Yesterday's Republican Debate

By LB on December 13, 2007 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0) | Sphere: Related Content

First, I didn't get to watch it - much like many of you, 2 P.M. wasn't really convenient. But I have seen some clips and coverage elsewhere.

I find it interesting that the blogosphere seems to favor Fred Thompson as the winner, but the pundits on TV all seem to give it to Romney. There seems to be a bias at work, but it's not clear whether it's on the part of the bloggers or the professional pundits.

Thomson easily got the best soundbite with his refusal to answer a show of hands question. Where was this kind of behavior back when it would have helped him?

I have yet to see anything to explain why Alan Keyes was there. If anyone knows, please send me a link.

The clear loser, in all the accounts I have read, was Carolyn Washburn, the moderator. I've seen her described as a schoolmarm and "Nurse Ratchet". The focus group on Fox News saw her as combative. If she's doing the Dem debate today, chances are that she'll act differently toward the Dem candidates - either because she learned from yesterday, or because she's partisan. Either way, she'll be labelled as partisan.

The Dem debate is at 2:00 today - I won't be watching for the same reason I missed yesterday's.

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3 Comments

Paul Smith said:

I think the threshold for being in the debate was 1% in the polls and an office in Iowa. Apparently Keyes qualifies under those criteria.

That's stupid criteria to have less than a month from an election, though.

December 13, 2007 10:39 AM

Paul Smith said:

Yesterday's somnolent Republican debate in Iowa generated little news but one big question: How the heck did gadfly Alan Keyes qualify to join the eight candidates on the stage in the Des Moines Register-sponsored debate? He interrupted the moderator, gave lengthy sermons, ignored questions, complained about his treatment and in general distracted from the proceedings.
Susan Patterson Plank, the Des Moines Register's vice president of marketing, patiently explained to reporters that Mr. Keyes had met all the "criteria" the paper had established for the debate: A candidate must have filed papers with the Federal Election Commission; have a campaign office in Iowa as of October 1; have at least one full-time paid staff member in Iowa; score at least 1% in the Register's October poll. Amazingly, Mr. Keyes supposedly met all these criteria and yet both Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Senator Mike Gravel haven't -- both men have been booted off the stage for today's Democratic debate. The Kucinich camp reports it was not invited because the Des Moines Register determined "that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa."

This smacks of media manipulation. Mr. Keyes has indeed filed his paperwork, and he did score 2% in the Register's October poll, but that fell to zero in the paper's November poll. As for having an office and a paid staffer in Iowa, Byron York of National Review unsuccessfully tried to pry evidence of such visible means of candidacy out of Mr. Keyes after the debate. "I've been running a national campaign that's based on a different principle than you'll understand," Mr. Keyes told him, practicing his skill at evading questions. "How many people do we have now in Iowa?" Mr. Keyes then asked the lone volunteer who was accompanying him. "I can't give you a number," came the reply. "We have thousands."

"But in terms of the pledges [of support]?" Mr. Keyes said. "I don't know -- a couple hundred," was the answer.

As Mr. York discovered, Mr. Keyes has signed up a total of 2,678 pledges of support on his website. Precisely 49 were residents of Iowa.

Mr. Keyes' presence on the stage was a bad joke at the expense of Republicans, and one more example of media malpractice in this year's long series of 26 Democratic or Republican presidential debates.

From OpinionJournal.com's Political Diary.

Basically, there was no good reason for him to be there.

December 13, 2007 1:02 PM

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