C-SPAN Still Rocks!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2004 5:09 PM
I'm trying to get out of the rut of only talking about the election and related issues, but it's the only game in town. Last night I watched part of the October 13, 1988 second and final debate between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis in Los Angeles . There was a panel of CNN's Bernard Shaw and three badly dressed women-NBC's Andrea Mitchell (looking way better this morning on The Chris Matthews Show 16 years later), ABC's Ann Compton, and Newsweek's Margaret Warner. Okay, well, it's the 80s so I'm sure they were very stylish. Big hair, puffy and unflattering clothes. The bigger the shoulder pads, the better! Oh yeah. So stylish.

The thing that's kind of distressing about the debate was that a) George Bush junior and senior say a lot of the same things and b) nothing anyone promises actually gets done. Also, apparently Social Security and Medicare were even issues then! And Dukakis thinks "We can do better!" Crazy this broken record society we live in.

This, like the 1992 town hall debate, was also wacky because there was this crazy crowd participation element. Basically, they cheered for stuff they liked, laughed at stuff they found funny or preposterous, and booed stuff they didn't like. Bush actually asked for five extra seconds because he thought one boo moment was a little too loud.

Also, I didn't remember what an angry time it was. I was in elementary school so it was easy for me to miss. But there were questions about how sick the American public was about the campaigns going negative and the people in the audience clearly had no respect for the people they disagreed with.

One thing I have to point out: Dukakis talked about homeless people. Homeless people? Nobody talks about homeless people! I thought it was great and based on that alone, I kinda probably woulda voted for the guy.

Although I missed the infamous moment where he was all technical and unfeeling answering that whole question about what he would do if his wife was raped and murdered. Would "Fire her Secret Service agent" have been a good answer? It was the first question! I don't know if that makes Bernard Shaw awesome or kind of a jerk. In either case, wow.

I actually remember my class that year had a mock election and Dukakis wiped the floor with Bush. As I talked with two other girls in the bathroom after the vote we all agreed that Bush would be bad because he only approved of abortions in cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. Far too narrow for our grammar school minds.

I'm going to get major nerd points here, but it'd be pretty cool to just watch a marathon of every televised debate interspersed with a little history of the winner's presidency, including successes and failures, just to see how things evolved.

Best revelation: Bush the Elder was a flip-flopper!

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Election 2004 | 60 Days Until Election 2004 - Are You Ready? | 50 Days Until Election 2004 - Random Assortment of Links | 40 Days Until Election 2004 - Debates Are Coming | Finally! A Debate Drinking Game! | Vicki Liviakis Goes Down | 30 Days Until Election 2004 - C-SPAN Is My Favorite Channel | The One Where Everyone Pretends It Matters | Maybe I Should Just Move Back To Berkeley | . . . Dred Scott? Ahhh, Relevance

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