The Presidential Debates Between Bill Clinton And Dole

The Presidential Debates Between Bill Clinton and Dole

The presidential debates between democratic President William

Clinton and Republican Senator Robert Dole proved to be a game of "dodge-ball".

Bob Dole fired criticism and attacks while Clinton tried to "dodge" them. Dole

attacked him on most of his ideas, and his tendency to exaggerate. Clinton

avoided the lies he made since the 1992 presidential campaign (brought up by

Dole, of course) by revealing all that he accomplished for the good of the

people. Clinton focused on politics at a federal level at home, and tried to

avoid foreign affairs. Dole based his debate on a state or local level. They

both had separate ideas on different topics such as education, taxes, etc. They

used these opposite ideas to attack each other.

The debates went smoothly through the first minutes without a

lot of conflict but shortly into the debate Clinton makes his claim that "The

United States is better off now than it was four years ago". Dole attacks by

saying "He's (Clinton) better off than he was four years ago". Although it

cracked a few laughs, it showed how little respect he has for Clinton and how

desperate he is getting to resort to such cheesy remarks. The first several

minutes of the debate had Clinton summarizing all that he has done in the past

four years such as 10.5 million more jobs, the Brady Bill, and Family, Medical,

and educational bills. In turn Dole complains that the United States has

stagnant wages, and that 40% of wages are spent on taxes. On the topic of drug

use in the United States Clinton claimed that cocaine use decreased 30% and

crime decreased as well. Dole soon reacted by saying, rather sarcastically that

drug abuse has doubled and for so much money that has been spent on crime little

has changed. Throughout the debates Clinton claims he has done so much good for

the country such as cutting the size of government, and stimulating economic

growth. In return Dole would blame him for exaggerating and stealing credit for

other's work such as governors, senators, etc. Clinton did little direct

attacking but at one point, for example, he criticized Dole's 550 billion dollar

"scheme" to cut Medicare and Social Security.

Clinton and Dole showed very different views on education.

Clinton observed education as dependent on the federal government program for

funding. Bob Dole believes that education should be brought more local, and on

a state level. Dole wants to cut all federal programs and move programs such as

Health Care, Medicare, etc., to more of a state level.