Was There a VP Debate Winner?
There absolutely was a winner of Tuesday’s VP Debate. There also was absolutely a loser, and there was a large number of people who have yet to know what a good debate would be like. The problem of course is that assessing who the winner and the loser are depends upon how you assess the debate in terms of a variety of factors. It’s those factors which may be the most informative part of the debate and how the performances displayed provide any useful or effective information that makes any difference in the election and its result.
What factor is just flat out obvious? Political party. The winner for the Republicans was Vance. The winner for the Democrats was Walz. But who was the winner for undecided, uncommitted, and independent voters? Because it doesn’t matter what the partisan groups believe. They knew their winners before the debate even happened, so long as it wasn’t a total melt-down performance. And there was no melt-down. For those undecided that the candidates hoped the debate would make decide that winner wasn’t clearly shown. So those folks either already have leaned to one side and the debate just provided a “confirmation bias” opportunity, or they may still be struggling.
What about on the Issues Factor? What issues made a difference that might have changed minds? Unsurprisingly, the keys issues going in to the debates were well known, and I don’t recall the moderators introducing any novel issue that could have provided an opportunity for an impact. Five big issues were: Economy, Immigration, Abortion/Reproductive Rights, Healthcare, and maybe Crime. Foreign Relations and International Affairs were more subsumed within the Economy and Immigration.
On the major Issues there are 3 dimensions I’ll use to assess the debate. There is the Blame dimension, which is more popular among politicians than terming it the “Credit/Blame” dimension. There is the Facts/Fiction dimension. And just to keep it simple there is the “Vision/Policy” dimension. Now, be forewarned. Winning on one of these dimensions isn’t necessarily a good thing nor must there be either a winner or loser. For instance, you may win on blaming your opponent or their policy, but that is a win in a debate context not a factual context. It’s the context of a candidate’s performance which matters and whether you judge that context as desirable in a politician or in anyone who is explaining to you why they know what the right answer is, or the right thing to do, or what is in your best interests or that of the nation.
The assessment uses the familiar letter grade system I would hope everyone knows. A grade will be be given to three individuals: one for Vance, one for Walz, and one for a theoretical stand-in of an actually informed or knowledgeable individual designated as “Patriotic Citizen (PC)”. Of course there was no PC and thus the American public missed the bigger opportunity.
How did the candidates do on the Economy dimensions?
Credit/Blame:
o Vance – D/F grade, followed typical “we did good” or “it’s all their fault” theme
o Walz – C/D grade, somewhat less severe version of above
o PC – B grade, would have presented a perspective connecting “cause and effect” on economic realities. Given time constraint a B would be hard to achieve
Fact/Fiction:
o Vance – D grade, used a mixture of facts, pseudo-facts, falsehoods, evasions, and outright lies. Regardless of reasons for the mix, the balance tilted to far to one side.
o Walz – D grade, the balance across the information presented was more factual but was not used as effectively to hit the target.
o PC – A grade, with intelligently prepared facts and examples the Economy could be put into a more realistic context. Something politicians appear particularly inept at doing.
Vision/Policy:
o Vance – C grade, pretty typical political promises. We will solve everything.
o Walz – C grade, pretty typical political promises. We will solve everything.
o PC – B/C grade, being honest with voters will make the superior strategies and policies harder for voters to be accepting of even if they would benefit the most fro them. The time constraint is a major hurdle to informing the public effectively.
How did the candidates do on the Immigration dimensions?
Credit/Blame:
o Vance – F grade, it was just the same old song and performed badly.
o Walz – F grade, more of the same and the opportunity to use it to effect was just missed.
o PC – A grade, there are ways to put Immigration into the proper context with a simple question. For the non-partisan voters this has best chance of making a difference, for the partisan voters it doesn’t matter anyway.
Fact/Fiction:
o Vance – F grade, it’s not clear if he cares about fact versus fiction.
o Walz – D grade, didn’t make the issue any clearer than it hasn’t been for decades and particularly over the last ten years.
o PC – C grade, laying out the facts would take more than two minutes, so this was a doomed to fail task. However, making that point may get a C-worth of credit.
Vision/Policy:
o Vance – F grade, nothing new here and ignores any understanding of the issues that Immigration carries with it.
o Walz – D grade, missed presenting any new approaches that could help resolve the issues underpinning Immigration. That current immigration policies are not properly funded doesn’t resolve issues it just responds to failure to do what has been done before.
o PC – A grade, there are opportunities to present actual new strategies, solutions and policies that could help change the conditions on the ground and the “cause and effect” factors that make Immigration a problem beyond the abilities of politicians to deal with or solve.
How did the candidates do on the Abortion/Reproductive Rights dimensions?
Credit/Blame:
o Vance – F grade, the Washington pirouette is just unworthy of a candidate.
o Walz – B/C grade, presented the well-trod themes but could have introduced so new aspects of the issue that are overlooked.
o PC – A grade, there are a couple of simple questions that ought to be raised and that have the opportunity to change the playing field.
Fact/Fiction:
o Vance – C grade, presented his perspective on the issue but didn’t deal with some of the facts that are relevant. His fictions may be self-induced.
o Walz – B/C grade, presented the basic issues but didn’t challenge the side-stepped aspects of Vance.
o PC – A grade, even with the time constraint there was opportunity to introduce some issues that disrupt some of the partisan voters’ votes. Just introducing seeds of doubt can be effective in bringing an issue to a different focus.
Vision/Policy:
o Vance – F grade, policy is premised upon “my way or highway” view. This often doesn’t sell well with non-partisans.
o Walz – C grade, more reasoned and popular policies among voters across all groups. You have to wonder why it isn’t used more effectively.
o PC – A grade, the issue can be expanded to additional contexts which just make the majority of the population more likely to attend to this issue making a difference.
How did the candidates do on the Healthcare dimensions?
Credit/Blame:
o Vance – F grade, going off into fantasy land is never a smart move. It’s even worse than having a concept of a plan.
o Walz – A grade, he hit home with two salient points. Actual policies and programs that he enacted or supported in Minnesota; and positions regarding who should be making healthcare decisions. He comes from an excellent state for this issue.
o PC – B grade, there are a variety of better policies that could be presented but this is a complex topic area so putting new policies forward clearly in a couple of minutes is highly improbable.
Fact/Fiction:
o Vance – F grade, if you are looking to the future, don’t try to rewrite the past.
o Walz – A grade, it helps to have actual experience and examples of how to do a better job than is typical of politicians.
o PC – A grade, sticking with facts ought to be easy here as Walz demonstrated. Adding some new approaches to managing costs would only add to the strength of the policies.
Vision/Policy:
o Vance – C grade, nothing wrong with wanting a better system. But what are the policies?
o Walz – B grade, focus on improving healthcare service fundamental. A clearer path to the economics would help.
o PC – A grade, a savvy policy would be to explain how to reduce Medicare costs by 10% and increase delivered benefits at the same time. It’s not a wish, it’s can be done by just solving a little problem.
How did the candidates do on the Crime dimensions?
Credit/Blame:
o Vance – D grade, pointing the political finger is just an old game. It is almost a form of plagiarism. Blaming mental health is the “mote in your brother’s eye” hypocrisy.
o Walz – C grade, did not present as clear a picture of what has gone right and what has gone wrong.
o PC -A grade, placing the blame on our politicians (both Ds & Rs) would be most appropriate, and putting credit into context would help.
Fact/Fiction:
o Vance – F grade, if you have the wrong facts, or create false one you need to do better research or find a competent adviser.
o Walz – C/D grade, needed to present a more targeted response on what is happening and to present a fact about crime that up ends the “who’s better” in dealing with it.
o PC – A grade, the most effective response on crime is likely to be asking a few simple questions which makes both Rs and Ds appear out of touch with what problems they are not solving.
Vision/Policy:
o Vance – C grade, more “we will solve the problems” and nothing new here.
o Walz – C grade, no sure there is a different solution here.
o PC – A grade, instead of a ‘one size fits all’, crime would be more effectively dealt with if there were ` multiple approaches that were presented that the politicians could choose for their own constituencies which lets them accept the credit or the blame; or policies that focus on changing the factors which support crime might be worth trying in some areas.
How did the candidates do on Debate “Image” performance.
Credit/Blame:
o Vance – A grade, presented a very even keeled persona. Didn’t seem “weird” in any stylistic manner. May have overdone the “everything done is Harris’s fault” mantra.
o Walz – C grade, was a bit more awkward and nervous in responding and perhaps relied upon the ‘educator’ persona of not attacking as pointedly as would have served his and Harris’s interests.
o PC – A grade, even with no persona in the debate, an individual who was more skilled in analytic thinking could have gotten an A grade. A big difference between PC and and the politicians is that Credit and Blame would have been assigned to ‘causal’ factors more than inept politicians.
Fact/Fiction:
o Vance – C grade, if your performance in the debates differs significantly from your performance in rallies, interviews, and media then would the “real” person please stand up.
o Walz – B grade, there seemed to be a consistent authenticity across the debates and his campaign performance. But he would benefit from a little more ‘face time’ with media-types in responding to questions.
o PC – A grade, even a little skill at real-time assessing of questions asked and being comfortable in pointing out the errors in premises of the questions would be better than the standard fare debate contestants deliver.
Vision/Policy:
o Vance – C grade, there is no vision/policy here; there is just the “politician” image.
o Walz – B grade, there is no vision/policy here; there is a slightly unusual blend of “politician” with “educator/coach” image.
o PC – B grade, a PC persona could be a refreshing change of pace in debates and in politics; but our partisan portion of the population would always have a problem seeing past their “confirmation bias” filtering processes and recognize or accept something new and different.
Note: The “Civility” of the candidates was pointed out by almost every news entity. And it is true that the candidates didn’t fall into the “attack dog” mode expected of one or both; however, there is a difference between acting civilly to “look” good and responding to issues and questions in a “civil” manner are not the same thing. In fact, if you can’t make your point while also demonstrating that you opponent is wrong in a ‘civil’ manner then you aren’t doing the job as effectively as you should.
So, who did win the debate?
Well, I’ve already answered that question for the political partisan groups. But what about for non-aligned voters?
For the minority of American voters however, it’s going to depend upon what Issues factors and what Dimensions of those factors may be most important to your views and interests. Since the Credit/Blame dimension is rather insipid, especially for politicians, it is of very low importance. You may value it higher. The Facts/Fiction Dimension is the opposite, it is a very significant factor in assessing politicians and thus is given the heaviest weighting. And lastly, the Vision/Policy Dimension is more heavily weighted than the Credit/Blame dimension. The problem with the Vision/Policy Dimension is how challenging it is for politicians to have a good one, and how unlikely it is for them to seem to have a Vision/Policy that is informed and fact-based rather than ideologically driven. Now this doesn’t directly answer the “who won” question, but it does relate to an assessment method which makes more sense than that used by the majority of voters. To help understand this assessment methodology better, the following aggregates it into an equation, similar to the Drake Equation you may be familiar with.
Welcome to the Bauer Equation: a Drake Equation equivalent for assessing politicians. If you are math averse, don’t be afraid it isn’t that hard. That Bauer Equation is just a multi-factor formula that transforms a condition or opinion into a value that is used to quantify the total impact of all the factors into a “score” that can be used to compare politicians, political parties, and ideological views, to test the candidates. The Bauer Equation (BE) will produce a Scoring Test (ST) result, a BEST value on what and who you are comparing. The BEST is:
BEST = PA + [(ECON + IMMIG + ARR + HC + CRIME + Image) * RISK]
Where:
PA is your Partisan Alignment value. If you are a Democrat or Republic its value is 90. If you are a non-partisan your value is 50.
ECON is Economy.IMMIG is Immigration.ARR is Abortion/Reproductive Rights.HC is Healthcare.CRIME is for CrimeImage is for Image in debate performance.
For each of the Issues: Economy, Immigration, Abortion/Reproductive Rights, Healthcare, Crime, and Image their individual and respective scores are calculated based on the following formula: (C/B + 2 * F/F + V/P).
In this formula, C/B is for the Credit/Blame, F/F is for the Fact/Fiction, and V/P is for the Vision/Policy dimensions. The grades given on these dimensions have a value where an A is 5, B is 4, C is 3, D, is 2, F is 1.
RISK is a special factor that assesses the Real Intelligence on Skills & Knowledge (RISK). It is not assessed in the debate context, as it really relies upon a pattern and consistency of a candidate demonstrating and possessing useful and valid information/knowledge. Candidate must be able to apply that information to an issue or topic, perform a competent assessment of the issue or topic, and identify and develop effective solutions to or policies for the issues or topic. This factor can outweigh the accumulated value of all the others, except unfortunately for the PA factor.
So, back to the who won? That depends upon what matters to you and how you assess the information presented on those factors. If PC, the “Patriotic Citizen” were to represent a ‘stake in the ground’, they would have won, but they also indicate that Walz might have come out ahead of Vance. Whether this makes a difference, that’s a different question.
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