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Vegas Baby!: Democrat Debate Analysis

I?m going to type biting and insightful remarks as the debate unfolds.

- The theme that is being hit on early and often, or at least the one I found the most offensive, was hit on by virtually all of the DNC candidates, namely that Americans are struggling in their daily lives and as they do so, they are wondering why their government doesn?t do more for them. Dodd said it, Obama said, Clinton said it. In their minds, the American people can?t do anything unless the government helps them do it.

- Clinton keeps saying ?I have been in public life for 35 years? in every answer where her experience is challenged. Elizabeth Taylor has been in public life for 100 years, so what does that mean? Is anyone really fooled by the fact that 95% of her public life has been as Bill Clinton?s wife (as first lady in Arkansas and in Washington)? She?s been a Senator for like a month. What else has she done besides blow it on health care?

- Wow, Obama (and Kucinich too, but who cares about him) seems to be falling into the same trap that Clinton fell into last debate; how hard it is to say yes or no to whether you support illegal immigrants having drivers licenses? Will Obama play the race card because Wolf Blitzer asked him a number of times to clarify his position?

- Kucinich doesn?t like the term illegal immigrant; he prefers undocumented worker. On a side note, as someone who worked at a bank and cashed checks from illegal immigrants; they all have documents. Whether it?s a Mexican Consular or a fake social security card, they all have documents. However, they aren?t here legally so calling them an illegal immigrant is much more accurate than an undocumented worker.

- Chris Dodd says that No Child Left Behind is a disaster. I think Republicans would agree with that but for different reasons.

- This just in; Kucinich is ?for working people.? If you embrace socialism, which has always (not just most of the time) destroys upward mobility, can you really be for the working man?

- Richardson wants to be ?the education president.? I?ve always found it truly and I mean really ironic when federal politicians talk about federal take over of education when, if they were educated, would know that education is beyond the enumerated powers of the federal government in the Constitution.

- Senator Biden wants 4 additional years of guaranteed education for American students; two years earlier and two years later than we currently have. I think that parents should just drop off their children at the nearest government depot when they are born.

- Listening to the Dems talking about foreign policy is like listening to a fat kid talk about effective diets. Case in point, Bill Richardson just agreed with this proposition ?Human rights are more important than American national security.? Obama said Musharaaf needs to hold elections while simultaneously saying, as president, he?ll do whatever it takes to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of extremists. Those may be mutually exclusive propositions.

- I like Dodd; he reminds me of Secretary of Defense Heller from 24 and he was the first candidate to disagree with Bill Richardson by saying the most important responsibility of the president is to protect America. Not surprisingly, there wasn?t a lot of applause.

- The Democrats seem really uncomfortable with ?Is the surge working?? question. I can?t wait until the general election debates with Romney or Gulliani on the other side ready to mop them up shove their tomfoolery right back at them. ?Sure Iraq may be secure, but there hasn?t been a political solution yet, so we need pull all of our troops out.? What is that?

- John Edwards is a pretty man.

- Dennis Kucinich has big ears.

- Chris Dodd has a lot of eye brows.

- I liked Clinton?s response to ?Was Ross Perot right?? -- ?All I remember is a bunch of charts.?

- Not as enthused about the rest of her answer; ?When I?m president, I will impose a ?trade time out.?? What is this, kindergarten?

- Clinton had a bad part, a good part and an interesting part to the question of accusing the panel of sexism. Bad part (too glib) ?I?m not playing the gender card, I?m playing the winning card.? Good part ?They?re not attacking me because I?m a woman, they?re not attacking me because I?m ahead.? Interesting and (unintentional?) image ?If you can?t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, and I?m quite comfortable in the kitchen.?

- How are we going to stop a genocidal extremist state of Iran Senator Clinton? ?Aggressive Diplomacy!? Yay! I do respect that she admits that the Iranian Army is a terrorist group that is killing American service members.

- Senator Edwards, how are you going to stop war with Iran? ?Stop Bush, Cheney and the Neocons at every turn.? So, your plan for stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons is to stop Bush? Wow. You realize he won't be president anymore if you are the president? Who are you going to blame then?

John the King called me and made me miss the rest of the debate. Blame him if you feel short changed on this analysis.

Conclusion:

I thought Hillary won hands down; she handled the attacks fairly well by going on the offensive against Obama and Edwards. I thought Chris Dodd was a close second, he has some gravitas that is seriously lacking in most of the other candidates. Too bad he's not getting more support. Obama was really disappointing, especially with that illegal immigrant license redux. He never seems entirely sure of himself. Edwards seemed too negative and too glossy and I never really got a feel for what he stands for.

Full post as published by SoapBox Law on November 15, 2007 (boomark / email).