She is painting Obama as ‘other’, foreign, and in doing so inciting people to the levels of hatred. I heard shouts coming from the crowd of ‘kill him’ and ‘traitor’.
This is getting ugly. Correct me if I’m wrong here but she seems to me to be turning into this extreme right wing populist figure. An American Evita Peron perhaps.

Set aside the debate and the candidate’s demeanor at the debate a moment.

If you really want to see a contrast between these two candidates, track down the speech Obama gave in Indiana today.

Find a transcript or recording somewhere and just compare the substance, dignity, and presidential poise of Obama’s speech with the foolish and crazed attacks of Palin and McCain.

I wouldn’t trust the Republicans with managing my favorite bowling alley, frankly. But those of you in a more forgiving mood who still don’t know how to vote, do yourselves a favor: seek out Obama’s speech in Indianapolis. It was a true speech, by a true leader.

McCain and Palin have no class. Calling Obama a terrorist is completely nutty and wrongheaded. There’s something in it that smacks of proto-fascist scape-goating, and to hear the crowds at a McCain rally cheer to a call to “Kill him” (meaning Obama), is frightening.

Still, three and a half weeks from now, I think McCain goes back to the Senate and Palin goes back to Alaska. It’s just too bad they don’t go back to where they came from with their honor intact.

I’ve heard some nasty things in political candidates, but I’ve never, never heard a candidate accuse another candidate of being a terrorist.

It’s disgraceful, dishonorable, counter productive, and probably doomed to fail. But still.

This was particularly frustrating as NPR claims “depth of reporting.”

Why frustrating?

Mr. Ashbrook quickly steered the discussion back to focus on “demeanor” and “issues” and “town hall format”, commenting that Brokaw allowed only 8 questions while asking 9 hisself while Gibson (in a more level TH format) allowed 18 from the floor.

OK, so what?

Later, a lady from the audience asked: “since Dems and Reps got us into this mess, how could she trust either.?”

The responses weren’t broadcast, but the question sure reaffirmed the reason for the answer originally blocked by Mr. Ashbrook.

What did Aaron and Peter Nelson say?…

Can we have another option?
Pretty Pleeaaaasssee?

“Tough” is a term with overwhelmingly positive connotations, and Sarah Palin’s irresponsible and inflammatory comments merit no positive characterization whatsoever. Those (Palin and Hannity and the shadowy bloggers) who incite their audiences to think that Obama is some sort of pal of terrorists, must be condemned for this dangerous behavior. All decent people are going to be very upset if some hyped-up nutjob is incited to make a physical attack on Obama.

BTW, I’m an engineer too, and I realize very well this propensity to rely on a scientific/rational model to explain human behavior, but real life is different from your conceptualization of soil chemistry/plant. That’s why the model of slavery broke down. That’s why the model of segregation changed. That’s why the model of communism and Iron Curtain no longer holds true. Countries gained freedom. The Berlin Wall came down. People make efforts and bring about a change – your model may be set in stone and immutable, but there are plenty of real-life examples that prove you wrong.

You haven’t named any.

ALL the examples you cited were structural. I never claimed that structural changes don’t occur readily – there have been zillions of them.

What I claimed is that all political systems from ancient Egypt to the present day are essentially theater. Totalitarian system are just as much based on theater and form as are democracies – they make just as much, if not more, use of iconography, symbol, ritual and all the rest as any other system.

That’s why I don’t think you will ever see a political system that is not primarily theater. There’s never been one at the scale of a nation because that’s not how human beings evaluate and respond to power. People respond to emotion, symbol, iconography, identity, status, posture, etc, FAR more readily than they respond to facts and statistics.

This is not a new insight – read Virgil’s Aeneid (I just took a course based on Fitzgerald’s translation which is excellent). It’s remarkable how well modern science substantiates ancients insights about human political nature.

The “mainstream media” are mainstream because they reflect mainstream preferences. “Democracy Now” would be mainstream if they accurately reflected US political culture.

As I’ve pointed out before, current neuroscience, behavioral economics, and other research suggests that human beings respond much more readily to the sorts of social cues used in the “political theater” style of discourse than they do to a more analytical policy or fact based style.

You should know by now that I’m a hard-core policy wonk, so nobody would love it more than me if we could have a political discussion in this country based on a serious comparison of policy details! But I’m also enough of a science geek to know that current research does not suggest that humans are “wired up” to lean that way, so it’s probably futile to expect significant changes.

Your analogy of basketball/football game is not even backed by history.

BTW, I’m an engineer too, and I realize very well this propensity to rely on a scientific/rational model to explain human behavior, but real life is different from your conceptualization of soil chemistry/plant. That’s why the model of slavery broke down. That’s why the model of segregation changed. That’s why the model of communism and Iron Curtain no longer holds true. Countries gained freedom. The Berlin Wall came down. People make efforts and bring about a change – your model may be set in stone and immutable, but there are plenty of real-life examples that prove you wrong. Your comments here come across as maintaining and defending the status quo, and your comment about you “move(ing) to Canada if McCain wins” tells me a lot about your cynical and defeatist (and yes, you will probably come back with “it’s realist, not defeatist”) world-view, however hard you might try to cloak it with your analogy of describing what plants grow or how nature works.

No thanks, I much prefer my starry-eyed naivette – which I embrace willingly and knowingly – to your IMO negative approach to life. Sorry to say, that bumper sticker still holds true for you, irrespective of your “logic” and “rationalist” thinking.

Be good, and goodbye.

The reason so many find this political theater rather than substantive is because most main stream media outlets, including NPR, choose to not cover alternatives in depth as exemplified by Mr. Ashbrook’s dismissiveness of the third party candidates who are out there that we can go find on our own. So much for journalism- or advertising supported journalism.

Where did I say to shut up?!

I merely pointed out that your criticism is something akin to criticizing a baseball game because it’s not a football game.

Peter, I may be naive, but you are full of cynicism.

My background is in science and engineering. My comments are no more cynical than to point out the relationship between soil chemistry and the species of plants that grow in the lawn, or to make observations about propensity of 401(k) investors to respond to company automatic-enrollment programs or guaranteed matches. In other words, all I’m trying to do is construct an accurate model of how the system we’re observing and commenting-on works.

When I see other people complain that the election discussion lacks substance, this, to me, suggests they have an inaccurate model of how the system works, i.e., they think it has something to do with substance.

So attitude, cynical or otherwise, has nothing to do with it – what matters is which theoretical or cognitive model of the US electoral system is more ACCURATE.

Let me live my life with my naive optimism and hope – I prefer it to your way.

Could you please quit with your know-it-all posturing here? Please? Thanks.

Yes, I know there’s much theater, and that’s exactly what I’m criticizing – as in, expressing my opinion. You seem to be saying “this is how it is, accept it and shut up.”
Why should I shut up? Why should I go along with this theater as if it’s OK? If I see anything that needs to be criticized, I will. Is there anything written in the US Constitution that says the elections have to remain dumbed down, and any attempts to criticize or change them need to be shot down by pompous arses like you? You can keep at it with your condescending attitude, but I’m going to ignore it from now on. OK? Now there’s a good boy – go shoot some naked women.

Because, as I said above, it’s not about substance.

An election is something like a beauty contest, or maybe a figure-skating contest. It’s a judged event where the contestants have certain required things they have to do, and some leeway for individuality, but only within carefully-prescribed limits. The goal is basically to get through it by performing the required parts as well as possible, displaying as much style and confidence as possible, and especially: to not make any big mistakes.

Really, you can laugh at my metaphor, but it explains what is empirically-visible far better than assuming this has anything to do with substance or qualifications to hold office. And it answers your question, too – in a beauty or figure skating contest we don’t usually know who we think is the best until the end of the contest.

Yes, but this relates to what Nate posted by the LWV about why they withdrew from sponsorship.

I got a lot of flack here a month or so ago when I said that WBUR was wasting its ( our! ) resources going to the conventions. And I still get flack here when I remind people that the qualifications to get elected are unrelated to what it takes to be effective in office.

But my thesis also addresses your observation, above.

Bottom line: An election is NOT about substance! People here need to get that through their heads. The campaign, the conventions, the debates, etc, are political theater, or, if you prefer, political ritual. “Interesting, honest and intelligent” simply have nothing to do with it. That’s not the goal of those who arrange these things, so complaining that they’re lacking is naive.

How is it possible that in 2008, with all the information that is out there, people either don’t know what’s in their own interests and/or don’t know which candidates platform will advance their interests?