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Expert Shares Tricks Of Modern Debates

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Sep 26, 2008 6:32 am US/Mountain

Expert Shares Tricks Of Modern Debates

Written By Alan Gionet
Reporting
Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ― "You're not just judging what they're saying, you're judging how they're saying it," says voter Ryan Hoffman.

Hoffman is planning on attending a debate watching party Friday night. He's not the only one who's likely to be effected by the way the candidates deliver their message.

"Mostly the way they deliver it," admitted another man. It's the undecided voters they'll be after. The latest AP Yahoo news poll is showing 18 percent of voters are still undecided about the race for president. That's well more than enough to decide the election.

Senior talent coach Lou Michaels of Talent Dynamics says sincerity will go a long way.

"You know there are some people that are really brilliant and really good, good speakers but there are giveaways as to whether they are really sincere in what they're saying," says Michaels.

The classic zingers of the presidential campaigns go down in history. Ronald Reagan saying he wouldn't make age in issue in his debate against the younger Walter Mondale.

Reagan saying, "There you go again," to Mondale and Carter in different debates.

Lloyd Bentsen telling Dan Quayle, "Senator you're no Jack Kennedy," during a vice presidential debate.

"They're are messages that you do have to get across. And they have to be succinct, because if a person rambles you're not going to be likely to listen to them for long," Michaels said.

There are also the non-verbal clues. John F. Kennedy looking tanned and healthy after campaigning in a convertible, while Richard Nixon looked pale and pasty after recovering from knee surgery in a hospital bed where he prepared for their debate.

George Bush checking his watch during a debate he later admitted be wished had been over. Al Gore intruding on George W. Bush's personal space by approaching him.

"What are they doing with their eyes? Are their eyes shifty, those are things that you usually think of," says Michaels. "But what most people don't think of, are they looking at you too much. Are they trying to convince you too much."

She talks about how to stand, how to hold your hands and gesture. We asked her to handicap Barack Obama and John McCain.

"The thing that Barack Obama has to look out for is when somebody says something and he starts it out with, 'now look.' And that is something that can be off-putting. The other thing that he does is sometimes he can get too academic, too professorial. Where he looks like he's above the fray," says Michaels.

"John McCain sometimes talks himself into a hole. Where he, will not speak his thoughts clearly, throughout the end of the thought. He will start here he'll go here, he'll go there, he'll go here and he starts questioning himself, you can see it, you can hear it. His gestures get a little more tentative, his voice gets a little bit more higher pitched."

The question in the end may be, did they overdo it.

"The thing that a lot of these people have to work against is the fact that they have been so coached, that they don't across as well thought out people," Michaels said.

There are too many votes at stake to risk that.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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