None of these individuals will reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January 2009 if the shenanigans from last night continue on much longer. I haven’t heard anyone else put it in these terms, but quite frankly, I was (at a minimum) insulted last night. Out of 2+ hours of ‘debate’, the only ‘sound bytes’ I’m hearing repeated this morning are the ones about Obama’s defense of a slumlord and Clinton’s tenure as a board member at Wal-Mart. I heard attack after attack after attack – and I could care less that none of them agrees with the policies and strategies supported by the other two. Isn’t that a given in this situation??
HERE’S an idea: Instead of having to tolerate the self-serving, meaningless mauling that occurs in these ‘debates’, why not devote a set amount of time (like a half hour, or even an hour) for each candidate to be asked – separately - the same set of questions about their position on relevant issues, and then publish (preferably online) a ‘compare & contrast’ document that voters could reference when they want to know where each candidate stands. Schedule these sessions at regular intervals during the campaign, recalibrate the ‘mix’ of questions – and eliminate the insufferable theatrics that these ‘debates’ have turned into.
Professional analysis: Candy Crowley, Joe Johns, Mark Halperin (Time Magazine) and Carl Jeffers (KIRO radio host) provided post-‘political cage match’ commentary. I was interested in the fact that Mr. Jeffers picked up the same ‘outlook’ from Hillary Clinton that I did – she was in attendance at the debate, but she wasn’t speaking to South Carolinians – she was speaking in terms of reaching out to voters in “Super Duper Tuesday’ states.
Anderson was also able to conduct a post-debate interview Senator John Edwards, who correctly characterized the exchanges between Clinton and Obama as petty bickering. Perhaps he may be a beneficiary of this activity on Saturday?
More posts to come today ... stay tuned ...
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