don't want to further the debate about the debate.

- Laura

Yes, I did a bit of checking on the net and discovered there's a wide sweep of poll results, so I guess it depends on which one you decide to believe. Is there any one particular polling company that is regarded as the definitive result in the US? One that is trusted above the rest? Or is it pretty much a free for all?

Have to say that I didn't find any that claimed Cheney was the winner, most seemed to support Edwards or declared it a tie. In fact, I found a news report that claimed Republican supporters were claiming foul play and accusing the Democrats of fixing the results as too many polls were coming up with a pro-Edwards result.

But then I only did a very quick Google search and checked out the first few hits that came up. I'm sure if I'd done more extensive checking I'd have found the pro-Cheney results too.

One thing I did find amusing was a little piece about a news reporter who decided that those on the online poll, the results of which he was supposed to be giving out, who had decided Edwards was the clear winner had to 'be on the vodka'. He then apparently silently read the results of another pro-Edwards poll to himself, crumpled it up and tossed it away, declaring, "Well, that one's from ABC, so we won't give you that one."

LabRat

I don't know which polls you looked at, Labby, but I'll just caution you to take online polls with huge grains of salt <g> You know how we can "stuff the ballot box" on those sorts of polls for favorite tv show, or whatever. It's my understanding that the DNC was encouraging people to go vote in all those.

I'm told Edwards was seen as the winner in Philly, by a whopping 99% of poll respondents! If he'd had another point, he'd have tied Saddam Hussein's electoral victory, a few years back

As for more reliable polls, I check three places:

Real Clear Politics
Electoral Vote and Election Projection

Real Clear Politics has the most complete tally of state & national polls, plus links to tons of editorials from around the country. The Electoral Vote site is run by Kerry supporters, Election Projection is run by a Bush supporter, but they both claim to use a strict mathematical formula to tally the state polls. Election Projection is only updated once a week, so it can seem out of step with the others.

PJ

I think the ones I found on Google were mostly TV news polls, Pam. Not that I take any of those any more seriously. As for online polls - I'd be mighty surprised if supporters of both camps weren't urging their like-minded friends to vote in those! As you say, that's kind of what online polls are for.

And, yes, that's why I was asking if there's a representative poll that's considered reliable.

I think, actually, you can take them all with a pinch of salt. I've never held much faith in polls of any description since I watched that Yes, Minister (Yes, Prime Minister?) episode where Sir Humphrey quite deftly showed his junior how easy it was for a researcher to ask the right questions to get the required answer.

Thanks for the links. Was a little disappointed I couldn't get into the articles on that first one. Some of them looked interesting.


LabRat

Yes, the wording of the questions is very influential. I get polled over the phone every once in a while, and I can usually tell what the answer they want me to give is...

Sorry about those links -- I'd forgotten that some of them go to sites that require registration. I'm registered at some of them, but not at others, so sometimes you can't get to an editorial that sounds interesting. But sometimes you can. Registering is usually free -- and hey, if I can get registered at the Daily Telegraph, you can get registered at the New York Times <g>

PJ

Just found this on a satire site , and thought it was relevant... <g>

PJ