<p>I am surprise no one else has posted analysis of the Democratics Debate. </p>
<p>I was not able to watch it so I will have to rely on others. Who won? Who cares at this point?</p>
<p>Can someone explain to me why the Democrats still invited Dennis Kucinich to the debate? He has no chance of winning.</p>
<p>check out the debates yourself; go to youtube and search for democrat debate</p>
<p>Brian Williams pretty much single-handedly ruined the debate with his inane questioning.</p>
<p>He asked Sen Clinton what she thought of Walmart. What a stupid question.</p>
<p>He asked all of the candidates about abortion except the first female candidate for President. Doh.</p>
<p>He asked them all to name their ideal Supreme Court Justice, but they can’t be dead. So, what’s that leave? Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, and a bunch of appellate court justices nobody in America has heard of. Stupid question.</p>
<p>The hard-left blogs (who hate Hillary) seemed to think that she helped herself the most. I’ve been saying for a couple of months that she’s been sharp on the campaign trail, but I guess last night was the first time most people have seen her act. She did well getting right to her message which was very much a general election message last night, going out of her way to be the toughest on defense of all the candidates. Fox News and the “panel” were giving her props tonight.</p>
<p>Edwards was Edwards.</p>
<p>Obama bumbled and stumbled through many of his answers. It is really hard to excel in a Q&A format when you don’t have any particular command of the issues or policy positions and you can’t use “the candidate of hope” as an answer to every question. Brian Williams asked him to name America’s three top allies (another really stupid question) and Obama forgot to mention Israel. He badly fumbled a question about his response to a major terror attack on multiple US cities. When Hillary got her turn to swing at that pitch she basically said, “I’ll find out who did it and bomb the hell out of 'em”.</p>
<p>The rest of 'em were the rest of 'em. Does it really matter?</p>
<p>Well, I think that Mike Gravel really spiced things up… though he definitely stole Kucinich’s thunder.</p>
<p>And Dennis Kucinich wins my nomination for best trophy wife.</p>
<p>I was surprised by how many of them own handguns. What an eye opener!</p>
<p>Kuchinich’s wife is a stunner. Didn’t realize he’s on his third wife also.</p>
<p>Agree Williams’ questions were embarrassing. What a bunch of jokers. Republicans not much better, but at least they have the guts to go on MSNBC. :)</p>
<p>Yes, that was one of the more interesting questions – though the question was about “guns”, not “handguns”. And Joe Biden qualified by saying he only had a shotgun. Interesting that the two espousing the most pacifist views - Kucinich & Gravel - are gun owners.</p>
<p>. . . here’s idad on Obama’s debate performance:</p>
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<p>And here’s MSNBC’s Chris Wallace:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3727.html[/url]”>http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3727.html</a></p>
<p>They were multi-layered answers alright. I judge debate performances by how crisply a candidate can get on message and enumerate their campaign talking points on the issue in a 60 second answer. That’s preparation.</p>
<p>Actually, by that standard, I would say that Edwards, Clinton, Biden, and Kucinich all had fine performances, followed by Obama and Dodd were next. Richardson didn’t seem terribly prepared. He named Byron White as his ideal Supreme Court justice – one of the two dissenters in the 7-2 Roe v Wade decision, not a great answer for a Demo candidate.</p>
<p>For example, when asked about VA Tech, Clinton went right to a story of emphathy, “visiting the families of the Columbine shooting”. Got a plug in for her husband: “with Bill”. And straight into a campaign point, “we need to tighten the background checks so that criminals and people with mental illness can’t buy guns.” Kept it centrist, “I’m not talking about getting rid of the 2nd Amendment, just making the background check process work.” And back to the popular Democratic administration, “something we worked very hard on in the Clinton administration.” She ended her complete answer as the 60 second buzzer went off.</p>
<p>She’s very politically “sophisticated” in her answers. For example, whenever she talks about health care reform, she talks about 47 million uninsured, but then broadens the issue to include a larger middle-class by talking about people with health insurance who find out that it doesn’t pay for enough. That’s broadening the message in a very intentional way. It’s like she’s mapped out where she wants to end up in a general election platform and is relentlessly laying the foundation with every 60 second answer.</p>
<p>Forget Chris Matthews, I think the best piece of political commentary of the year so far was a line the Ragin’ Cajun James Carvelle used in a speech last week (I think at Tulane).</p>
<p>“It’s like Lousiana cookin’. Mama needs more spice; Obama needs more seasoning.”</p>
<p>I don’t think the “what a bunch of jokers” comment is fair at all. Richardson, Dodd, Biden, Obama, Edwards, and Clinton is a pretty darn strong field of candidates. There aren’t any lightweight candidates in that group, either by way of resume and/or charisma. Those are all legitimate national political figures with track records and stature.</p>
<p>And, actually Kucinich speaks the truth more than any of them, although he’s not presidential timber. He’s has a role to play. The only nutjob on stage was Mike Gavel.</p>
<p>It’s not like any of the major Democratic candidates are going around singing “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran” or something that would truly qualify for them in the category of “what a bunch of jokers”.</p>
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<p>It’s just so frustrating to ask questions that have to be ignored. I mean, seriously, what is a Presidential candidate supposed to say about WalMart? Clinton ducked it well and moved on, but it’s not really on the top of my list of policy issues. I guess Williams was trying insuate some great evil that a prominent Arkansas attorney at Arkansas’ biggest law firm would be on the board of directors of Arkansas’ biggest company. Yeah, that’s a real scandal, huh?</p>
<p>Why not ask, “what is your policy for Iraq after we pull our troops out?”</p>
<p>I think when it’s the Republicans’ turn, all of them who are pro-occupation, anti-accountability should be asked this simple question:</p>
<p>Would you support more National Guard and Reserve units from your state being deployed to Iraq until your state had at least the current average per capita mobilization rate, so that states that have done more than their fair share can get a break?</p>
<p>I thought the post-debate poll got it right. Obama won big, simply by holding his place on the stage.</p>
<p>If I judge by what they actually said, Kucinich won by a mile.</p>
<p>I thought someone should have asked Hillary why she favored, for reasons of supporting U.S. national “vita” strategic interests, a long-term military occupation in Iraq. In fact, I would have asked ALL of them what “getting out of Iraq” means - Hillary is the only one to have answered that question, and she has answered she’s against it. (she calls it “redeployment”)</p>
<p>The only post-debate poll I’ve seen was an overnight poll of Democratic voters in South Carolina. 47% of the South Carolina registered Democratic voters are African American.</p>
<p>I actually agree with you about Kucinich, but I wouldn’t vote for him and I think he would make a terrible President.</p>
<p>BTW, for some interesting poll numbers, check out the internals down the page in this Pew poll. They shed a lot of light on the dynamics of the Democratic race and positioning for the general election. Obama is the darling of the far-left base; Clinton polls well with the centrists:</p>
<p><a href=“http://pewresearch.org/pubs/463/campaign-2008-voter-groups[/url]”>http://pewresearch.org/pubs/463/campaign-2008-voter-groups</a></p>
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Clinton Obama </p>
<p>32 30 Liberal
33 27 Moderate
42 15 Conservative</p>
<p>30 22 White
46 36 Black</p>
<p>29 26 Male
38 24 Female</p>
<p>36 20 Northeast
25 31 Midwest
40 20 South
31 31 West</p>
<p>34 20 White Evangelical Prot.
27 20 White Mainstream Prot.
32 16 White Catholic
47 35 Black Protestant
19 44 Secular
</p>
<p>Richardson answered your question Thursday night. He said that he would remove all troops from Iraq, “including residual troops” by December of this year.</p>
<p>Of course, Kucinich also answered the question, saying that he would cut off all funding for Iraq this week.</p>
<p>I don’t think those are realistic, credible positions, but you have your choices, if you do.</p>
<p>I actually don’t think ANY of the answers (other than Kucinich’s) are “credible”, but Kucinich’s (as below) is a political non-starter. The permanent (or “long-term”) occupation made up of aggresssive, hostile forces proposed by Hillary is essentially the same as GWB’s position - the only distinction (without a difference) is whether this occurs after “victory” is declared, or before. GWB’s position is actually more credible – he recognizes that without a commonly understood military victory, the politics and violence surrounding the permanent U.S. presence continues to fester.</p>
<p>Richardson’s position isn’t credible because he doesn’t place it within the larger context of what he believes to be long-term U.S. strategic interests. Kucinich’s position is credible but politically impossible - it would leave us in exactly the same poisition next week that we would have been if the Dems had supported Murtha in 2005, but he defines long-term U.S. strategic interests independent of those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, which is a political non-starter.</p>
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<p>Baloney.</p>
<p>Bush’s position is to keep 170,000 US troops in Iraq indefinitely – three years, five years, ten years – a totally open-ended commitment, no matter what, until “we win”.</p>
<p>That bears no resemblence to Clinton’s position. She voted Thursday to begin drawing down US troop levels within the next few months.</p>
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<p>He said that after pulling out all US troops, he would make the Iraqis agree to a reconciled goverment, bring in UN peace-keeping forces, and force other countries to take over the cost of reconstruction.</p>
<p>I want some of what he’s been smoking.</p>
<p>"Bush’s position is to keep 170,000 US troops in Iraq indefinitely – three years, five years, ten years – a totally open-ended commitment, no matter what, until “we win”.</p>
<p>That bears no resemblence to Clinton’s position. She voted Thursday to begin drawing down US troop levels within the next few months."</p>
<p>Bush’s position has always been to “draw down” troops as well, as soon as “victory” is assured. Hillary’s position is entirely open-ended, in support of vital U.S. strategic national interests in Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East. The difference is that Bush’s draw-down depends on “victory” (undefined). It is more credible than Hillary’s (which doesn’t say much), in that Hillary’s depends on the capacity of the U.S. to defend U.S. vital national interests in Iraq regardless of what is happening in the rest of the country. It just isn’t credible (and, frankly, I don’t think it is honest either - she won’t lay out what those “interests” are, and for good reason.)</p>
<p>Richardson’s position is an absurdity.</p>
<p>I think the question of what would a candidate should do about Iraq is skipping a step. The real question should go to process: Whose advice will you listen to; what rationale will be the basis for your decisions about that advice; what new information could cause you to re-evaluate your strategy?</p>
<p>Lt. General Odom’s radio address today talked about process and the leadership vaccuum that’s brought us to the point that we’re aggressively pursuing a conflict that benefits only our enemies.</p>
<p>Full transcript of Lt. General Odom’s address: <a href=“http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00176[/url]”>http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00176</a></p>
<p>He served as NSA Director under Reagan and as the Army’s senior intelligence officer. He does not belong to any political party.</p>
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And what did you think about the Democrats violating the NAACP boycott of South Carolina?</p>
<p>I don’t like the debates. They are events made to “Catch Ta”. I turned the debate off. I would prefer a candidate be interviewed for an hour and get to actually take more than a minute to answer questions. I would like to see the candidates get a chance to calmly explain what is important to them and how they would enact what is important to them.</p>