The first televised debate of the Taipei mayoral election ended today. During the debate, Chiang Wanan almost scolded Shen Boyang for "not understanding municipal affairs" as soon as he opened his mouth. According to political analysis by fans, although the two men are standing on the same stage, they are engaged in two different campaigns. Jiang Wanan's real strategy is to make Shen Boyang look unqualified. The repeated appearance of "You don't understand municipal administration" is the most important key to Jiang Wanan.
However, the fan blog also pointed out that Shen Boyang did not respond to the character attacks one by one, but tried to redefine the election; the fan blog predicted that the real battlefield of this debate will be after the debate is over.
Please read on...
Jiang Wanan sheds the label of moderation and targets "you don't understand municipal affairs" to set the tone that the opponent is not qualified
The political fan blog Posted Today said that looking at the political communication offense and defense of the Taipei mayoral election from the perspective of "You don't understand municipal affairs", re-examining the arguments, four rounds of cross-examination, media questions and closing arguments between Jiang Wanan and Shen Boyang, we can find a noteworthy phenomenon: Jiang Wanan wants to prove that Shen Boyang is not qualified to be mayor, while Shen Boyang is trying to prove that Jiang Wanan has not done a good job as mayor in the past four years. The former constantly tests the political personality of the challenger, while the latter continues to question the administrative responsibilities of the rulers. What the two sides are really fighting for is who has the right to decide what the election should be compared with.
From the first round of both offensive and defensive changes, Jiang Wanan continued to test Shen Boyang with specific place names, policy figures and project restrictions. From Svenlidueng, Neihu aviation height restrictions, to temporary manpower and bicycle bridges, he took advantage of the current mayor's command of administrative information to try to highlight the gap in governance experience between the two. When every question is accompanied by comments such as "You don't know" and "You don't understand municipal administration," the purpose is not just to seek answers, but to create a fixed impression in the audience's mind that Shen Boyang lacks the ability to govern Taipei and that his political opinions are not trustworthy. At the closing debate, Chiang Wanan even described Shen Boyang as a "utopian", "packaged" and "double-standard" candidate, hoping that voters would doubt the person who proposed the change before thinking about whether Taipei needs to change.
Shen Boyang disobeyed Jiang Wanan by "taking the exam" and questioned the administrators' administrative responsibilities
In contrast, Shen Boyang adopted another strategy. He did not answer Jiang Wanan's test questions completely. Instead, he repeatedly asked about the actual results of policy implementation. With the number of cases increasing, why are residents still waiting? Will traffic really improve after the Gongguan Circle is demolished? Dongmen Dongmen tree was cut down by mistake. What went wrong with the administrative procedures?
The common feature of these problems is that the current mayor must not just use beautiful numbers to prove his success. Applying does not mean completion, holding a project meeting does not mean the system is perfected, and announcing a policy does not mean the policy has been implemented. Shen Boyang tried to shift the municipal evaluation away from publicity of results and back to Jiang Wanan's administrative responsibilities.
"Read random replies", continuous questions for one minute to create easy editing and propagation breakpoints
Fanzhuan pointed out that the most noteworthy thing about the entire debate was not the offensive words Jiang Wanan said, but the fact that he repeatedly used the same negative comments. These words often appeared at the beginning or end of cross-examination, forming an easily captured communication breakpoint.
The first round was more offensive and defensive. Shen Boyang talked about the institutional issues of the case from application and approval to construction and completion, but Jiang Wanan summarized his opponent's answer with "Read random replies"; in the second round, the AI technology corridor was connected to the citizen avenue, and Jiang Wanan used the rhetorical question "What corridor is it?". The original issues involving the division of labor in the AI industry, urban scale and public space planning were compressed into a political joke that sounded interesting and easy to remember. These sentences are very suitable for Internet communication. When the differences in systems and policies that originally took time to explain are put into short video titles, they can easily disappear in just ten seconds.
In the third and fourth rounds, Jiang Wanan even quoted Shen Boyang's past speeches involving issues such as the Twin Cities Forum, abolition of death, and the national system within one minute. He repeatedly used "Who said this" to question, and proposed that "in troubled times, we should use heavy codes" to criticize Shen Boyang for showing "professional arrogance." In this way, the original discussion about criminal and preventive policies was transformed into a moral judgment. The fanzhuan bluntly said that this is the section that he thinks has the most characteristics of short video material design. "A one-minute series of questions is almost preparing material for subsequent community attacks and defenses." Each section can be edited independently, and there is no need to retain the entire debate. More importantly, many accusations can be made in one minute, but it often takes longer to restore the background of the speech one by one. This allows attacks to spread more easily than clarifications.
Short video campaign strategy. The real battlefield is after the debate.
Finally, the fanzhuan mentioned that by combining the four rounds of cross-examination and closing arguments, Jiang Wanan’s attacks had quite clear levels, and were finally integrated into Shen Boyang’s image as an unreliable candidate. Shen Boyang's closing argument did not respond to all the personality attacks one by one. Instead, he talked about the light in his daughter's eyes, citizens' life anxieties, transportation, childcare, long-term care and companionship, bringing the entire debate back to urban governance and future life choices.
Chiang Wanan hopes that voters will believe that replacing Shen Boyang may bring risks, while Shen Boyang hopes that voters will believe that continuing the current Chiang Wanan may not solve Taipei's problems. Jiang Wanan's cross-examination is characterized by a highly short video design, and the attack clips have the ability to be disseminated independently after being separated from the original context. In addition to who answers better on the stage in this debate, who can successfully determine what the audience in the community sees after the debate is over may be the real key.
