I used to watch debates so you wouldn’t have to

January 25, 2008

Debate fatigue, my friends, has set in. Particularly when it comes to the Republican field — one can only hear, “Reagan … Hillarycare … 9/11 … illegals” so many times — it’s increasingly difficult to justify staying up past bed time to watch these guys struggle to discuss policy issues. With that in mind, I skipped last night’s MSNBC event in Boca. A political junkie has his limits.

That said, I’ve read quite a bit about it this morning, and there seems to be a broadly held consensus about what transpired — not a heckuva lot.

Thursday night’s Republican debate — the last one before the Florida primary, which could more or less determine the GOP nominee — was supposed to be a crucial turning point. It could have been the last key moment for candidates to make an impression on voters, many of whom the polls show are still making up their minds.

But if those voters tuned in (and didn’t quickly change the channel), they probably woke up just as undecided on Friday. Among the debate’s earth-shattering revelations: The economy is important to Floridians. Republicans, except for Ron Paul, support the war in Iraq. Mike Huckabee is afraid of Chuck Norris, one of his own staunchest supporters. Rudy Giuliani likes sports metaphors as much as the next candidate.

Precious little else came to light. Maybe even the candidates themselves somehow knew things would go this way: “Our televised debates normally run two hours,” NBC’s Brian Williams said at the outset. “However, at the request of the candidates and their campaigns, tonight’s debate will be limited to 90 minutes duration.”

This is not to say there were no moments of interest. In fact, if John McCain wins the GOP nomination, this may be one of those moments we’ll be seeing again.

Inexplicably, Tim Russert (aka “Mr. Gotcha”) let this go without follow-up. That’s unfortunate, because it was arguably the most important moment in the entire event.

For those of you who can’t watch clips online, here’s a transcript of this key Q&A.

Russert: Sen. McCain, you have said repeatedly, “I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.” Is it a problem for your campaign that the economy is now the most important issue, one that, by your own acknowledgement, you are not well versed on?

McCain: Actually, I don’t know where you got that quote from. I’m very well versed in economics. I was there at there at the Reagan Revolution.

McCain may not remember his own remarks, but he has, in fact, repeatedly acknowledged that after a quarter-century in Congress, he still doesn’t know much about economics. Just last month, McCain said, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” McCain told the Wall Street Journal, “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.” He told the Baltimore Sun, “The issue of economics is something that I’ve really never understood as well as I should.”

“I don’t know where you got that quote from”? How about from McCain’s own lips?

Other random observations:

* Based on my read of the transcript, Bush’s name was referenced five times by the candidates (four of the five by Romney), which may be a record. The name “Clinton,” in reference to either Bill or Hillary, was used 16 times. Barack Obama’s name wasn’t mentioned at all.

* McCain is still bragging about his position on the war in Iraq: “The problem was not the invasion of Iraq. The problem was the mishandling of Iraq for nearly four years by Rumsfeld. And again, I railed against that.” He really didn’t, but he seems to believe he can just repeat the lie over and over again in the hopes no one will notice.

* Rudy Giuliani was asked about his dwindling support. “We’re going to come from behind and surprise everyone,” he said. “We have them all lulled into a very false sense of security.” From what I gather, he didn’t seem to believe what he was saying, and smiled while he said it. I think Giuliani knows he’ll be heading home soon.

* Romney was asked if he’d be willing to release fundraising totals before the end of the quarter. He demurred. When Russert suggested voters might want this information before heading to the polls, Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the voters. I’m much more concerned about the other guys on this stage.” That seems like a dumb thing to say.

* McCain claimed he won a majority of the Republican vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He didn’t.

So, did any of you watch it? What’d I miss?

Not surprising the MSM apercu is “everyone hates Hillary.”

  • I’ve about come to the conclusion that Romney would probably be the least bad out of all of them.

  • Apropos nothing, I just watched a clip of the debate and I noticed that Ron Paul’s hand gestures are almost identical to Noam Chomsky’s.

  • Michael,

    Never, ever vote for the lesser of two (or more) evils.

    It is better to have voted for what you believe in and not get it, than it is to vote for what you do not believe in and get it.

    If you have to bow down in the face of what you know to be ‘wrong’, then what is the purpose of your life?

    Bottom Line: vote for the candidate with whom you can agree the most on issues, no matter his apparent chances of winning. He might surprise you.

  • Did any one else notice that when Ron Paul asked McCain about a government economics group (don’t remember the name myself) McCain had a look on his face that looked like he had never heard of the group. McCain’s answer did not refer to the group at all, but was just some vague babble about all these economics types that he talks to.

  • When Russert suggested voters might want this information before heading to the polls …

    Wha? Really? Would people REALLY change their vote based on fundraising totals for a quarter?

    Journalists might want that information because it’s another datapoint for their horserace reporting, but voters? I’m more concerned about WHO is giving money to the candidates than the totals. And even if Romney revealed his totals you can be damn sure we won’t see the contributors until they get reported to the FEC.

    That said, Romney’s response is stupid. Never, ever, ever, ever let the sentence “I’m not concerned about the voters.” escape your lips in the days of YouTube. That will make an excellent little viral clip for one of Romney’s opponents to use against him – either in the next few weeks of the primary or if he gets the nomination.

  • “Mr. McCain was one of the first prominent Republicans to point out how badly the war in Iraq was being managed…”

    NYT Endorsement of John McCain

  • MW,

    It gets even better. In his answer he said he would get some advice from his Secretary of the Treasury, obviously not realizing that the SOT chairs the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.

  • Well…with an extra glass of wine, I managed to listen to nearly an hour of the debate, but finally had to turn it off.

    There were a lot of disconcering moments, but overriding the whole thing was the usual terrible job that Brian Williams and Tim Russert did in moderating the debate. During the time I was listening, the one that stood out for me was the question Russert asked of McCain, in the economy and McCain’s statements that he’s no economics expert. As Steve mentioned above, Russert let McCain’s “I don’t know where you got that from” defense just stand. Now, we know from watching Tim play “gotcha” with his Democratic guests on MTP, that McCain’s response should have been followed by Russert giving McCain the quotes and the sources, and then watching him squirm. But, no – why would you want to put the media’s favorite front-runner on the spot? Perish the thought.

    My general impression was that, with the exception of Ron Paul, each is more for the war than the other – something the audience was clearly not behind. Each seems to think that the GOP is still the party of fiscal responsibility, despite at least 7 years that would seem to indicate otherwise. Each thinks the answer to our economic woes is to cut taxes from the top; Huckabee was the only one who proposed a massive east cost expansion of I-95 tio be built by American workers with American steel and American cement, so as to create jobs and improve infrastructure.

    They all had a fine time demonizing Hillary Clinton on everything from the war to health care. If there was an opportunity to say something snide and mean-spirited about Democrats, they all took advantage of it.

    Finally, in that spirit, I would just like to say that after 7 years of listening to the fake Texas twang of the current occupant of the WH, which makes me cringe every single time the man opens his mouth, I am really hoping that after Tuesday, we will never have to listen to Rudy’s lisp.

  • I watched the entire debate, and am yet unswayed by any of the candidates. But three things struck me about this debate. Now these are just my observations…..thats all:
    1) It seemed like the whole thing was “staged” around Mitt Romney. It just seems like he got a whole bunch more air time and it was almost like he already knew the answer before the question was asked. I would title the entire debate…..”The Mitt Romeny Happy Hour……and half”.
    2) I got tired of hearing….” When I was Govoner….”, “When I was mayor…..”, ” I did this……”, “I did that……”. I don’t care what you did, tell me what your going to do! And if John McCain “dropped” one more name of the “important people” that support him, I was going to throw the TV out the door.
    3) Now I’m not a Paul supporter by a long shot…….but it seemed obvious to me that he was pretty much ignored. At first I thought, Okay, MSNBC is going to give the front runners a little more air time…..understandable. But they kept going back to Giuliani. Paul wasn’t asked a single question in the first twenty minutes, and the last time I checked, he’s ahead of Giuliani.

    Simple observations from a simple American. Overall……very boring debate. Good luck Florida 🙂

  • Dictionary definition of “very false sense of security”:
    What Rudee was presiding over in NYC before 9/11 when he chose to put the emergency command center in the World Trade Center so that he would have a convenient walking-distance love-nest to bang his mistress.

  • I’ve always wondered why they hire hacks like Russert to ask the questions for these so-called “debates”. It’s not debate, it’s not journalism, and it’s really bad theater.

    Wouldn’t it be much better theater if, say, DNC head John Dean questioned the Republican candidates? What if RNC Mike Duncan questioned the Democrats?

    The best theater in the political world is the Wednesday morning “Prime Minister’s Questions in the British House of Commons. In Canada it’s the “Question Period” (both federal and provincial levels). Australia and New Zealand have “Question Time” while India has “Question Hour”. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales it’s “First Minister’s Questions”.

    Point is, there’s a built in, up front, conflict which is what makes it entertaining and perhaps even informative. Here, in what we regard as the bastion of democracy, we have the pretense of impartiality attempting to mask the questioner’s TeeVee ego, an impossible task which would be laughable if only it weren’t so boring.

  • Romney: 21 minutes, 11 seconds (12 answers and asked 1 question)
    McCain: 16 minutes even (12 answers and asked 1 question)
    Giuliani: 13 minutes and 50 seconds (10 answers and asked 1 question)
    Huckabee: 12 minutes and 11 seconds (8 answers and asked 1 question)
    Paul: 6 minutes and 31 seconds (5 answers and asked 1 question)

  • JRS –
    Why would you believe the “Liberal Media” about McCain?
    Obviously, they are trying to undermine his chances for the nomination by giving him a “Liberal” stamp of approval!

    Just channeling seaberry here, color me maroon.

  • I agree, Russert and Williams did a terrible job of moderating. When McCain pulled his usual riff about pork-barrel spending, it was disppointing that neither of them called him on the fact that that stuff is fiscally pretty insignificant. Since he obviously wants to increase military spending and won’t default on U.S. bonds, I wish they had asked him if he was going after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And when Romney said something about “personal accounts” for Social Security, no follow-up to see if he supprted privatization.

    Also, in touting his economic credentials, McCain cited the support of Jack Kemp and Warren Rudman/Concord Coalition types, without any apparent acknowledgement that they have opposite views on economics. No follow-up there, either.

  • Ed sed:
    2) I got tired of hearing….” When I was Govoner….”, “When I was mayor…..”, ” I did this……”, “I did that……”.

    Hmmm…there’s a drinking game in this…

  • With all the recent attention given to sniping between the two major Dem candidates, it looked like the Repubs got together beforehand and agreed play nice. Then again, I was busy rearranging my sock drawer and not really watching the tube very closely. Next time, I’m going to Anne’s for a glass of that wine.

  • GE doesn’t pay Matthews, Russert, and Williams millions to be objective. It pays them to put in the fix.

  • iucaffiend,

    Now that you mention it, I probably would have been better off watching this “debacle” in the neighborhood dive…..slamming a few down.

  • “McCain cited the support of Jack Kemp and Warren Rudman/Concord Coalition types, without any apparent acknowledgement that they have opposite views on economics.”

    God forbid that a candidate has support from those with some differing views… perhaps that candidate can use those differing views to craft a policy that makes sense all.

  • You missed about 6.5 minutes of Doc Paul, and 83.5 minutes of everyone else. They went around in circles a couple of times and didn’t even question Paul at all. The same happened to a lesser degree to Mike Huckabee. I guess they have already written Huckabee off as well.

  • JRSJr: “Mr. McCain was one of the first prominent Republicans to point out how badly the war in Iraq was being managed…”

    Faint praise indeed. McCain pointed out the obvious, years after all the Democrats did so. Whoopee!

    The quote makes Junior think McCain’s recognition of the obvious came very early on, and of course the facts say otherwise. As recently as December 2005, he was saying:

    “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”

    Maybe “stay the course” is McCainspeak for “this is being badly managed”. What I find interesting is how Junior lopped off the very next sentence, which provides important context for the faint praise they offered:

    Mr. McCain was one of the first prominent Republicans to point out how badly the war in Iraq was being managed. We wish he could now see as clearly past the temporary victories produced by Mr. Bush’s unsustainable escalation, which have not led to any change in Iraq’s murderous political calculus. At the least, he owes Americans a real idea of how he would win this war, which he says he can do…

    So Mr McCain gets credit for being the first prominent Republican to recognize that shit stinks. (Which of course he didn’t, and the “prominent” qualifier is also dubious because it arbitrarily eliminates Ron Paul, who has millions of supporters and of course called Iraq correctly from day one). Also pointed out in the next sentence from the “endorsement” Junior wanted us to consider is the fact that McCain is still unable to smell the aroma of failure on Bush’s “surge”.

    Translation: McCain’s BS detector may be better than most “prominent” Republicans, but it still doesn’t work worth a damn.

    That’s some endorsement!

  • Ed Stephan @ 13 “It’s not debate, it’s not journalism, and it’s really bad theater.”

    I’m guessing that you and most of the people writing comments today wouldn’t necessarily agree with John King’s comment on CNN this morning. He said, “I was really more of a seminar than a debate.”

  • I don’t know why, but I watched it, sort of. I didn’t sit down, but had it on while I did some other things. Nothing noteworthy really, and the commenters have covered most of it.

    I was struck by how mediocre, how completely unworthy of the office these rich white men are, and no better than Bush. Their policies are simply Bush going forward. They are so very out of touch with the real world.

    Huckabee did make one astonishing observation: the economy in recent times has not been kind to everyone. But he cited only the very poor as having a rough time of it, and he seemed embarrassed about mentioning it, as if Chuck Norris or somebody else was going to level him for such heresy.

    Paul did not get the opportunity to wax eloquent on the Iraq war, and that was a big disappointment. I wonder if it was deliberate.

    The tone was decidedly noncontentious, and that seemed to favor Romney.

    Huckabee seemed extremely nervous in the beginning, and so did Paul, surprisingly.

    They bashed Hillary, but didn’t even mention Barack.

    What a dreary, dreary field of candidates this is. Just awful. And one of them could very well win. There has been so much Hillary bashing from the right and the left in recent weeks that she could easily go down to defeat, I’m afraid. The good news, though, is that as the media and the left have mercilessly pummeled Hillary during this sorry sniping affair with Obama, she has proven herself a remarkably resilient fighter. Of all the Dems, she’s by far the strongest against the Republican smear machine.

    Something to consider, all ye HIllary haters. She’s tough and smart. No question about it.

  • Faint praise indeed — Racerx.

    Racer, any praise for a GOP member by the NYT is certainly notable praise!!!

  • God forbid that a candidate has support from those with some differing views… perhaps that candidate can use those differing views to craft a policy that makes sense all.

    If McCain had made that point, that would be fine. But he didn’t. He stated it in the context of bolstering his credentials as a tax-cutting conservative. GIven that the Concord Coalition opposes making the Bush tax cuts permanent, a competent moderator would have called him on it.

  • McCain took time to speak about his good nature and ability to reach across the aisle and to get things done. First, by all reports he is known to have a horrible temper and is disliked by many in his own party. One Senator is Charles Grassley – R (IA). Second, reaching across the aisle to his “favorite democrat” Joe Lieberman isn’t much of a reach.

  • From Robert L, comment #5…”Bottom Line: vote for the candidate with whom you can agree the most on issues, no matter his apparent chances of winning. He might surprise you.”
    Your Bottom line saved you. Don’t confuse compromise with the “lesser of 2 evils”. Sometimes we vote against something rather than for something, and I’m sure no candidate is 100% approved on all the issues. I don’t want a ‘for profit’ health care program yet all 3 dems candidates are proposing just that with Edwards being the one who vows to eventually make it a not for profit eventually. I know it to be wrong because allowing private companies to profiteer from my health is just wrong. In this case I’m voting for the lesser of two evils and for what I definitely don’t want but it’s a compromise over the worst of evil choices, the alternative republicans. Compromises can always be framed in terms of the “lesser of 2 evils” or the better of 2 choices. The lesser of 2 evils to me only exist when compromise is out of the question and I cannot abide by either choice like telecom amnesty in the Protect Bush’s Butt Act. Some telecoms refused to break the law and demanded a warrant…they were punished …er..I mean excluded from government contracts. I’ll be damned if I’d be willing to reward those who broke the law in order to get government contracts.

    It’s just ridiculous for anyone to buy into the idea thay any of these repub goobers could win if we nominate Hillary. Better take another look at the “debate”. It’s just stupid. No republican will win the WH no matter who we nominate. You either want more of this shit or you don’t. The repubs have no workable plans and everything they’ve tried or done has ended in disaster. “They could win” is nonsense talk to blackmail votes for a particular nominee. Hillary is 100X better than any of these goobers and I’m not even a Hillary supporter.

  • Last night proved that John McCain is the best Democrat
    running and the NYT seal of approval is damming.
    Mitt Romney’s qualifications on paper alone make him
    the only choice and 1000 times better for the challenges our country faces
    reguarding the Economy,Security and the Rule of Law!
    It is time for all boomers to stand up and take back the country that the Greatest Generation left us!

  • If Ron Paul was giving the opportunity to elaborate on some of his answers perhaps he would have highlighted his economic plan to get our country out this scary debt. He has posted the breakdown of his plan here:

    http://www.ronpaul2008.com/Prosperity

    A Plan! – wow what a concept!

    Not just smiling with a wanna-be Regan white teeth and toting magic (sorry spiritual) underwear like Romney (can he just once wear them on the outside of his suit – so we can all get a good look at America’s self appointed super hero – p.s. Send just one of your good looking boys to Iraq to fight along with our men and women and maybe you would have one half a foot to stand on.)

    Not just name dropping/wanking and avoiding the actual questions like McCain.

    The only names/words Rudy Giuliani can even drop are “ground zero” and “911” – I swear to God I don’t understand how anyone from NY or that had family or friends die from that event could sit by and listen to him use those words so frequently only to scare people. That is the most disrespectful thing he could do. Shame on him.

    Oh Huckabee – if only you were serious about having Steven Colbert as your V.P – too bad your not. (You’re on Notice!)

    Vote for someone that can prove their record – Vote Dr. Ron Paul!
    Vote for someone that can prove their record – Vote Dr. Ron Paul!
    Vote for someone that can prove their record – Vote Dr. Ron Paul!
    Vote for someone that can prove their record – Vote Dr. Ron Paul!

  • It is well known by now that Dr. Paul (who has written 6 books on economics) and stands head and shoulders over the other candidates as an economist. Why do you think the ‘cool’ candidates denigrate him (except for Huckabee who copies his homework)? Every other candidate speaks in vague generalities.
    Dr. Paul WILL put thousands of REAL dollars in YOUR pocket. Wanna see how?
    Dr. Paul’s 4 point economic stimulus plan even includes legislation and is viewable online. Just click on my name!

  • It looks like you missed Dr. Ron Paul’s question to McCain and McCain’s response, I am not sure how you could have missed that one, especially because of its extreme relevence to Economics. Perhaps you should follow up on that one for it may give you just the edge you were hoping for.

  • Pingback: a0cf476b9654

    • Comments are closed.