The YouTube Republican Debate? It was John McCain's night. He finally found his voice and didn't cede the stage to anyone else. It did my heart good.
Cooper Anderson was the host and he had a bit of trouble keeping control of the event. It was refreshing, though, to watch a host who didn't feel we were all entitled to his opinion.
I will say that I am no fan of this YouTube format. I think it is dishonest. The questions are all screened and deliberate. It's not just regular Joes and Joans as it should be. Two in particular were used that really pissed me off - one by Grover Norquist on taxes, and one by Nick Anderson, a political cartoonist for the Houston Chronicle. Norquist was at least identified as the head of an organization pushing the Fair Tax. Anderson, using a cartoon head of Cheney to bash the VP's power, was never identified as the Chronicle's cartoonist.
I don't think professional agenda pushers should be used as questioners. We have the mainstream media for that.
An interesting twist was that all the candidates were asked to do a 30 second video for airing on the debate. Thompson got slammed on this. His video came out swinging against Romney and Huckabee. All the others used their videos to state their positions and Rudy's poked a little fun at himself. All this made Thompson, a very tall man, look quite small.
Tancredo and McCain used their videos to compare their views with Hillary's. Romney used a good line in his - "ordinary isn't good enough." Giuliani used King Kong and said annual snowfall was reduced during his administration in NYC, all in good humor. Hunter spoke about the fence in the San Diego area he sponsored in the House and produced to diminish crime and illegal immigration problems there, as well as supporting the military as a former military man himself. Huckabee's video stressed his faith. So, yeah, Thompson looked like a chump.
Huckabee, known for his folksy remarks, when asked what Jesus would do about the abortion issue, said "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office, Anderson."
And, yeah, Ron Paul is still every one's crazy old Aunt.
4 comments:
Did you see the post about McCain at American Power? See:
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-surge-for-john-mccain.html
I like McCain, as I wrote in the comments section of above site, "If somehow, doubts about McCain could be cast aside, the maverick would stand a chance against Clinton. Upon hearing him speak McCain comes across as a smart and sincere politician, basically he is likeable and lets not forget he did ok in 2000 thanks to independents."
Good posting...
I'm tired of debates. I'm so glad I haven't watched tv in a couple of months.
Thanks for the synopsis. I like Rudy and am beginning to like McCain a lot more. I'm disappointed in Romney.
Paul is the crazy aunt no wants to talk about. Did any of his questions involve why he doesn't disavow support from anti-Semitic groups?
Did you see the post about McCain at American Power?
Haha...Donald is pulling for McCain, so I'm not surprised.
I just got home, so I'll have to catch the replays.
I too, think YouTube ddegrades the level of discourse.
Love it.. Paul is every one's crazy old aunt.. thanks for the laugh..
you know, of all the candidates McCain did come out the best. Though I'm not convinced about him. He was precise, calm and usually came in under his allotted time.. unlike most of the others. My fave candidate is Giuliani but thanks to slick and a tad arrogant Romney, he made Giuliani look bad.
Good post, as always, Karen!
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