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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.
no subject
See, I saw that bit of podium in the frame with Bush, and it made him look shorter to me. So I just assumed that CNN was displaying it's liberal bias again in trying to make Bush look bad beside Kerry.
I guess it's all in which way your preconceptions lie.
no subject
However, it also looked like they were trying real hard to make Bush look like he was the same height as Kerry. In the split screen images, the top of both their heads was, pixel-wise, at the same height.
Other things I noticed (from my admittedly Democratic bias), it seemd as if when Bush talked he got the single shot image more often, whereas when Kerry talked my network (channel 7, which I think is CBS) seemed to go split-screen showing both candidates more often.
It seemed that whenever Bush made a strong point Kerry wasn't give a chance to rebut, but whenever Kerry made a strong point Bush was.
Bush seemed to be getting handed a lot of softball questions "are you for or against everyone being toretured for eternity", while Keery got all the controversial ones "if the entire survival of the country rested on you killing off one of them, which of your two daughters would you choose to kill".
Yes, yes, it obviously wasn't that biased, but I just gave exagerated examples there to get the point across of how I perceived it. But obviously, my own bias probably strongly colored these perceptions.
What else did you notice, TPR?
no subject
I'm voting the ABB&K ticket this year (Anyone But Bush & Kerry). I've got a strong anti-liberal bias plus a medium anti-conservative bias, so I have a seething hatred for everyone these days. :)