Chill Out DU: A former trial attorney's thoughts on the debate

[kpete]

Cases are never won in the opening statement. A person should not try their case in an opening. Anything said in an opening statement which is untrue will be held against you to your excruciating regret.

Again a person does not try to win the case in an opening. They try to establish a cogent and powerful theme. So yes, maybe Romney won the opening statement. But now he must live with all those lies. Every single day, discussion about his lies. He must live with the additional theme that he will not explain any of his plans. The theme now potentially established for the debates are Romney's lies and Romney's secrets. It is likely the dominant strain to run through the campaign for the next few weeks.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/03/1139562/-A-former-trial-attorney-s-thoughts-on-the-debate

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I agree. 270 lies can be 270 different TV/radio spots for Obama.

[BenzoDia]

2. Agree. Romney now has defend his new points and that will be tough.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Any thinking person should remember the same bemoaning in 2008...

Obama should push back!!11!!!

Obama should come out swinging!!11111

Oh Noes, Obama's LOSING!!!!11111!!1122@@3

SSDY!

:kick:

[treestar]

5. Yep. Probably the same people too.

Oh the drama! If only Obama had punched Rmoney in the nose. That would be so satisfying.

[Robeysays]

7. i agree with this thread, i think he did just fine. but...

that would be so satisfying. god. obama punching that chump in the nose. so good.

[Hutzpa]

10. I remember having to go through

all that noise during the 2008 election with all the knee jerk reaction from people, who is the president today? alright then, enough said.

So called liberals need to take a chill pill.

[Sugarcoated]

20. Knee jerking on the DU???

Where??

[Whisp]

18. groundhog day. you are correct.

same old moaning by pretty well the same old crowd.

the feet of clay crowd

[Floyd_Gondolli]

4. Be careful

You will be accused of "whistling past the graveyard" which was the phrase de jour last night by some posters I respect but tend to be a little bit on the front runner side of things and melt into hysterics when things don't go right for Obama 100 percent of the time.

But yes, you are spot on.

[Tennessee Gal]

6. The only problem with this is that it relies on the media

to get the word out to the public, which is a precarious situation at best. It also relies on the public to be paying attention. We political junkies know Mitt was lying repeatedly, but the average voter may not know that. And some may not care.

[Indpndnt]

9. They watch TV. They've seen the 46% video of Willard at his most candid.

And now they'll see the commercials that blast Willard with his many positions on the same issues.

[Indpndnt]

8. Thank you! I've been saying this, but people are too busy fretting.

Remember the 47% video? Does anyone seriously believe this debate will cast any sort of shadow over that revelation of Willard's dismissal of half the country?

[porphyrian]

11. . n/t

[nyquil_man]

12. Mitt Romney is the same mediocre candidate he was at 8:59 EST last night.

The difference now is that he's a mediocre candidate who's saddled with high expectations.

[NYC_SKP]

13. DU, post debate, expressed in a classic gif:

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

14. FAIL

For many undecideds this was all they'll tune into. Think about it. They're undecided because they don't like or follow politics. For them it's game, set, match back to football.

Really poor analogy.

[Horse with no Name]

15. There really are not that many "undecideds"

Seriously. There may be some folks that were embarrassed to publicly admit that they were voting for Mittens because they felt he was weak--but privately were going to vote for him anyway.

ANY "thinking" or "rationale" person was appalled by what they saw last night.

It was like watching a "flight of ideas" in real time. Very disturbing.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

17. That's really difficult for me to gauge...

I live in Chicago. We're virtually ignored here, obviously, because we are solidly blue. My bias leads me to wonder where the undecideds are...in swing states where they are inudated with right wing lies. So, yes, there may not be many of them but I'd feel a lot better if they lived in Illinois and not Colorado.

I'd love to see the demographics of the undecided.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

16. This Current Trial Attorney Says Yes And No

There are differing schools of thought as to which segment of the trial is the most important, but I've found that the vast majority of the REALLY good trial attorneys I've known agree that the Opening Statement phase is THE most important. And yes, trials CAN be and ARE won during the Opening Statement. So that's where your statement is wrong.

Here's where your statement is right: if you say something during your Opening Statement that isn't true, or that is proven to be false during the testimony, you will lose all credibility and probably lose your case.

Gerry Spence, the greatest trial attorney of all time, says that all trials are won during the Opening Statement. It's when you "prepare" the jury to hear your case and color their opinions of the things they're about to hear. If you do a good job, you've won. But again, if you lie to them or tell them they're going to see/hear something that they don't see/hear, you've lost.

So this trial attorney would say you're partly right and partly wrong.

Also, let me point out that one way you can score HUGE points with the jury is if, during your Opening Statement, you tell them, "I can already tell you what the other side is going to say. They're going to say this...." and then they actually say that. Obama did that last night. I remember one time he claimed that Rmoney wouldn't lay out the specifics of his plan because he doesn't have them, and Rmoney responded by...........not giving specifics, but rather spewing platitudes. See, these are the little things that resonate with people. And if it continues to happen over 2 more debates, people are really going to start seeing firsthand that this guy is nothing more than an empty suit.

As applied to this situation, I really don't think this debate will shift the outcome all that much. People have short attention spans and likely won't even remember this debate after having seen 3 of them. Plus, I just don't think there are enough undecided voters left to make a difference, even if they ALL broke for Rmoney, and we know that would never happen. If Rmoney's hoping to regain control of this thing after letting it careen out of control for 6 months, he's sadly mistaken. The vast majority of people, particularly people who would watch a debate, have already made up their minds about who is what and what is who. This one's too far out of reach. Maybe if Rmoney had another 6 months, he could put up a decent fight, but he doesn't.

[former9thward]

19. The election is not a trial.

Jurors in a trial must pay attention, and generally do, to the entire trial. Many people just watch the first debate and tune out most everything else. Nobody I know pays much attention at all to political ads. They assume most of them are either lies or exaggerations. So these debates, especially the first one, are far most important than an opening in a trial. The average voter is never on a site like DU engaging in "daily discussions".