Results tagged “Debate” from Don't Go Into The Light

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.

Kucinich's campaign says it's for some silly concern over where his campaign is headquartered. Personally, I think it was the Sean Penn endorsment that took the Des Moines Register over the edge:

Despite being the top-ranked Presidential candidate in polls conducted by Democracy for America (DFA), Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and one of the country's leading progressive publications, The Nation, Kucinich was not invited to participate in the debate because "It was our determination that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa," according to a statement from the newspaper's top officials, including editor Carolyn Washburn.

The dismissive reference was to Kucinich Iowa Field Director and State Coordinator Marcos Rubinstein, who coordinates campaign activities from his home office in Dubuque, bolstered by a dozen-or-so other senior campaign staff who have traveled the state over the past several months.

Odd though it might seem, this has the effect of hurting the other candidates. In past debates, Dennis' over the top nuttiness made the other contenders seem almost rational by comparison. I repeat, almost. Now they'll all start getting judged on their platforms and personalities. Not good for the party of surrender, socialism and higher taxes.

Hillary and Obama's only hope now is Joe Biden, who is still playing the part of the weird, angry uncle at the family reunion. You know, the one all the kids avoid because of what he might say. And that, my friends, may not be enough.

We'll miss you, Dennis. The debate won't be nearly as entertaining.

Update: Linked in the headlines at Hot Air! Thanks for the link, guys!

The Democrats held a debate/forum last night in Iowa, called the The Iowa Brown & Black Presidential Forum. It's described as "...the nation’s only presidential forum in which all candidates have an opportunity to answer essential concerns of African-Americans and Latinos."

Of course, those "essential concerns" mean little if you're an African-American or Latino who can't afford a High-Definition TV. Sorry, this debate wasn't meant for you.

While I was over at Red State, this post caught my eye. H/T to Erick for the link to this:

When the lights go up on the Democratic presidential debate (the Iowa Brown and Black Forum) this Saturday, all the cameras will be HD. What's more, HDNet is the exclusive national broadcaster of the event.

Exclusively in high definition! John Edwards is right about the two Americas - and along with Hillary, Obama, and the rest, guess which America isn't invited to watch this debate?

H/T Hot Air, here's Kerr saying that it ain't vegetable:

Regardless, he's a partisan attached to the Clinton campaign, in spite of his insistence that he only lent his name at the request of a couple of friends:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced today the formation of “LGBT Americans for Hillary”—a national steering committee made up of more than 65 LGBT leaders (full list included below), all of whom have personally endorsed Clinton for president.

If he had any problem with his name used that way, he had ample time to detach it before he allowed it to happen a second time.

It's still possible that he's a plant, but not Hillary's or CNN's. He's also attached to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (he's on their advisory council), self-described as:

SLDN is a national, non-profit legal services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and related forms of intolerance.

From their press release today that appears to take credit for Gen. Kerr's performance:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination expressed support this evening for the federal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law which bans openly lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel from the armed forces. The candidates were queried on the topic by retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr, CSMR (Ret.), a member of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's (SLDN) military advisory council who 'came out' in 2003 and identified as a Republican voter. General Kerr served for 43 years in the military, including as Commanding General of the Northern Area Command of the California State Military Reserve. His question was part of this evening's CNN/YouTube debate of Republican presidential contenders.

By the way, CNN could have easily found out about his ties to SLDN. It's expected that partisans with an ax to grind would try to participate in the YouTube debate. It was CNN's job to vet the questions and questioners, and whether intentional or no, failed miserably.

Update: Here's a post from SLDN's own blog posted prior to the debate.

Wow, I missed all the fun by going to bed. Having a job that gets you up early can be a handicap for a blogger.

Remember how CNN trotted out "undecided voters" in the last Democrat debate that turned out to be somewhat less undecided than advertised? While I was sleeping, folks all over were demonstrating their google-fu on the questioners at last night's debate. So far, at least 4 of the questioners were either declared hyper-partisan lefties or actual campaign workers for Dem candidates! Details at Michelle Malkin(who is apparently still awake and posting) here and here.

The most egregious of the plants is the gay retired general, who is on a steering committee for Hillary Clinton. His performance started the ball rolling on the outings, as suspicions arose when CNN brought him in to the auditorium to flog the candidates after they gave answers that he didn't like. As Kevin at Wizbang puts it:

Anderson Cooper would have you believe that a network that could select this question, find that 13-year-old Romney quote, create the trap for Romney (which he fell face first into), and (presumably) fly Kerr to the debate, could not type "Keith Kerr, retired Colonel" into Google and find the link to the Hillary Clinton press release, which prior to the debate appeared in the first 10 results for that search?

Yeah, right...

I think Kerr was simply too good to check. Imagine the CNN question pickers' joy at finding Kerr, who has victim status as a gay, and the absolute moral authority of being a veteran? The question could have been asked by anyone, CNN chose Kerr because it would put the Republican candidates in the worst possible light. I don't recall any equivalent popping up at the Democrat Debate - I'm sure CNN could have found a few had they tried.

As to the subject of winners and losers of the debate itself - John Hawkins (whose live-blogging I followed) thinks McCain won. I heartily disagree. Each of the candidates put in a poor performance compared to the previous debates. I'd have to say nobody won. Expect the recent polling success of the 5 top Republicans to dissolve over the next few days.

It wasn't a complete rout, however. As I said in a previous post, McCain did get the best soundbites out of the debate, particularly the exchange with nutjob Ron Paul over Iraq. Here's the clip where the only comeback from Paul is a weak retort about campaign contributions from some military officers:

Getting campaign contributions from some military folks doesn't translate into all the troops supporting you, Ron. It's stupid to suggest so. And by the way, Ron - where were you over Thanksgiving? Not in Iraq getting opinions firsthand from the troops, I'll wager. Here's Ron again, seemingly saying that we're occupying Saudi - skip to about 2:40:

Here's my wrap up and grades:

McCain - C-. He had some good moments, especially when dealing with security issues. That was tempered by his remarks about torture, where he appears to be too personally attached to be objective or rational, and his inability to see shamnesty as the mistake that it was.

Thompson - C+. Had good answers, but no fire. CNN did him a favor by giving him less air time than the other front-runners. He made a serious blunder by submitting an attack ad for the debate.

Tancredo - C. He's still a one-issue candidate, but gives good answers when given a chance.

Romney - D. I agree with John, he can't take a punch. This is going to hurt him if he makes it to the general election, where he needs to be a whole lot more nimble when attacked.

Guliani - D. Everyone knows he was Mayor of New York by now. Also, he came off as a little harsh in his exchanges with the other candidates.

Huckabee - C+. Good speaker, mostly good answers. Although the religious right loves him, he scares a lot of center and left-leaning folks when he starts getting preachy.

Hunter - C-. Did he get any questions? I can't remember.

Paul - D-. CNN obviously intended to waylay him with the conspiracy question early in the show, and in spite of Paul's attempt to moderate the tone of his answer, got what they wanted. Later rants from Paul only cemented the impression of being crazed, as his demeanor became less and less presidential and more unhinged. I'm sure his supporters will give him an A+, though. Update (11/29/07, 7:36 AM): Glenn Reynolds on Paul's demeanor - "His voice is too high, he can't remember who the Kurds are, and he often comes off like a crazy old man in a bus station." LOL.

CNN - D-. The real winner of the debate, if you ask me. Although their moderation was incompetent (remember when they used to keep the audiences quiet?), and their bias was too clear for even the most rabid partisan lefty to miss, they managed to set up a successful venue in which to make the Republicans look bad - not that they needed the help.

Overall, the performance of all the candidates was sub-par. They all have a lot of work to do on both message and presentation if they want to defeat Hillary or Obama.

I'll give more in the morning, but I think Huckabee was very strong, McCain had the best sound-bite moments, Romney was clearly off his game.

Ron Paul would have won if judged by audience reaction. Fortunately, we grade candidates on other criteria. Ron said it best when he said he was lucky to be in the middle of his own campaign. I agree, he has no business being there and is lucky that he is for the short time it's gonna last.

CNN couldn't resist another "diamond or pearls" question - since no women on stage, they disguised it as a sports question.

Thompson has all the right answers, but no fire. Everyone's getting another beer while he speaks, no matter how right he is, it's not compelling when he says it.

More tomorrow, folks. Good night!

8:00 EST on CNN. I'll be watching, will you? As mentioned on lots of other blogs, CNN's teaser gives the impression that their bias will be showing in the choice of questions.

Since I don't type fast enough to live blog, I'll save my impressions for a post-debate post. If you're interested in live-blogging, I recommend John Hawkins, who hears that candidates asked for CNN to give them serious questions instead of going for laughs with snowmen and rednecks. I wonder if CNN can resist the temptation, though.

Update: I had a comment on this post flagged as spam due to an excessive number of links. I had considered approving the comment, but after reviewing the comment and the links decided to leave it alone. If you want to discuss, fine, but if you're just buzzing through to drop links to your site, that's spam. I don't do it on your site, please don't do it here.

Yeah, I watched it. Here are my impressions:

The first 10-15 minutes were exciting due to the backbiting. After that, they settled down into the familiar Bush-bashing pattern.

Hillary was on-game. She needed to be aggressive without coming off as nasty and largely succeeded. She's still going to be the front runner for a while yet. The audience booed twice when Hillary was attacked. Playing the gender card is apparently effective.

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden gave some good answers - particularly Dodd when answering about security vs. human rights. Making sense is death to your campaign when running with this crowd, though. Biden got bonus points for giving a one-word answer.

Obama had a very bad night. It took Wolfe nearly 5 minutes to get an answer about the drivers license issue. He also slipped and referred to illegals as "illegal aliens". That'll piss off the open borders crowd.

Speaking of pissed, Kucinich was. And with good reason, too. He had to prompt Wolfe to let him have a chance to answer a question. No matter how loony he is, as long as he's on stage with Hillary and Obama, and deserves equal time and consideration. Of course, it won't happen, since Democrats really don't care about fairness.

Edwards loves pandering to the nutroots. I heard him repeat the word "neocon" a few times, that resonates with the delusional fringe. He also mentioned Cheney a few times, which gets the nutroots speaking in tongues. He'll be the winner with the Daily Kos crowd.

Richardson pandered as well. He even managed to invoke "Haliburton" in an answer that had nothing to do with it.

Hypocrite alerts - Hillary for saying she's not playing the gender card and following with something that sounded a lot like "vote for me because I'm a woman". Dodd for saying he has no litmus test for judges then saying he won't appoint a pro-lifer.

The second half was interesting - CNN wanted the Dems to look good, as they lined up victims one by one. One said he was a victim of racial profiling caused by the Patriot Act, no one called him on it. Update (11:28 PM): One of the CNN's "victims" is a war protester. And that's CNN's idea of an "undecided voter"? And why isn't Dan Riehl on my blogroll? Fixed.

Also, what idiot let the question about jewelry get asked?

If I had to pick, I'd say Biden won - at least in debate terms. Since he doesn't have a chance, though, that matters little. What does matter is who lost - Obama. Most folks have open minds, if he had taken a decisive stance on the illegal alien question and attempted to explain why he felt that way, folks would have respected it. Instead, he wasted everyone's time trying to avoid being pinned down to an answer on a question that wasn't difficult. It made him look especially bad after attacking Hillary on the exact same thing for the past 2 weeks.

Since Obama's loss is likely to be Hillary's gain, she'll emerge as the apparent overall winner through default - even though she didn't win through her answers.