Couple of things
- The New Hampshire debates were interesting last night, though I must add it's hard to not believe there isn't some underlying narrative existing in the national political media that desires a Hillary Clinton nomination rather than a Barack Obama one. Why? Because all of the wire headlines, and resulting headlines on sites like MSNBC, read something to the effect of 'Clinton accuses Obama of flip-flop.' It makes you even wonder if these reporters actually watched the debate seeing how the accusation was made early, lasted less than five minutes and was immediately rebuffed by Obama (and John Edwards to some extent, though he would come to Obama's defense on a more substantial note later in the debate).
- In fact Obama's response to her accusation centered on health care, and to some extent over funding the War in Iraq (though she's been considerably more inconsistent in her positions on the war, but that's another matter), but his health care answered absolutely leveled her. He stressed they had a philosophical disagreement, which is acceptable, but that what she was attempting to do was play politics and misrepresent his position (she accused him of being against mandates, but supporting them now because his plan calls for mandated coverage for children ... something which has been an element of his plan since the beginning). Of course, I would have said she was flat-out lying, but he handled it with considerable more grace and poise (also, either he or Edwards should level her on the experience argument, particularly since she looks silly touting her experience of 35 years sitting next to Bill Richardson).
- I actually thought Edwards performed the best out of all the candidates, and I only heard him mention his father twice (easily the most famous mill worker in the history of America). He went to bat for Obama and was able to serve as the latter's attack dog against Hillary, which helped keep the former above the fray.
- His best part of the night, actually, came in response to Charles Gibson's question regarding if anyone really could bring change. Obama used this moment to point out that Clinton's ticking off of things she had accomplished was good, but that discounting the power of rhetoric was silly.
- The GOP debate was more contentious I thought, ranging from the shouting match over Ron Paul daring to disagree with the party line on Iraq to Fred Thompson cracking one-liners under his breath throughout the night.
- Of course, I particularly loved Mitt Romney being hammered by all of them and then having the audacity to request, repeatedly, that everyone stay positive.
- OK, here's the problem with this ... this woman from Phoenix is basing her opinions on our community via a blog post and column that were, in my opinion, somewhat sensationalizing a handful of unfortunate events. This isn't to say we don't have serious challenges facing us, but it's also misleading to paint this picture of Athens-Clarke County as a crime-ridden magnet of the downtrodden.
- In fact Obama's response to her accusation centered on health care, and to some extent over funding the War in Iraq (though she's been considerably more inconsistent in her positions on the war, but that's another matter), but his health care answered absolutely leveled her. He stressed they had a philosophical disagreement, which is acceptable, but that what she was attempting to do was play politics and misrepresent his position (she accused him of being against mandates, but supporting them now because his plan calls for mandated coverage for children ... something which has been an element of his plan since the beginning). Of course, I would have said she was flat-out lying, but he handled it with considerable more grace and poise (also, either he or Edwards should level her on the experience argument, particularly since she looks silly touting her experience of 35 years sitting next to Bill Richardson).
- I actually thought Edwards performed the best out of all the candidates, and I only heard him mention his father twice (easily the most famous mill worker in the history of America). He went to bat for Obama and was able to serve as the latter's attack dog against Hillary, which helped keep the former above the fray.
- His best part of the night, actually, came in response to Charles Gibson's question regarding if anyone really could bring change. Obama used this moment to point out that Clinton's ticking off of things she had accomplished was good, but that discounting the power of rhetoric was silly.
- The GOP debate was more contentious I thought, ranging from the shouting match over Ron Paul daring to disagree with the party line on Iraq to Fred Thompson cracking one-liners under his breath throughout the night.
- Of course, I particularly loved Mitt Romney being hammered by all of them and then having the audacity to request, repeatedly, that everyone stay positive.
- OK, here's the problem with this ... this woman from Phoenix is basing her opinions on our community via a blog post and column that were, in my opinion, somewhat sensationalizing a handful of unfortunate events. This isn't to say we don't have serious challenges facing us, but it's also misleading to paint this picture of Athens-Clarke County as a crime-ridden magnet of the downtrodden.
posted by Jmac at 8:47 AM
9 Comments:
I thought Bill Richardson actually was best last night, too little too late of course.
The problem for Hillary Clinton is that I don't think last night's debate changed anything. If you don't like her, nothing she did last night would change that. If you like Obama, nothing that happened last night will weaken that. And if you're completely undecided, nobody was particularly compelling anyone to make a decision.
Support Our Troops - Support Their Mission.
Bye Bye Ronnie Paul!
Having not paid as close attention as I probably should, I'll ask you this: Does it seem to you like an Obama-Edwards ticket would be a likely scenario? Or do you think Edwards is done with VP runs?
I think Edwards is done with the VP run. Though I really like him and would prefer an Edwards - Obama ticket, but I don't think that is going to happen.
My favorite part of the GOP debate was when Paul explained oil prices by talking about the Federal Reserve, inflation, and the supeiority of commodity-backed money. That was one of those 'lightbulb' moments that I'm sure made an impression on a some folks watching. Fred's response was something like "Durh!"
I wish folks would vote based on lightbulbs going off, but we don't. We vote on rhetoric and emotion, always have, always will. Does anyone know why Paul was excluded from the Fox debates (as it was described in the paper this morning)?
It seems to me that Edwards is serving as Obama's attack dog against Hillary in hopes of getting the VP slot.
Some people DO vote b/c the lightbulb goes off. The question is how many, and how quickly can you get the lightbulb (especially when 'the narrative' in the national media is that the lightbulb lighter has no chance, etc.)
Fox claimed, alternatively, that they didn't have enough room in their studio for Ron Paul (seriously), and that Paul was below some arbitrarily-selected line in national polls. Of course, Paul is pretty consistently getting in the upper-single digits now in polls, which is 4 or 5 times more than what he was getting only a few months ago, but Fox said their cut-off was 10%. Meanwhile, Paul IS polling at 10% or higher in most New Hampshire polls (in some of these polls, he is in a statistical deadheat for third in New Hampshire right now). He was polling at 10% in Iowa (which is also what he got). And of course, I don't think the fact that he has outraised every other GOP candidate in teh 4th quarter is meaningless. This means, at the very least, that he has the money to keep advertising and keep plugging away all the way through. Paul's stock is still rising. Whether it will rise quickly enough to make a difference in the final analysis I don't know.
Leno is having Paul on tonight (for the second time since late October). He is reportedly miffed at Fox for excluding him. Also, Paul had a townhall meeting last night with undecided NH voters that aired for an hour on NH public tv and on the net. So he got to give his own positions for a full hour instead of having to share soundbytes with those other fools, and he's gotten a decent bit of national exposure over the controversy of Fox excluding him. So every cloud has a silver lining.
Thanks Xon. Lighting bulbs, connecting dots . . *on the whole* we seem to have difficulty doing either.
I'm simply lamenting that our collective eyes glaze over unless someone is saying "you hate babies and old people" or "you want to surrender to Al Qaida."
That makes Paul's headway all the more impressive. I noticed that CNN was cutting to commercial a split second after he finished some of his answers, effectively muting the applause of the audience (which you could hear starting). That and flashing to shots of Rudy/McCain & Co laughing, mocking or sneering while they cut him off repeatedly.
Post a Comment
<< Home