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Debates on ABC
 by KevinFreitas on 1/6/2008 @ 8:55am |
Did anybody catch the debates last night on ABC? It was a pretty unique chance to see all the candidates from each party talk things through all in one night. A friend started a blog called Electoral College Dropouts and was over last night to watch the fireworks with us (after the Seahawks game, of course). They're covering this years presidential election as well as any Washington politics that come up. Overall I thought the Republicans were pretty scattered last night and Ron Paul certainly had a way of pushing people's buttons. Maybe it's because he was the only one who sounded like he made any real sense. Huckabee was very calculated and easily "won" (whatever that means in a debate) because he largely stayed out of the squabbling and on-message. Giuliani was just plain psycho especially when his eyes would widen randomly as he spoke and he envoked his usual fear-mongering, war and 9/11 talk hoping that would scare us in his direction. Romney is just a prick and came off as one especially when he blatantly defended large drug companies in a "they're not so bad" kind of way. McCain was pretty strong especially on defense and took some serious (and funny) jabs at Romney. The entire discussion about illegal immigration took way too much time with no one really able to get their point across clearly. The Democrat portion of the evening was far less entertaining and had a bit more polish that I'd normally expect from Republicans. Of course, Hilary's "look" and likeability came up (way to throw femininity softballs guys) and she seemed pissed pretty much all night. She hammered home her message of experience but lost me when she derailed for a "reality check". Richardson did well with nothing to lose since he's not really a contender. He's a really nice guy and would make a great candidate, as a friend watching said, if he were about 30 IQ points smarter. To me he's the cool uncle you'd definitely want to hang with at the family reunion. Edwards made his choice and loosely aligned with Obama against Hilary with jabs pointing squarely at her being the status quo. Edwards seemed very passionate (we know, the mills, the mills!) and downright angry. Finally, Obama, as ABC's George Stephanopolis pointed out, was somber tonight and made good points all around while mostly avoiding any bickering. His remark of "You're likeable... enough," to Hilary was a bit elitist but his ideas of bottom-up citizen involvement (cough, blogs, cough!), governmental transparency, and plan to get out of Iraq and focus on the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan were made clearly. Anyway, I didn't plan to write that much but oh well. I try not to get too wrapped up in the whole Presidential election thing but it's just too damn important to ignore. If I don't at all get involved or pay attention then I can't complain when someone I like doesn't win. |
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