Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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The Dull-as-Dishwater Debate!
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Posted by:
Mary Katharine Ham at
3:13 PM
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This has been pretty dang boring.
Huckabee flogged faith in his video message, which I've yet to figure out why the Des Moines Register is using for each candidate.
He's citing "The Golden Rule" again on policy, which is pretty vague and if put into practice would be pretty lame. The people-meter doesn't rise above the halfway mark on that answer.
Mitt: "I think it's incredibly important that the President be a conservative."
"We must pull together the coalition of conservatives, " he says, echoing the NR endorsements, and his people-meter rates are much higher.
The moderator has been grating, the questions lackluster, and the format awful. A lot of people, with whom I disagreed, got down on the YouTube debate for placing style over substance. Today, I feel like we got no show and no substance.
Update: Is it just me or has McCain failed to shine tonight? He's usually very good in debates, and it would have been helpful to him in N.H. to do well tonight, but the moderator nixed Iraq as a topic, which held him back considerably.
Update: "Please name a New Year's Resolution you'd make for someone else on the stage." All right, sort of a silly question, but also had the potential to start some fun arguments. Unfortunately, the Des Moines Register could not have tried harder to make this boring.
McCain: "Let's raise the level of dialogue; let's not accuse each other of lack of character."
Huckabee: "I'm gonna be more careful what I say because it is given new credence...I'd make that one for them, too." (Funny, and charming again, and the moderator cracks up.)
Fred: Makes a resolution for himself, but doesn't take a shot at anyone. I wish he had.
Mitt: Makes a very politic answer about having a spirited campaign and coming together to support the Republican nominee. The audience responds well.
Update: Fred Barnes calls the moderator "Nurse Ratched." Ha. Morton Kondracke thinks Huckabee won. I'm not so sure. When he came out with his "bring us all together" line, it didn't play all that well with the focus group Fox had set up. Expectations for Huckabee were extremely high, and I don't think he was quite as great as he normally is, delivering several groaners.
Update: All of Frank's people think Romney won. I still think he sounds rehearsed, and a couple people are zeroing in on that, but I thought he was solid, as usual. I wish he was a little quicker with a comeback than he is.
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Dude, what debate did you watch? Fred had a suit and tie on just like the rest of them. |
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.....If Fred would at least try to look Presidental then his words would carry more weight ...Romney's words were empty promises but he looked good so he's declared the winner ...
.....Fred won hands down on his answers but his open collar sports jacket look just feeds the myth that he is not a serious candidate |
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He remembered his audience was ADM. Not coincidentally, that's the sole reason McCain lost big.
As for my grades, I'll just give the letter grades here:
Romney - B from me, A from the average Iowan
McCain - B from me, F from the average Iowan
Thompson - B-
Giuliani - B-
Hunter - C+
Tancredo - C-
Huckabee - D+
Paul - D+
Keyes - D-
Washburn - F |
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Hucks lines were forced and tired and some of his answers were terrible...for the first time he was the frontrunner and he seemed ill at ease. Fred was very good. Romney was also very good. His answers were spot on and consistently good. McCain and Rudy got lost and put in with the Tancredos/Hunters and Paul. One person has to feel good....Ron Paul...by having Keyes there, he wasn't the resident crazy on staff. |
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I caught one great Romney answer on the economy and creating jobs. I was driving and did not see the video.
I caught one answer by Ron Paul that was very good. He said he was not going to run as an Indy explained why and you could tell it was an honest answer. I do not agree with Paul on several issues but he is honest and that is a good reason to vote for him for Congress when this is over.
I caught a little bit of Fred (no video) and he sounded good. |
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"All of Frank's people think Romney won.."
for Frank to include a sample size of someone other than Hugh Hewitt |
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Mary Katharine wrote;
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"The moderator has been grating, the questions lackluster, and the format awful. A lot of people, with whom I disagreed, got down on the YouTube debate for placing style over substance. Today, I feel like we got no show and no substance."
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As opposed to a You/Tube debate, the point remains that the responsibility of the questions sits on the shoulders of the moderator...just as the responsibility for Tim Russert's questions to Hillary a few weeks ago rests on Tim Russert's shoulders, and the responsibility of Dan Rather's fake National Guard memo rests on Dan Rather.
When someone is dressed up as Frosty the Snowman, Robbie Robot, or Bozo the Clown, it absolves the moderator and the hosting network from taking responsibility for the content of the question. Their inevitable defense is always, "Well, it wasn't 'OUR' question, it was the Snowman's !"
Of course, they ignore the fact that THEY (the network) personally selected THAT particular question from among tens of thousands of entries.
It's not that we don't trust "average Americans" to ask question of their prospective leaders---rather, it's that we don't trust CNN or any of the other lefty-biased MSM networks to be make FAIR editorial decisions about which questions actually get aired.
Isn't it funny how GOP operatives just never seem to slip past the MSM network in order to ask righty-leaning loaded questions during a Dhimmicrat YouTube debate ?
In the future, the GOP candidates should be aggressive with the networks in determining the format.
I agree that 30 second answers is ridiculous, and the inclusion of Alan Keyes is silly.
I would say that Tancredo and Hunter (whom I'd like as a future Sec of Defense) are not performing well enough in the polls or money to warrant being included in future debates.
Their exclusion would free up more time for the other candidates. |
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9 candidates, 1 liberal moderator intent on driving an agenda and the clock, 1:23. Because I made a literal-last-minute decision to put a feed of my liveblog on my hole-in-the-corner of TownHall, I couldn't even really spice up the language (well, it is also a bit early to do drunkblogging too).
Fox News agrees on the boring too. |
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