Who won the first round of the debates?
It’s hard to say in my opinion. McCain did have more experience in foreign affairs and was expected to win this debate outright. But I am not sure it was a total and undecisive victory.
If you watched the nonverbals, McCain was clearly ignoring Obama. I am not so sure that’s a ‘Presidential’ quality. McCain wouldn’t even look at Obama during the entire debate. Even afterwards, McCain ignored Obama and made no effort to be congenial. Is this a strength or a weakness. Who knows? Typically if you want to really insult someone, you simply ignore them. But in a debate, ignoring your oppoenent is a bit like a horse with blinders on. Because as communicators, ignoring your opponent means that you are also missing most of the more important nonverbal aspects.
What’s clear to to me, is that although they are much better communicators than our current President, they both still need a lot of work. They don’t know how to craft the enviroment to their benefit. There is a lot a person can do to create anchors, and in this case spatial anchors. There are ways to setup communications nonverbally in the very beginning of the debate with hand gestures and body positioning to create a favorable environment throughout the debate.
So it’s kinda funny watching people who are supposed to be elegant communicators and who have been around the sun a few times, to me they both seem to be amateurs. They were more focused a bit on words and less on nonverbals. The latter of which is most of the total communication. I will say Obama came off as more personable and warm. Saying “John, you’re right” is not a sign of weakness as many Republicans would like people ot beleive. In fact it’s a sign of strength. It’s a way of acknowledging your competitor and being respectful. I want a President who is strong enough to recognize that someone else is right about something.
Having said that, I think Obama should have been stronger in his communication and more forceful at times. I think Obama at this stage is a bit softer during times when he needed to be more firm. And as a leader, that’s critical. His running mate, Joe Biden in a quick interview after the debate hammered home the point that McCain was wrong about the war as a whole. But he did more forcefully and more clearly than did Obama.
So in the end, who won? Each party’s representatives are clearly delusional about who won in post interviews. They seemed to watch a different debate than I did, because I wasn’t so sure there was a clear winner. On the foreign policy issues McCain was more confident. But Bush was ‘confident’ about attacking Iraq. And while he was ‘confident’ he was also 100% dead wrong. So confidence is important but only when combined with good judgement.
The one thing I think the debate did achieve was to allow the American people to get to better know the candidates and what we can expect over the next 4 years. Neither one of them said anything new or ground breaking, but it’s always good to see them live and in person.
Now, after digesting the debate a bit, in my opinion, McCain in this debate came off as an elitist to me, by ignoring Obama nonverbally. Obama came off as a real person who is sincerely trying to help the majority of America, which is not the rich and elite.
The next debate is the Vice Presidential debate. That should be interesting for sure. Looking forward to it. It could be a bit like a lion versus a deer in the headlights, because ultimately we aren’t electing just one person, we are electing two.
