abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) (10/08/84)
On the subject of the Mondale Reagan debate last night on television: I was impressed with Mondale. It seems that all those months of meditating are paying off. In my opinion he trounced Reagan in several areas: 1) All the debate about budget/fiscal matters focused on the deficit issue brought by Mondale. Reagan never moved the subject away from Mondale's claim that the deficit was the major problem. This was a major win for Mondale because Reagan has claimed that the deficit is not the major problem. Reagan's reply that he, Reagan, did not accept the Congressional Budget Office projection of widening deficit was not credible. If Mondale had realized Reagan was going to be such a pushover on this issue, he probably would have been able to hit harder: for example, telling the American people exactly how large the entire deficit is and how much we're paying per capita in debt service, etc. 2) The "less government" myth of Reagan was debunked. Reagan wants more government, not less, in areas favorable to the his issues: notably abortion and school prayer. Mondale has shown that one can be against introduction of all these special-interest laws and still be an upright citizen and maybe even president. 3) The "great communicator" image of Reagan was shattered. Boy, was Reagan sorry that he said "There you go again." Mondale turned it around in a masterful move. If you watched the debate you saw Reagan nervous in the beginning, picking up smoothness and confidence up to that statement in which he risked all! Following Mondale's retort (something to the effect of "You can't fool the American people" regarding Reagan's intended Medicare cuts) it was clearly a more nervous Reagan trying to keep his thoughts clear through it all. If you listened you could hear him hesitating, groping for words and even for concepts through to the end of the debate. 4) Mondale succeeded in establishing a clear philosophy for his campaign, that of providing for all Americans into the future and doing it by putting the economy back on its feet through equitable taxes. He make the point hard that those with middle and lower incomes are being discriminated against by Reagan's policies. Reagan, again, was very weak and never described any overall guiding philosophy or ideology. Aside from partisan assessments, it is clear that Mondale won hands down from the Gallup/Newsweek poll made available this morning: 55% listening thought Mondale won; 35% gave it to Ronald McReagan. Furthermore, a group of debating judges gave it six to one to Mondale. Looks like the Democratic campaign is off and running. It's about time!
docs@hocsf.UUCP (10/10/84)
REFERENCE: <242@mhuxm.UUCP> I listened to the first 1/3 of the debate and saw the remainder on TV. I thought that Mondale looked very strong. Though both of them danced around questions(these are politicians we're talking about), Mondale seemed more direct. Reagan's under- standing of economics is just amazing. Imagine me thinking that the deficit had something to do with interest rates. How stupid of me. I don't like the idea of more taxes for the middle class. I think we pay quite our share now. I just hope Mondale can manage to keep his promise on not raising taxes to those of us that pay 30% of our salary as it is. Someone has to force those leaders in Washington that we don't want them spending all our hard earned cash on their little pork barrels. This is the only way to cut the deficit. And I don't think a President is in the position to do much about that problem. I'm looking forward to the next debate. In a lot of ways I think that domestic issues are more important to the average American than foreign policy. We tend to be very concerned about what happnens to our pocketbook. If that's in good shape, we can worry about other things. Sharon Badian