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Relative Height
Something else that struck me as interesting about last night's debate: I started out watching it on C-SPAN, which unlike the other networks runs the whole thing split-screen.
Now, it's a truism that the taller candidate for President has a strong advantage, particularly when the two of them stand together. That's not an absolute rule, I think; Bush did manage to steal the Presidency from the taller Al Gore. But comparative height does supposedly have an impact.
That seems pretty reasonable to me. And the Bush camp apparently agrees, because they insisted that the podiums for the debate be as far apart as possible. Bush is, after all, considerably shorter than Kerry.
But in the split-screen presentation, I noticed something odd. On the left, the shot of John Kerry was just of Kerry. On the right, the shot of Bush included a large chunk of the top of his podium. Sure enough, they'd zoomed in on Bush to make sure that the size of his image equalled that of Kerry - or rather, that his apparent height was the same. In fact, to my eyes the image of George Bush looked about an inch taller than Kerry's on the screen.
I have to wonder: who made that decision? Was it an agreement between candidates? Or did someone at C-SPAN just decide to give Bush a virtual boost?
I just took a look at the debate Memorandum of Understanding between the Bush and Kerry campaigns, and on page 21 it says:
It's picayune, maybe, but apparently there are people who are foolish enough to actually want to vote for the taller person. And with the race so supposedly close, even the slightest advantage can't be overlooked.
Now, it's a truism that the taller candidate for President has a strong advantage, particularly when the two of them stand together. That's not an absolute rule, I think; Bush did manage to steal the Presidency from the taller Al Gore. But comparative height does supposedly have an impact.
That seems pretty reasonable to me. And the Bush camp apparently agrees, because they insisted that the podiums for the debate be as far apart as possible. Bush is, after all, considerably shorter than Kerry.
But in the split-screen presentation, I noticed something odd. On the left, the shot of John Kerry was just of Kerry. On the right, the shot of Bush included a large chunk of the top of his podium. Sure enough, they'd zoomed in on Bush to make sure that the size of his image equalled that of Kerry - or rather, that his apparent height was the same. In fact, to my eyes the image of George Bush looked about an inch taller than Kerry's on the screen.
I have to wonder: who made that decision? Was it an agreement between candidates? Or did someone at C-SPAN just decide to give Bush a virtual boost?
I just took a look at the debate Memorandum of Understanding between the Bush and Kerry campaigns, and on page 21 it says:
No candidate shall be permitted to use risers or any other device to create an impression of elevated height ...
It's picayune, maybe, but apparently there are people who are foolish enough to actually want to vote for the taller person. And with the race so supposedly close, even the slightest advantage can't be overlooked.