Ok, I blew my stack this morning with my husband.

[Aoxous]

138. I am not sure "shallow" is the best word, but I would agree that many

American prefer flash over substance. This is nothing new. Take a look at the fist nationalized Presidential debate - 1960 debate between Kennedy and Nixon. Many claimed that the two candidate tied on verbal substance, but Kennedy was the clear winner due to his appearance and delivery.

Nixon was pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization. He appeared sickly, sweaty, and discomforted. Kennedy was smooth and charismatic with golden bronze skin from weeks of previous campaigning in the open. Even Kennedy claimed, "It was the TV more than anything else that turned the tide."

"Up to that point, politics had not really been played out on television. "It was very much an entertainment medium," says Schroeder. "It wasn't a place for serious discourse." After the debate, how you presented yourself, what you looked like, how you sounded and whether you connected directly with audiences mattered, says Larry Sabato, political analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

While I believe it is unfortunate, presentation and delivery matter. Getting up on the stage in a listless, passive manner, allowing your contender to go unchallenged in his fabrications while simply talking facts will not win debates.

Reference: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2021078,00.html#ixzz29KCC9vgH