Early voting has already started in a number of states. Can you imagine? You can vote before watching even one debate. I realize many of us have already made up our minds, but is it really good for our nation’s sense of civics that people are not even bothering to weigh what they see in these debates?
Or are we just fooling ourselves in thinking debates have any real impact anymore?
2 replies on “Let The Games Begin”
In theory I agree with you but unfortunately debates are often won or lost by a one liner (Reagan’s remark that he would not hold Mondale’s youth against him or when Reagan used the phrase “there you go again” against Carter) or by just debate style points, mental errors (Ford’s “communism does not dominate Eastern Europe), or stage presence (see Lazio vs. Clinton).
Yeah, I get your point. But in this case, my point is that there is a remarkably large swath of the citizenry of this country that won’t even have seen the debates by the time they’ve voted. I might point out that early voting has never been this popular or this early in our history, particularly not in the elections you cite. Not at least to the best of my knowledge.
On the other hand, I doubt if the fence-sitters are the ones who chose to vote early. We shall see.