Some thoughts about tonight’s debate:
- To the camera crew, I say “ugh” – too many changes in perspective/zoom-ins. It’s distracting and amateurish. Also, putting the closed-captioning at the top of the screen is a bad choice. True, the words should be more important than the visual appearance of the candidates, but still…
. - Once again, we’re leading off on war and terror talk. While it’s important, I’d like a bit more attention spent on other issues. The horse has been beaten.
. - Having said that, it’s nice to see Edwards calling Clinton and Obama to task for their votes on the war-funding bills.
. - Nice question: “Is it morally acceptable to leave Iraq with… possible genocide brewing.” It’s a valid question…and one that the major candidates are likely to squirm over. Richardson definitely tried to avoid it.
. - Biden: “We’re not voting to fund the war; we’re voting to fund the troops until we get 67 votes to be able to end the war”. I wonder if your average primary voter is fully aware of the importance of the 2/3rds majority.
. - Barak certainly seems more on his game tonight.
. - On to immigration, after 30 minutes of war talk. Once again, Biden has a nice soundbite: “being commander-in-chief means that you sometimes have to be practical.”
. - Props to Obama to calling Wolf to task for doing a hand-raising question on English as an official language, to Hillary to expanding on why it’s not a simple question, and to Dodd for calling attention to the sorry state of foreign language education in the U.S.
. - I admire Edwards for pointing out that universal health care is going to be expensive, and that the money is going to have to come from somewhere.
. - While I disagree with his position, a hat-tip is due to Kucinich for pointing out that the major candidates’ health care plans all still keep for-profit insurance in play. He wants truly socialized medicine.
. - Richardson: “The ideal job for President Clinton is Secretary General of the United Nations”. Actually, I can imagine him easily in that role.
. - Gravel gets a hat-tip for acknowledging that reducing gas prices isn’t what you do to incent moving away from oil dependence.
. - Interesting discussion held on veterans benefits, in particular the question as to whether veterans should be able to go where they want for medical care (for convenience) versus being obliged to seek treatment within the VA system (for cost control and efficiency). This debate could be expanded to the larger question of health care in general, since it’s essentially the same set of issues.
. - I think the candidates are getting tired with the show-of-hands questions, correctly pointing out that the questions being asked are more complicated than a simple Boolean answer permits.
. - A question by an 18 year old on the potential for mandatory service to the country lead to an interesting discussion about the potential of swapping service programs for college tuition, and a brief hint of the concerns about the amount of student debt being accumulated in the country.
. - Wow, it only took an hour and 47 minutes before the budget deficit arose.
. - Hillary mentions that in her husband’s administration there was a budget surplus, arising from cutting spending and increasing revenues. But isn’t she also dodging questions about how her health care program would be funded. Also, a hat-tip to Gravel for reminding us that the Social Security trust fund is being used to reduce the appearance of the budget deficit.
. - A rushed wrap-up question – top priority during first 100 days in office. A big hat-tip goes to Chris Dodd for putting a restoration of the eroded Constitutional rights at the top of the list.
Overall, I think the content of the debate was pretty good, but CNN’s and WMUR’s execution was lousy.
I’m disappointed but not surprised that the debates seem to be pursuing the same general topics. With so many folks running for nomination, we’re still seeing and hearing generally the same, limited answers. Perhaps the debate-organizers need to agree to have a “special focus” in future debates on a different topic each debate. I wouldn’t mind hearing 30-45 minutes of discussion on Social Security, on business, on education, and on civil liberties, rather than seeing the candidates try to squeeze in those points where they can against a ton of war and health care talk.
I’ve previously been disappointed with Barak’s performance. I think he came across well this time. I think Richardson and to a lesser extent Dodd were able to score enough points to keep them as second-tier candidates, rather than perhaps falling to the third tier with Kucinich, Biden, and Gravel. Edwards was able to score points…but to be honest, they didn’t stick with me. And, I think Hillary may have seen her position erode slightly, given the performance of Barak, Edwards, Richardson, and Dodd.