RE: "Setting the Bar" for Debates - I Don't Think It's That Important

[alcibiades_mystery]

Many posters here seem to be fascinated with the "expectations game."

I think this notion of an "expectations game" is one of the most senseless and false cliches in contemporary punditry, and I'm surprised by how many people seem to parrot it seemingly uncritically. Don't get me wrong. I think various poliical staffs are so hooked into this discourse that they themselves believe there is an expectations game, and so you get all these actions that would be part of that game.

What I'm saying is this: I don't think people watching debates really make their determinations based on any "expectations game," or "bar being set low," or any similar such nonsense. I think it's a silly concept, and largely unverifiable in any case. It does satisfy an additional dogma of political junkies. It suggest that most people are stupid, a conceit that obviously redounds to the benefit of the political junkies (who can think of themselves as smart by contrast). I don't think most people are stupid, nor do I think that most people respond to silly "expectations games."

[shraby]

1. You have a very good point. It's just

a subject for pundits to talk about when they have nothing else.