Debate #1: The Morning After

[silveradept]

So, I boot up my morning politics program this morning, and it surveys the mainstream media reaction to the presidential debate. In quite a bit of accord, they say Willard "Mitt" Romney won the debate last night. They then spend the rest of the political show pointing out the march of the fact-checkers against Romney and the fact that the Governor was making up new positions during the debate instead of sticking to the positions that he's been advocating for up until that point.

Why is the mainstream media convinced that Romney was the winner of the debate? Optics. Romney looks better on camera, speaks "like a candidate" instead of being "professorial" on occasion...so, really, Romney wins on everything but the substance. It's like we're deciding student presidencies in high school, voting entirely on which candidate looks best and is most popular, without listening to anything said. Since all I did was read the transcript, I missed all of whatever has the instant polls and the mainstream media all a-flutter for Mitt Romney's debate skills.

This reinforces my supposition yesterday that presidential debates are, in fact, long-form versions of the Zero Content Example trope. One would think that in light of the fact-checking and the analysis of the substance and the quiet retractions and clarifications by the campaign about what their candidate said that the decision might be adjusted or reversed. It's not going to happen, of course, but it should be a Thing for the media to actually consider substance as well as style before making a breathless decision about who "won."

So...that happened. And there were several unprintable things said in the course of the composition of this entry.

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