Week 7: On Memorable Moments

This week, I rewatched the major highlights of and read articles analyzing the Town hall debates in 1992,1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 in search of what the one most memorable/ highly covered moment of the debate was. For 1992, 2000, 2008, 2012, and 2016, this was fairly easy as there was always one awkward or impressive instance by at least one of the candidates (1992: Bill Clinton engaged with the voter, 2000: Al Gore attempted to encroach into Bush’s personal space, 2008: John McCain frequently wandered, 2012: the audience erupted into an applause for Obama, 2016: Donald Trump paced awkwardly and grabbed the chair). After researching, I was unable to find a recurring significant moment in relation to body language for 2004 or 1996, so I plan on conducting more research and speaking to my advisor.

After collecting the most memorable moments from these debates, I compiled my research onto a Google document here. I also studied Gallup polls of these debates and included them in the document. I noticed that the candidate with the stronger performance in the instance I singled out usually emerged as the perceived winner of the debate, indicating that his/her body language was impactful.

In addition, with my advisor, I discussed possible reforms that could be made to the Town hall presidential debates. Currently, the audience are not representative of the voting population as they are carefully chosen and are made up of only undecided voters, so we propose that decided and politically engaged voters be a part of such a discussion. This will allow for more provocative questions that will place the candidates in a position of more discomfort and potentially allow for new/different insights to be made regarding their body language.

Finally, in the next week I plan compiling all the clips of the moments I selected into a single video and analyzing each instance in depth: what aspect of body language was displayed, why was is successful/unsuccessful, etc. I also hope to find the significant moments from the 1996 and 2004 debates.