USC Annenberg faculty Marty Kaplan and Robert Scheer had columns about the first presidential debate featured in The Huffington Post and Truthdig.com, respectively.

Kaplan’s column, “How to Lose the Next Debate,” argued that President Barack Obama’s strategy for the first debate of the election was poorly planned and Governor Mitt Romney's approach may have closed the gap in polls that existed prior to the debate.

“What troubles me isn't that the president may have been willing to risk alienating his base in order to appeal to the undecided. It's that the Barack Obama who showed up at the first debate looks more than a little like the kumbaya campfire singer who in his first term kept turning the other cheek to Republicans whose goal was to delegitimize and destroy him,” Kaplan wrote.

Scheer’s column, “Sigh No More: Obama, Romney Leave No Room to Argue,” suggested that the two candidates have very few differences between them and that the debate contributed very little to the presidential race.

“It is absurd to depict this rhetorical stew of superficial nitpicking by two candidates with a proven record of subservience to the Wall Street bandits responsible for wrecking our economy as a meaningful exercise in democratic governance,” Scheer wrote.

Kaplan is the Norman Lear Professor of Entertainment, Media and Society at USC Annenberg, as well as the founding director of The Norman Lear Center. He has served as a speechwriter for Vice President Walter F. Mondale and his research at the Norman Lear Center includes political news coverage.

Scheer is a clinical communication professor at USC Annenberg. His columns have appeared in major news publications across the country and he has interviewed leading political figures such as Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.