Rhetorical Questions. "Who will win the presidential debates? What does each candidate’s use of words say about how he would govern as president? Can Obama’s rhetorical skills lift him to the heights of Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan—or will his speechmaking do him in? After watching all 47 (!) of the primary season’s debates, our correspondent has the answers—and some harsh criticism for the moderators."
posted by chunking express on Aug 15, 2008 - 86 comments

The amazing debate spotter text analysis tool is a fun way to look at the words our leaders use. Bush had a lot of obvious ones: hard work, wrong time, wrong place, he forgot poland. Kerry name dropped Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden quite a bit and had the highest kill ratio. Here's Cameron's post about how it came to be and how it works. Politics in the age of the internet are certainly an interesting time.
posted by mathowie on Oct 1, 2004 - 36 comments

Al Gore on tomorrow's Bush-Kerry duel: The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''
posted by CunningLinguist on Sep 29, 2004 - 37 comments

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: GORE MOLE SUSPECTED TO HAVE INFILTRATED BUSH CAMPAIGN; FBI MOVES IN; DEBATE PREP TAPE EXPOSED BREACH This could be big. I remember when I read about the whole Moncia dress incident on the Drudge Report and look what happened... I hope to god it is not true, I couldn't stand Bush winning because of something like this.

PS, don't yell at me for the caps, it's Drudge. What do you expect?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Sep 22, 2000 - 5 comments

Bush Evades Prime-Time Debates. "Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said Bush's 'idea of the perfect debate is on Austin cable access during the Olympic finals women's gymnastics.'"
posted by lbergstr on Aug 29, 2000 - 21 comments