There is only one team who can win first place. One team who will make it all the way to the White House. Which team is it going to be? The Red Team (John McCain & Sarah Palin) or the Blue Team (Barack Obama & Joe Biden)? Voters only have 27 days to decide who will be the next President and Vice President of the United States of America.
Some voters have already made up their mind. Bloggers on RedState.com are voting for, (this is a no brainer) the Red Team, while bloggers on AmericaBlog.com are voting for the Blue Team. It’s interesting to evaluate the posts on a liberal vs. conservative blog. It is like comparing apples and oranges. Looking on RedState.com, readers would think that John McCain is going to win in November. However, reading the posts on AmericaBlog.com, readers would think the complete opposite that Barack Obama is going to be our next president. Also, it’s interesting to point out that the advertisements on the two websites help indicate which team they pulling for. Comparing the posts on both blogs has provided voters with two extremes and no un-biased medium.
I wanted to evaluate how two completely opposite blogs covered both the presidential debate and the vice presidential debate in order to discover which team they thought came out victoriously, the Red Team or the Blue Team.
First Presidential Debate
Bloggers on AmericaBlog.com thought Barack Obama was the winner in the first presidential debate. Several posts mention how they thought that McCain came off as angry. Joe Sudbay said, “The dominant words used to describe the GOP nominee now are ‘erratic’ and ‘cranky.’ Apt words for McCain, but not for the next president.” CNN had a meter tracking the audience’s reaction, and one blogger noted that when McCain went nasty or grumpy, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents did not like it. Several posts pointed out how McCain never really looked at Obama when he was speaking. There were postings of polls from different media outlets showing that Obama had won the debate, while others pointed out McCain’s behavior, calling him angry and grumpy.
On the flipside, bloggers on RedState.com are saying that John McCain won the first debate on points. Initial impressions were that McCain looked comfortable while Obama looked stern. However, the same blogger who called Obama stern also pointed out that Obama was looking at the camera more than McCain. This was one of the few things that I found both blogs to agree on. One blogger said, “It was when the debate switched into foreign affairs that McCain demonstrated his complete mastery of the subject matter–and repeatedly put Obama on the defensive.” Several other bloggers agreed. McCain really shined on points such as national security and foreign affairs, but didn’t do as good (but he didn’t do bad) as Obama on the subject of the economy.
Score: Red Team-1 & Blue Team-1
The Vice Presidential Debate
RedState.com was pouring with praise for Sarah Palin. “She was awesome. She connected with the people. She had fun. She was relaxed. She was awesome.” However, they also pointed out that the expectations for Sarah Palin to succeed in the debate were already low. With her poor performance during her interviews with Katie Couric, voters were looking for her to simply not embarrass herself, and she didn’t. Therefore, according to RedState.com, point goes to Sarah Palin.
Bloggers on AmericaBlog.com didn’t have as much of a favorable opinion on Sarah Palin’s performance during the debate. One blogger brought up an article in TIME showing that before the debate 10 women thought she was not ready to be VP, after the debate the number spiked to 21. Another interesting observation is that most of the posts were bashing Sarah Palin instead of praising Joe Biden’s performance. Thus, because bloggers on AmericaBlog.com think Palin is lightweight and not ready to occupy the #2 spot, point goes to Joe Biden.
One thing both blogs agreed on was who did the worst job at the VP debate: Gwen Ifill, the moderator. Both blogs also had lots of posts on the economy and the bailout bill. I was glad to see both of them attack the important issue: the state of our economy. Now if only both campaigns would stop bashing each other and focus on telling voters how they are planning on fixing our economy.
And the winner is…
It’s a tie. It looks like the Red and Blue Teams are both tied, 2-2.
Blogs are one way to give voters a window into what other voters are thinking. People are easily swayed to a certain conclusion by being influenced by their friends or other people with similar views. I think voters need to take what bloggers are saying on RedState.com and AmericaBlog.com with a grain of salt and do further research on what bloggers are saying. It might not all be true and it may be biased, but it is entertaining to read all this bashing.
All colors aside, only one man will be President. With the election less than a month away, voters have the opportunity to decide the fate of our country. Will it be the Red or Blue Team? We won’t know tomorrow, but we will soon enough. Too bad we can’t have a Purple Team.
