Another Dem Debate...
Well, we were graced with another Democratic Presidential Candidates debate last Thursday. The format was terrible, with half the time spent on a chaotic roundtable and half with "Town Hall" questions. With nine candidates (about half of whom have no chance at getting the nomination), there were lots of attacks without rebuttals and little substantively said. Not unusual for a debate but it seemed to be exacerbated by the format, and the moderator (Woodruff was awful.)
In terms of candidates, I didn't think anyone was particularly bad except people who didn't matter (Kucinich & CMB). Kerry was more lively than he's been before, but still had a tendency to be unbearably dull. He did get the best line of the night with "there are two ways for you to have lower prescription drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper... or you can elect me president of the United States." It may not be true, but it was funny.
Clark and Dean bore the brunt of the attacks since they're seen as either the frontrunners or at least as the most dangerous candidates. Clark didn't have a great debate but at least didn't' get TOO flustered over the attacks. Dean almost lost it when he got ambushed by Judy Woodruff with the Kerry "document" about his record with prescription drug plans. Dean's response covered it well, but I wish he had maybe mentioned the difference between being an executive and being a legislator and thrown it back at Kerry.
Edwards did fine, I just wonder if he'll ever collect more supporters or if he's in this for the VP nom or a later run. His rhetoric, aside from a little too much emphasis on his modest upbringing, is right where the Dems can just nail the Republicans in 2004, but it's not catching on among Democratic voters...Maybe he just looks too young.
Lieberman didn't really hurt himself this time, since he didn't declare victory for not being booed, although his "I'm a social conservative" speech seemed out of place.
Overall, I don't think this yielded any substantial revelations, but we should still have an interesting campaign season coming up.
Well, we were graced with another Democratic Presidential Candidates debate last Thursday. The format was terrible, with half the time spent on a chaotic roundtable and half with "Town Hall" questions. With nine candidates (about half of whom have no chance at getting the nomination), there were lots of attacks without rebuttals and little substantively said. Not unusual for a debate but it seemed to be exacerbated by the format, and the moderator (Woodruff was awful.)
In terms of candidates, I didn't think anyone was particularly bad except people who didn't matter (Kucinich & CMB). Kerry was more lively than he's been before, but still had a tendency to be unbearably dull. He did get the best line of the night with "there are two ways for you to have lower prescription drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper... or you can elect me president of the United States." It may not be true, but it was funny.
Clark and Dean bore the brunt of the attacks since they're seen as either the frontrunners or at least as the most dangerous candidates. Clark didn't have a great debate but at least didn't' get TOO flustered over the attacks. Dean almost lost it when he got ambushed by Judy Woodruff with the Kerry "document" about his record with prescription drug plans. Dean's response covered it well, but I wish he had maybe mentioned the difference between being an executive and being a legislator and thrown it back at Kerry.
Edwards did fine, I just wonder if he'll ever collect more supporters or if he's in this for the VP nom or a later run. His rhetoric, aside from a little too much emphasis on his modest upbringing, is right where the Dems can just nail the Republicans in 2004, but it's not catching on among Democratic voters...Maybe he just looks too young.
Lieberman didn't really hurt himself this time, since he didn't declare victory for not being booed, although his "I'm a social conservative" speech seemed out of place.
Overall, I don't think this yielded any substantial revelations, but we should still have an interesting campaign season coming up.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home