{"id":732,"date":"2003-10-09T11:34:58","date_gmt":"2003-10-09T16:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/732.html"},"modified":"2003-10-09T11:34:58","modified_gmt":"2003-10-09T16:34:58","slug":"another-dem-debate-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/another-dem-debate-tonight\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Dem debate tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The third of the six “official” DNC presidential candidate debates is tonight in Phoenix, Ariz<\/a>. CNN will cover the event live starting at 8pm eastern.<\/p>\n

If you’ve been watching the debates so far, you probably noticed that the last one, in New York, was far more aggressive than its predecessor. I suspect tonight’s will be even harsher.<\/p>\n

In particular, watch for multiple attacks on Wesley Clark. When the last debate was held, Clark had been in the race for just over a week and most of the candidates went after Dean. Since then, Clark’s standing in the polls has strengthened, as has his fundraising, with Clark raising more in two weeks than some of his competitors did in three months.<\/p>\n

In just the last week, we’ve Dean, Edwards, Kerry, and Lieberman publicly criticize Clark during campaign events, and I suspect they’ll do their best to take the general down a few pegs tonight. It will be an interesting opportunity to see how Clark handles the criticisms.<\/p>\n

The truth is, as much as it’s discomforting to see Dems attacking one another, it’s inevitable at this stage of the campaign. These are the rare events that allow candidates to differentiate themselves from their rivals. If you’re a candidate who’s trailing now, continuing with what you’ve been doing isn’t going to be enough to make you the frontrunner. You need to go after the candidates ahead of you.<\/p>\n

While I kind of doubt the Phoenix debate will generate a large national audience, Dems in Arizona will probably be tuning in. This is significant because Arizona hosts its primary on Feb. 3, just one week after New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Arizona is likely to be a key swing state in the 2004 general election. Though Bush beat Gore in 2000 in Arizona by 6 percentage points, one recent statewide poll<\/a> showed that state voters were far less likely to support Bush next year — 34 percent said they want Bush to have a second term, 44 percent want someone else, and 22 percent were undecided. That’s amazing considering Arizona has supported the GOP candidate in 12 of the last 13 presidential elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third of the six “official” DNC presidential candidate debates is tonight in Phoenix, Ariz. CNN will cover the event live starting at 8pm eastern. If you’ve been watching the debates so far, you probably noticed that the last one, in New York, was far more aggressive than its predecessor. I suspect tonight’s will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}