I’m so tired, I’m just going to give you my play-by-play and then summarize my impressions on each candidate. Most of the questions were from YouTubers and those questions (abbreviated) are in Italics:
Dodd vs Obama: Experience vs. Change
What does the word Liberal mean?
- Hillary makes a great point about the term, it doesn’t mean what it used to mean: limited government. “Modern Progressive” is what she prefers to call herself, {meaning…um…not-limited government.}
Gravel: Takes on Obama as taking “bundlers.” Obama gets huge applause. “the reason you know is that I passed a law saying I had to disclose it.” {Didn’t really answer the question.}
What Republicans would you work with?
- Joe Biden: Chuck Hagel as his VP, and Dick Luger at Sec of State.
- Edwards: How do we bring about change? Take power away from political opponents instead of compromising with them. FIGHT!
Reparations?:
- Edwards: African Americans pay more for mortgages in South Carolina? {It apparently never occurs to him that your African American in South Carolina would have worse credit than an average White American (for a plethora of reasons). But hey…let’s FIGHT the Mortgage Lenders. Take them on. It’s a war.}
- Obama: invest in Education. That’s a better form of reparations.
- Kucinich supports Reparations? Or does he? It was unclear whether he was actually supporting it. Could have been rhetoric. But it sounded like he really supported it.
Katrina?
- Dodd: shame, shame, shame…{Gulf States…white people were wiped out, too.}
- Richardson: (bad sound quality). Eliminate any red tape? Predatory lending of insurance companies? {I think he’s drunk.}
Authentically black? Authentically female?
- Obama: Catching a cab in Manhattan. I believe in core decency of American people.
Who would be better advocate for women? Edwards or Clinton?
- Hillary running not because she’s a woman
- Edwards I don’t want racists’ and sexists’ votes. 9+ minimum wage. Fight Fight Fight.
- Hillary I’ve advocated for Women all my life.
Gay Marriage?
- Kucinich: Tough answer: “All are created equal.”
- Dodd distinguishes marriages and civil unions.
- Richardson same distinction; don’t ask don’t tell should go. No discrimination.
Gay Marriage and Religion, put by a Reverend:
- Edwards: Do not believe in opposing civil rights. Distinguishes Civil Rights and marriage. YouTube viewer is there. Fair Housing connection. Using faith as a basis is bad.
- Difference between interracial and same-sex? Obama makes distinction even better. It’s up to the denominations to determine marriage. Rights granted by States should be equal. {Best case for Civil Unions vs. Marriage redefinition.}
Darfur: What action do you commit to?
- Richardson: UN troops. EU sanctions. No fly zone. Humanitarian workers. Caring about Africa.
- Biden: Where we can, we should send. Troops on the ground.
- Clinton: Divestment sanctions on Sudan. No fly zone. Will not commit to troops in Darfur.
How do we pull out now?
- Obama: send a clear message to Iraqi government that they need to stop going off on vacation.
- Biden: It would take a year to get them out. Separate jurisdictions. Begin to draw out now, get majority of . {He seems agitated.}
- Hillary: There is no military solution. Not getting answers from the Administration.
- Kucinich: No more funds.
- Dodd: Need dipolomacy. Noone listens to us when it comes to foreign policy.
- Richardson: Bring them home, now! 6 months!
- Gravel: Soldiers died in vain in Vietnam. Dying in vain, now. Major close up on Gravel. He’s mad.
- Obama: Soldiers doing everything asked of them. Not dying in vain because serving their country.
- Edwards: Never die in vain. put the heat on Bush.
Women register for draft?
- Dodd: sure. Recommends required selective service.
- Obama: Tuskegee Airmen. equates Women with African American soldiers.
Arab states do not respect women. How is Clinton to be taken seriously. (Stupid softball questions for Hillary).
- Clinton: First Lady laundry list. No doubt in anyone’s mind. Germany, Chile, Liberia. Very appropriate for woman to represent U.S.
Meet with Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea?
- Obama: Yes. Not meeting with them doesn’t hurt them.
- Hillary: back to diplomacy. High level Presidential envoys. Why meet with them until we know what the way forward is?
- Edwards: Restore American confidence.
By what date out of Iraq? How many family members do you have in Iraq (relevance?) ?
- Dodd: April of next year. January of 2009 all out.
- Richardson: 6 months and no residual forces. {This guy was ambassador to the UN?}
- Biden: lambasts Senators who voted against funding of equipment to prevent deaths from IEDs. As long as they’re in the field, they need the right equipment. {Thank you, Joe}.
- Clinton: same realistic view. Maybe 1 or 2 brigades a month. That’s a lot of months.
- Kucinich: {completely ignoring reality.} Text him and they’ll magically be able to bring them home…like immediately.
Education: Who was your favorite teacher?
- Gravel: teacher who recognized his learning disabilities.
- Obama: someone who had also been to kenya and made him feel proud of his International experience.
- Biden: (Unintelligible–sound quality).
- Edwards: teacher that believed boy from mill could make something of himself
NO child left behind–Scrap or Salvage?:
- Richardson: takes funds away that aren’t doing well. 40,000 a year minimum pay, art, dance, etc.
- Biden: voted for it because of Ted Kennedy, but now feels it needs to me scrapped. Smaller classrooms, better teachers.
Would you send your kids to private school?
Edwards: two kids in public school.
HIllary: tough decision to send Chelsea. {WHAT? Her dad was the fricking President. Why was it a tough decision?}
Gravel: need a little competition in public schools. Not sure whether he’s talking about vouchers or what.
Dodd: accountability in schools is important.
Planned Parenthood. Sex Education.
- Edwards: “inappropriate touching”
- Obama: echoes Edwards. Some parents don’t take responsibility, though (so of course schools should)
Does the Al Gore question hurt your feelings?
Global Warming?
- Kucinich: Away from reliance on oil. Connects foreign policy and energy.
Alternative energies?
- Gravel: Change our tax structure. Tax spending.
- Dodd: 50 mile/gallon by 2017…Corporate carbon tax?
- Cooper asks who flew Private jets to the debate. Almost everyone raises their hand. Kucinich and Gravel did not.
Global Warming? Nuclear power?
- Edwards: very costly.
- Obama: no silver bullet. national interests ahead of special interests.
- Clinton: taking money away from oil companies and setting up a special fund.
Standardizing voting policies?
- Richardson: paper trails…50% turnout unacceptable. Get the Republican party to stop suppressing minority vote.
Will you work for Minimum wage?
- Clinton: sure.
- Everyone else: Raise minimum wage.
- Obama: we all have money. Of course we could do it. (A little stab at Romney).
Social Security–raise contributing salary above 90,000?:
- Dodd: no privatization
- Richardson: 401k universal pension. Bipartisan.
Taxes?
- Biden: Change the tax structure. More progresive of course. “We need more revenue.” (Shivers go down my spine.)
- Kucinich: no wars, no NAFTA. No more taxes.
Alzheimers? Diabetes? Preventative medicine? Health Insurance?
- Obama: not mandating coverage, but giving all opportunities. Obama says he’s gonna fight drug and insurance companies.
- Edwards: must be mandated. Cleft pallate story. When are we gonna DO something about it. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
- Clinton: Universal Health Care is an American value.
Health Care coverage for undocumented workers?
- Dodd: Yes
- Richardson: yes, and prevention is crucial.
Bush Clinton, Bush….Clinton?
- Clinton: sure
- Gravel: Wall Street money
- Obama: uniting, changing, fighting.
In God we trust?
- Biden: deep religious beliefs and ability to use reason are not mutually exclusive (great point).
- Edwards: Never will I impose my religious beliefs on the American people.
Atheist…concerns over pandering to evangelical vote.
- Obama: faith informs what I do.
Guns:
- Richardson: mental imbalanced and criminal
- Biden: Assault weapons ban.
Overall impressions of each candidate:
Clinton: very on key. Very studied. Very polished. Looked, acted, and spoke the part.
Obama: thoughtful, usually very “audaciously hopeful”, but managed to pick up a little too much of Edwards’ vibe.
Dodd: Nothing really stands out.
Gravel–just mad.
Kucinich–very happy. Very proud of his “text for peace” deal. Acted like a kid.
Biden–Seems like the Ron Paul, just looking around trying to figure out why everyone has gone so crazy.
Edwards–Fight. I’m a fighter. I’ve fought Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Grape. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Richardson–Seemed to ramble. Incomprehensible on Iraq. Definitely didn’t come across as a former UN Rep.
Conclusions: Look everyone knows that I disagree with 90% of everything all these chumps say, so I’ll do the best I can. In my opinion, there are only three people on the stage that really make any sense: Obama, Hillary, and Biden. The others (in my right-wing-nut-job view) are just clowns. Edwards is the most disturbing to me, not because he’s the most nutty, but because he’s nutty and has such a broad-based appeal.
Hillary, as much as I’d love to simply look at her ideas and not who she is, it becomes really hard to do when I hate all of her ideas. Obama, I really want to believe is what he’d like us to believe he is–new blood, reasonable, empathetic to the conservative view, hopeful. It’s hard to believe that, though, when most of his recent speeches are very familiar boiler-plate liberal rhetoric.
Biden is my favorite on the stage. When he talks about foreign policy, he knows what he’s talking about. If I had to vote for one of them, it would be him. I think he’s wrong on a lot of things, but I wouldn’t be scared at night knowing he was Commander-in-Chief. His domestic politics is predictably not in line with mine (”tax cuts to the top 1%”, “need more revenue”, etc.), but I could live with that if I knew he would not just start throwing our troops around. I’m aware he’s not always on this target, and guilty of petty party politics and grandstanding to Pentagon interviewees he most definitely is. But at least he speaks English.
But he doesn’t have much of a shot…I know. But can you imagine a Hunter/Biden runoff? Or a Huckabee/Obama?
Sadly, at this point, I’d put my money (if not necessarily my vote) on a Hillary/Rudy runoff.
Back to the debate, it was very disappointing that very little attention went to:
- Immigration
- War on Terror (or whatever it’s supposed to be called)
- Iran
- Taxes
- National Debt
Truthfully, even the issues that were discussed were not discussed substantively. It’s not hard to figure out why, though…
Number one: very few serious questions were asked from the conservative point of view. The tax question was asked with a song, and the gun question was asked by someone who called his assault rifle his “baby.” The liberal position did not need to be defended, argued, or questioned. Many things were taken as gospel truth from the get-go: A military victory in Iraq is impossible; Universal Health Care is obviously to answer to the Health Care; Global Warming was so obvious it was barely discussed.
Number two: it’s the challenging party, so a lot of time can be spent bashing the incumbent without requiring too much bashing each other, or arguing your point.
I made it through it, though…the whole gruelling 120 minutes. Give me a fricking medal.