Debate #1: Read My Ego's Review

In the form of a letter to My Ego's college rhetoric/debate professor. My Ego was a Rhetoric major, afterall...


Dr K-

I [MY EGO] agree with you that McCain showed stronger ethos in his prowess in foreign policy, and overall won on points. Yet, as you say, his body language was quite unsettling, and I'm [MY EGO] afraid his claims for 'reaching across the aisle' come off quite contradictory when he clearly holds contempt for Obama and the dems.

I [MY EGO] can't say I [MY EGO] agree with you on the "I agree" soundbite. This only further proves that Obama has the capacity to see simultaneous existing truths that compose a greater context. If the McCain camp makes a commercial using them, the Obama camp can respond with this message, and show clip after clip of their spiteful, angry opponent.

Obama continues to show he is as "presidential" a candidate I've [MY EGO] ever seen, but I [MY EGO] do think there is lots of room for improvement. Specifically, I [MY EGO] think he needs to focus more on individual, emotionally-charged words. He emphasizes the point he makes with a well-crafted sentence. He needs to find the important words, hone in, stress them, repeat them passionately. The best example of this was when he was talking about how McCain won't meet with the predident of Spain... "I mean, SPAIN!". More of that impassioned focus on single words... not that the Spain example is substantively what I mean, but it has the passion side.

Also, I [MY EGO] can't believe Obama isn't going at McCain harder on the facts of the surge. There is mounting evidence that the surge came after the Shia sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing had already wiped out much of the Sunni population, especially in Baghdad.

Ethnic cleansing the real cause.

Strategic missions led to reduction in violence pre-surge.

McCain disagreed with the surge.


Just the evidence in those three stories alone should be top focus of Obama. The surge is all McCain has.

That's where I'm [MY EGO] at. Make me a pundit! ; )

Best,

My Ego



Hi [MY EGO'S REAL NAME],

I have been in Chicago working with Greek TV on a documentary on the campaign. I did not have time to do any commentary on radio or TV, but will give a talk on the conventions here on October 23. In terms of authoritativeness, it appeared to me that McCain showed great knowledge on foreign affairs, and Obama made the "soundbite" mistake of agreeing with him on 8 occasions. Those will be pulled together into an ad, count on it. In terms of communication, McCain made the mistake of not looking at Obama, thus giving the impression that he was either nervous or rude, neither very good nonverbal messages. This is the same behavior that hurt Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004, and because the public and the media will slowly begin to focus less on issues and more on communicativeness, Obama wins the debate. That's my take. How about you?

K