John Kerry, George Bush, or beer...who would you vote for?

College students doing what we do best

Midway through everyone’s favorite part of election season, the debates, I think it’s time to look at how we Virgin Voters might be viewing things.

First of all, anytime you have to come up with a 32 page document in order to avoid a repeat of that awkwardness of V.P. Gore invading Bush’s "safety bubble", it’s clear that we might not be exactly following rules of parliamentary debate.

But those who actually sat through the debates couldn’t be too impressed. Cons thought the choice of moderators was yet another bit of liberal media bias, while others thought that Gwen Ifill was flat-out abysmal. She asked questions like “I want people to understand exactly what it is, as you said, that Senator Kerry did say [referring to the “global test” scandal].” Good lord, that would make an English teacher hemorrhage. Oh, and she forgot who she was supposed to ask a question too. Which is hard to do, because she only had to keep track of two people. You can check the full transcript and find it for yourself midway through.

But we’ve lost our focus, like President Bush trying to answer a question.

The Virgin Voter staff (of one) prepares for the debates.
Copyright Zachary Geballe, 2004.

We were talking about how Virgin Voters might have responded to the debates, all two of them. Like a lot of college students, folks down at the University of Florida (yes, a swing state) just got drunk. In the interests of full disclosure, certain writers of this post may or may not have engaged in the same sort of shenanigans. For those looking for more guidance in how exactly to get drunk and find out who flip-flops or lies, you could check out Wonkette’s fairly serious game, or you could examine SomethingAwful doing, well, what SomethingAwful does damn well, making us fall down and cry with laughter.

Those seeking a more balanced look at how students actually responded to the debates might want to check our hometown paper. Naturally, both sides spun things their own way, just like the big boys on CNN. But it seems like a lot of people here, at least, are paying attention to this.

For more reactions to the debates, we present a few blogs…feast at the trough:

Marc Cooper

Talking Points Memo

Power Line

Or, like some, you might just be pissed off.