First-debate winners
Jack Bogdanski
1984 - Walter Mondale
1988 - Michael Dukakis
1992 - Ross Perot
2000 - Al Gore
2004 - John Kerry
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Oct 3, '04
Where is 1996?
10:09 p.m.
Oct 3, '04
Well crap. lol. Hey Reagan won in '80, didn't he? And Clinton won in '96 - and if you remove Perot from the equation, Clinton won in '92, too. See? No pattern. Don't scare me like that, Jack. ;-)
Whatcha got on debates 2 and 3? ;-) Or Vice Presidential debates? No, debates with Dan Quayle involved don't count - though always memorable, the playing field could never be fairly leveled. hehe.
10:11 p.m.
Oct 3, '04
Where is 1996?
Clinton beat Dole handily in '96 - by more than 50% I believe.
10:16 p.m.
Oct 3, '04
Hey, I only know what I see on CNN. They pay for the polls.
Oct 4, '04
The point seems to be that Democrats shouldn't get too cocky by wining the first debate. However, I don't think Dems are cocky at all, I think they're relieved that Kerry didn't choke and that he still has a chance to win this election.
That being said: Kerry needs to win one of the next two debates if he wants to be President.
Oct 4, '04
BBC poll http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3712424.stm
Oct 4, '04
But what about the VP Debate?, eh?
1:43 p.m.
Oct 6, '04
Amazing correlation that means... absolutely nothing! No causal nexus, and therefore no point. Next on "Fascinating Blog Posts" we'll discover whether water is wet and what percentage of people prefer breathing air over other non nitrogen/oxygen mixes!
1:52 p.m.
Oct 10, '04
From the tiny amount of news I've been able to get in the past two weeks, a lot of it has revolved around the notion that the debates don't actually matter. Wrong.
While the examples you cite are an interesting historical precedent, they're like the small print in mutual funds--"past performance doesn't affect future performance." In 1984, Walter Mondale was about as likely to beat Reagan as Nader was to win in 2000. His stunning first debate at least made it interesting--before voters actually got to the polls.
Dukakis was only slightly more likely to win in '88, but failed when he stumbled during the weeks leading up to the election. Lesson there: first debates can't bail you out if you've botched everthing else.
Your next two "winners" are interesting. Perot legitimized himself as a candidate, but did he win? I won't despute you, but I think there's a question about that call.
But Gore clearly did not win his first debate, and it may well have been the moment he decidedly lost the presidency. By any measure a rational, educated human would use to define victory in a debate, Gore won. At one point, Bush argued that the Kosovo situation should be turned over to the Russians--indicating a shocking lapse of knowledge about geopolitics. But none of that mattered. The media spin and resultant polls declared the actual "winner"--using the same methodology as elections--and that guy won the presidency.