Eschewing their normal Thursday night activites, students across campus gathered around televisions and tuned into the first of three presidential debates. Students crammed into the Butterfield C lounge to watch on two screens. Other venues included Psi U. and the Science Tower.
“I was hoping people would be smushed in,” said Gabrielle Fondiller ’07, an RA in the Butts who organized the event. “I’m happy we had such a huge turnout.”
Fondiller estimated that there were around 200 students in attendance.
“It’s good to watch in a group,” said Zilvinas Silenas ’05 “People are cheering and laughing at Bush.”
Many students thought that Kerry came across as the stronger debater, with more articulate responses, while Bush’s short answers were insufficient and repetitive.
“It’s not that Kerry has more confidence about him, it’s that he actually seems to be thinking about what he’s saying,” said John Rushing ’08 who was watching in the Butts. “Bush seems to robotically putter rhetoric. It’s like he already had it worked out ahead of time.”
However, Ian Smith ’05, who was watching from his woodframe abode, said he thought that Kerry based his responses on attacking Bush and that Bush did a good job of defending himself.
Joe McGuire ’05 agreed, and said that Kerry’s strength lay in his ability to challenge Bush directly regarding his numerous shortcomings as President.
Professor and Chair of the Government Department Richard Boyd had his Public Opinion and Electoral Politics class watch the debate in the Science Tower because of its relevance to his class.
“I’m encouraging them to look at the debates as analysts, not as partisans to see how their own opinions might be swayed by the media spin,” Boyd said.
He requested that students write down their initial reactions so that they could be discussed in class.
“I thought Kerry was going to be bland and Bush was going to roll over him, but he came out with some fire,” said Jamaal Smith ’05 who was watching with the rest of his government class.
Students from the debate team paid careful attention to the candidates’ argumentative tactics.
Katie Poor ’08 said that much of the debate lacked substance.
“There’s so much rhetoric that it boils down each point to make them appeal to everyone,” Poor said. “It’s more for show than a real debate because in a real debate the specifics are more important. You’re not trying to make everyone love you.”
“It’s not about who does the best job, it’s about who exceeds expectations the most,” said John Siegelaub ’06 president of the debate team.
According to Siegelaub the candidates complimented one another at the beginning of the debate in order to lower the audience’s expectations of themselves.
Predoctoral fellow in government Arman Grigorian said that the low expectations of Bush as a debater worked to his advantage.
“If he doesn’t lose, he wins,” Grigorian said.
A teacher of U.S. Foreign Policy, Grigorian led a discussion in the Butt C lounge after the debate had ended. He noted that the perception of Bush as a poor debater was unjustified. This image, he explained, has been encouraged by the Bush campaign to give the President an advantage by allowing him to easily exceed expectations.
Many students stayed to participate in the discussion. They raised questions about the meaning of “pre-emptive action” and the historical relationship between the United States and Iran, which were topics discussed in the debate.
Grigorian said he thought the debate was actually more substantive than he expected and he was surprised that Kerry took such a strong stance on the Kyoto Protocol.
According to Rob LeBlanc ’06, Kerry’s strongest point was that North Korea is a much more serious threat than Iraq is or ever was.
While most students held that Kerry had the advantage in the first debate, Siegelaub had a more tepid reaction.
“All in all, a Kerry victory, but not a big one,” he said.