April 17, 2008
The Philadelphia debate
Tonight’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia was the worst I’ve watched, and that is saying something. The blogging consensus, not to mention the furious comments clogging up the ABC post-debate comment thread, has it right. The “moderators” were evidently bored by most of the policy issues at stake in this election—small matters such as comprehensive health care reform, the war in Iraq (eventually mentioned), the economy (mostly ignored). They preferred to dwell on American-flag lapel-pins, and on a variety of silly ambush questions intended, I don’t doubt, not to elicit information and discussion, but to wrong-foot the candidates and produce some “good television”. The whole thing was so phoney and dreary, even by the standards of these events, that I wonder how many people not being paid to watch managed to stay with it to the end.
As for the candidates, it was a night both would prefer to forget. They were not so much uninspiring as anti-inspiring. Hillary scored points but, as is her way, in a fashion that probably bumped up her disapproval rating as much as Obama’s. Having said that, Obama definitely had the worse of it. He looked tired, demoralised even, and was often as faltering and hesitant as in the first debates, way back when. Dealing with Wright (yes, that again), he squirmed, returning (to my astonishment) to his first, failed, and totally non-credible line of defence—namely, that he was not present when his pastor said those things, so it all came as something of a shock. He was that bad.
It couldn’t have gone better for the GOP if they had scripted and stage-managed the entire event.
I totally agree with you. Would have been better to have a sustantive discussion rather that the sensationalistic nonsense being debated. Reality tv at its worst.
Posted by: Viola | April 17th, 2008 at 10:20 am | Report this commentThis Philadelphia story is most discouraging.
Watching the Clintons I find myself thinking the BBC show “The Apprentice”. (In the US Donald Trump had a similar show, but I’ve forgotten the name. Bill Clinton seems to have adopted the MO and “style” of Trump.)
A recent airing of The Apprentice featured competing teams of women and men. Hillary would fit in well with her “I can manage this” approach. (Angela Merkel would never be confused as a participant on such a show, and I respect her.)
The article in today’s FT about the parallel strategies of the Clintons and McCain to discredit Obama at all costs confirm the hand of AIPAC in this current campaign. Let us hope that US voters choose not to re-elect AIPAC. Firstly, however, one has to wonder if they understand the Neocon and AIPAC agendas. I assume not.
Posted by: WCM | April 17th, 2008 at 11:31 am | Report this commentThis debate achieved much, and was possibly the most effective debate to date. This was not due to the wisdom of its moderators, but an unintentional cosequence of their tactics: they tested the candidates’ endurance and stamina, and they showed us how they perform when not briefed and not prepared.
If the fron-runner was tired, then that is very telling of his fitness for the job — he should instead have been boosted simply by his leading position in the race. If he answered that bad when unprepared, then that is showing of his undressed ability. Obama has shown he is a showman, no more.
Posted by: RCS | April 17th, 2008 at 11:32 am | Report this commentIt seemed that George Stephanapolous’ agenda was to attemp to bolster his credibility as an independnet by his attack questions on Obama; rather than getting the candidates to focus on anything new. Except for Obama describing Ayers as an “English Professor/Neighbor” I heard nothing new last night. HRCs agenda seems to be that after all she went thru for Bill in the 90s, if she can’t be the next Democrat President, neither can Obama. As a Republican, I must confess to a certain amount of relishing these two knock the heck out of each other. Sometimes a fighter beat up in an earlier bout pays the price in his next major one if they had too many hits to the head. Obama seemed clearly stunned and frustrated during the debate. I don’t think he expected the debate to be a foreshadowing of this summer’s upcoming “swift boat season.”
Posted by: Irish Lightning | April 17th, 2008 at 1:46 pm | Report this commentI agree with “Irish Lightning’s” description of the Philadelphia debate as a preview of the coming summer “swift boat season”. What a disgrace for Hillary that she has effectively joined in as McCain’s ally in swiftboating Obama. And what a disgrace for America that as our economy and financial system teeter on the brink of collapse, while world food and oil prices go through the roof, the moderators could think about nothing better to ask than why Obama doesn’t wear an American flag pin.
The real answer, of course, is that, ever since the Nixon administration, wearing the flag pin has been a sign of having authoritarian far right wing views incompatible with American democracy. When Democrats wear the flag pin, it can be understood as a sign that they are scared of being thought unpatriotic if they don’t, just as they were too cowardly to stand up for lost habeas corpus rights and protection against the use of torture, or to put effective breaks on Bush’s obsession with total surveiilance over every American. Obama’s refusal to wear the pin is a sign of courage, not the supposed lack of patriotism which has become just another way of attacking him because he is black. I know of only one other country where everyone has to wear a lapel pin - North Korea.
Posted by: algasema | April 17th, 2008 at 2:11 pm | Report this commentRe the Lind article, of course it is political suicide to write off small town voters, who are the heart and pulse of America. Does Obama really look down on them, however, or is he not fighting harder than anyone else to protect their real interests? The Republican strategy is, and always has been, to distract voters in “Middle America” (wherever that is) from the real economic issues that affect their lives the most, and everyone else’s, by appealing to their good side, their patriotism and their faith, as well as their negative side, i.e. immigrant-bashing, homophobia, etc., whatever will work.
Obama has adopted the very risky strategy of being honest about this. Hillary, as usual, is trying to have it both ways, and McCain (like Bush/Cheney) is playing the military card. Which will work? We will know more next Tuesday, but the latest polls in Pennsylvania appear to have Obama 20 points down. He cannot win the nomination if he suffers that kind of a rout in a big, key state like Pennsylvania, no matter how many delegates he may have now.
But with catasrophe threating the economy, as any FT reader knows, is it really good for America to play the old game of distracting voters from the real issues? And are not the politicians who think that they can fool the average voter once again by focusing on irrelevant “values” issues instead of the very real and serious inequalities of income and opportunity, and other class divisions, the biggest and most cynical elitists of all?
Posted by: algasema | April 17th, 2008 at 5:21 pm | Report this commentFolks, it really doesn’t matter what the media thinks. According to the people (focus group of undecided voters) at the debate, OBAMA lost the debate in a BIG WAY by a whopping 27-point margin (Hillary won 50%; Barack won 23%). The voters said plenty!!
Posted by: Ann H | April 17th, 2008 at 6:40 pm | Report this commentleave it to the dems to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.with mcnasty presenting himself as “W”2 he shouldn’t even get a wiff of the presidency. heck he looks pretty solid at the moment. once again outmanuvered by the republicans the dems shoot at one another while mcnasty sits back and flashes that vacuous smile. mcnasty has gone from the republican’s throw away candidate, despised by conservatives and only tolerated by the christian right, to a potential winner. no matter how much ammo “W” has given them the dems will find a way to squander it if they do not select a candidate soon.please don’t expect that americans can fathom the neo con agenda. we’re busy with oprah and american idol right now. wake me up when the bill of rights has vanished and the constitution rewriten to assure the continuation of the reign of facists.with mcnasty in the white house our choices might be limited to,”do you want fries with that war on iran’ and “would you like me to super-size that war in iraq for you today?”
Posted by: gym-bob | April 17th, 2008 at 8:10 pm | Report this commentHillary looked much more self-assured in the debate, and Obama looked uncharacteristically rattled. Not a good night for him. He needs Hillary to come up with another Bosnia, and soon. Fortunately for him, the chances of Hillary coming up with something to shoot herself in the foot with are always good.
As an Obama supporter, I will admit to being concerned about his candidacy, though it is far too soon to write him off and I still believe he is by far the best candidate for his party and the country. I am even more concerned about the Democrats being beaten by Mr. McNasty this fall, for much the same reasons that gym-bob mentions.
Posted by: algasema | April 17th, 2008 at 8:30 pm | Report this commentI think it is a good sign that Obama was dispirited. I think that it is dispiriting that that the US cannot deal with the real issues but instead focuses on personality issues (as is evidenced by this debate). I agree with comments above about the need to focus on issues such as energy, economy and food. I fear that the US will just elect somebody who will not change course and not be honest with the American people as America moves towards the cliff.
Posted by: Bill Goedecke | April 17th, 2008 at 9:56 pm | Report this commentMr. Crook, I disagree with you concerning the value of questions posed in the Philadelphia debate.
Barack Obama displays a pattern of being friendly with people who are not historically proud of their country - Rev. Wright; William Ayers; and Obama’s own wife, Michelle Obama. It shows the milieu in which he is comfortable, and it’s worth knowing about. If a Republican Presidential candidate spent 20 years in a church run by a race baiting white pastor, certainly it would be important to ask about it. If a Republican Presidential candidate went to Timothy McVeigh’s house for an early organizing meeting during his first run for state senate, I’d like to know about that, too. Why on earth shouldn’t we find out what sort of people Barack Obama associates with and looks to for support?
Questions over symbolism like American flag lapel pins are important in the same way that questions about affection for the British Queen might be important in England - if someone is going to lead a people politically, it is helpful to share their sympathies.
Policy questions on matters like economic and foreign policy are vital, but these subjects are usually addressed after it is understood that an aspiring leader shares some common cultural ground with a nation’s population. In the case of Barack Obama, we are still endeavoring to discover whether we do so. I believe the moderators of last night’s debate did an excellent job.
Posted by: Steven Cooper | April 18th, 2008 at 10:31 am | Report this commentSteven Cooper should be congratulated, if this is the right word, for succinctly describing everything that is wrong with American politics today. As long as the American public continues to believe that organized smear campaigns against a candidate based on his or her real or imagined associations (including the candidate’s spouse) are more important than views on the issues, we will continue to get the kind of egregious misgovernment that we have had during the past seven years, and we will richly deserve to do so.
I might add that questionable associations are one area where Senator Obama clearly has less “experience” than his two rivals. A list of the Clintons’ questionable associations would take far more space than normally alloted to a blog such as this one. To pull just one name out of a rather deep hat, shall we begin with the Mark Rich pardon? As for Senator McCain, does anyone remember the Keating scandal? Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain have such long and well documented ties to special interest lobbyists that it would be difficult to list them all.
I am also just a little suspicious of any insinuation that Senator Obama does not share a “common cultural ground” with our nation’s population. True enough. The Illinois senator, just in case anyone forgot, happens to be black in a white majority nation. Right on, Mr. Cooper.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm | Report this commentThe Philadelphia debate didn’t show the positions of candidates on the economic issues clearly. Obama ana Clinton have to understand that the valuations are driven by market place, which is governed by the US Government’s fiscal and monetary policies. Presently, there is an ongoing recession in North American economy as a result of unwise governmental policies introduction and adoption. Hence, the governmental policies have to be changed to add the logic, transparency and consistency to the valuations and increase the investors confidence in the US economy.
Posted by: Viktor O. Ledenyov | April 18th, 2008 at 5:06 pm | Report this commentExactly so, Mr. Ledenyov, but how are we ever going to have a discussion of the economic and real issues facing America as long as the public is obsessed with what some church minister or political activist whose views Barack Obama has never shared at any time may have said or done recently, or thirty years ago?
Here again, it is dangerous to underestimate the influence of right wing media such as Fox News in poisoning America’s political atmosphere in its attempt to destroy Senator Obama, not for his views on the issues, but on the basis of his associations. For example, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly has been replaying Jeremiah Wright clips on his show every single night without end, and it has now come to light (courtesy of Keith Olbermann of MSNBC) that the question to Mr. Obama about Ayres, while ostensibly asked by former Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos, was actually planted by a Fox news expert in the tactics of smear and innuendo, Sean Hannity.
It is almost as if Senator Obama is running as a third party candidate, with the candidates of the two major parties ganging up to try to take him out. The only difference is that Senator Obama is not a third party candidate, but is still the most popular Democrat, among both the voters and the delegates, despite what has already turned out to be one of the dirtiest campaigns against him in US history, which is saying a lot. If he can survive this and hold his own in Pennsylvania next week, he will be a formidable candidate against Senator McCain, also known as Bush 3, in the fall.
Senator Obama, against all odds, is trying to keep the campaign focused on the serious economic and other issues that Americans really care about, despite all the attempts at character assassination by the mouthpieces for America’s business elite. Those are the ones who really look down on and despise the ordinary Americans, whom another Fox News commentator (former Clinton advisor turned Clinton-hater Dick Morris) once referred to as “downscale voters”.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 5:54 pm | Report this commentIn my first sentence above, I meant to say “economic and other real issues”.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 5:57 pm | Report this commentWhat recession?
Inflation was .2% last month, and 0% the month before. Unemployment just came off a 5 year record of job growth. The Dow is up 500 Points this week.
None of this is a sign of a recession.
With Obama’s failure of Econ 101 on Trade, and cloudy claims of not raising taxes on the middle class (while raising the taxes on the middle class), I would think his supporters would want him to talk less about serious issues, as he shows his utter lack of knowledge and experience everytime he tries to explain his support of Leftish economic policies.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | April 18th, 2008 at 7:27 pm | Report this commentJohn Powers, certainly many Republicans will disagree with Senator Obama’s (and Senator Clinton’s) economic views. Fine. But this is what the debate should be about, not about smear and fear. If a majority of voters in this country really think that apologists for the corporate elite like John McCain will serve the economic interests of the millions of Americans who are without health care, are unable to pay their bills or are in danger of losing their homes because of Republican income redistribution, tax breaks and corporate welfare for the rich, or failure to regulate against predatory lending and a host of other abuses, let them elect Senator McCain.
But it would be a tragedy for this country if John McCain becomes president because the voters believe, as the right wing media would like them to, that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that he is connected to Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden because of his name, or that the Senator from Illinois hates America.
Posted by: algasema | April 18th, 2008 at 8:35 pm | Report this commentFair enough, but since the jr. Illinois Senator campaign statements are not even close to his position papers, and even further from his voting record, he is certainly a hard one to pin down. Here is a guy who voted for the Bridge to Nowhere (so did Hillary), claiming to be for a new kind of politics.
Since he has known some rather radical people, such as Tony Rezko, Auchi, Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, apparently quite well, I think it is a rather fair question to bring up the anti-americanism of Ayers and Wright for example, and the connections to Iraq with Auchi.
Obama’s record does not stand much scrutiny. It is pitiful that it took the media nearly a year to start scrutinizing.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | April 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm | Report this commentHa, just checked. McCain also voted for the Bridge to Nowhere.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | April 18th, 2008 at 10:38 pm | Report this commentalgasema, you sure can dish it out. But you can’t take it. You’re talking about “the continuation of the reign of facists.with mcnasty in the white house”. But you get upset when someone asks Obama about wearing an American flag lapel pin? For goodness sakes, fella.
Posted by: Steven Cooper | April 19th, 2008 at 6:11 am | Report this commentActually, Steven Coooper, if you look again at the above comments, you will notice that the words you quoted were gym-bob’s, not mine.
However, I would agree with gym-bob’s evident suggestion that civil liberties have taken a terrible beating under Bush/Cheney. It is true that McCain took a strong and courageous stand in opposing torture. However, he did the same with respect to “amnesty” for (some) illegal immigrants, but he has now backtracked on this in order to pander to the right wing of his party. Will he do the same on torture and other civil liberties issues if he gets into the White House? This is not just a liberal vs. conservative issue. Bob Barr, for example, is just as concerned about what is happening to our democracy under this administration as anyone on the left.
Pat Buchanan, speaking on MSNBC, recently said that McCain’s foreign policy would make Cheney look like Gandhi by comparison. Buchanan, as I am sure you well know, is about as far from being a liberal as you can get on the American political spectrum. Yet even he has problems with McCain’s belligerence. It looks as if there are people on both sides of the aisle who have good reason to dish it out about McCain.
Posted by: algasema | April 19th, 2008 at 7:49 am | Report this commentSorry for misspelling your name, Steven Cooper. It was inadvertent, like so many of my other typos.
Posted by: algasema | April 19th, 2008 at 7:51 am | Report this commentI have read today’s accounts of the Obama-Clinton race, and I have listened to a handful of interviews/discussions with Pennsylvania voters and US pundits on the BBC or German television. One image/sterotype has been represented more than once: a typical, middle-aged, employed-but-not-in-charge white woman/mother. In one of the longer interviews, a thoughtful and “nice” lady reveals she is undecided. She admits that she is turned easily by the latest comments/stories of the candidates.
There was no reasoning involved, except 1) that both have had their failings and strengths, and 2) she will pick the one she thinks will beat McCain. Nonetheless, I felt certain this woman will vote for Hillary on Tuesday.
The Clintons’ campaign is succeeding, as I have expected it to. As I noted above, the Clintons are the AIPAC candidate. With Lieberman on McCain’s team, they need not spend the money on that campaign, which initially seemed a weak pick. Hillary’s sly sighs that plant questions about whom Obama REALLY is have been masterful. They worked for this woman who was interviewed.
Women wil decide this campaign, and pundits ought to suspend political correctness in these next hours and 1) admint that women do reason differently (perhaps not among MIT classes, but certainly in the society at large), and 2) question the underlying conservatism that really makes women tick.
As this becomes a woman’s campaign, now that the bloack issue is sufficiently twisted, one should expect men to fail to turn up to vote on Tuesday. Obama needs to light up this debate and he needs to state a few facts about the Clintons and their record. Particularly, their very dubious foreign policy record. Hillary was there, without authorisation or clearance on most occasions.
It is foolish to permit Hillary to ride this game out with merely critiques of her personality and lodus operandi. There is much more here and it is time to put it on the table.
If she wins Tuesday, McCain will have only women to fear.
Posted by: WCM | April 19th, 2008 at 6:31 pm | Report this commentalgasema… Re: the incorrect quote. My mistake. Thank you for pointing it out. I’ll try to read more carefully before critiquing someone’s comments.
I do still believe that the questions to Obama were a job well done by the moderators. Policy positions tend to grow out of a candidate’s personality and his conception of human nature. The debate questions were useful in helping us understand something more of Obama. If Obama is such an elitist that he is in cultural disagreement with the American population, his notions of human nature are likely to diverge from the general population’s views. I think Tuesday’s questions and Obama’s responses begin to tell us something about the man.
Posted by: Steven Cooper | April 20th, 2008 at 12:31 am | Report this commentSorry, folks, I’m a bit rushed. I think the debate was Thursday, not Tuesday, as I said above. I don’t have time to check the date.
Posted by: Steven Cooper | April 20th, 2008 at 12:35 am | Report this commentThe more I think of it Steven Cooper, the more it seems to me as if not only the smear campaign against Obama, but the fundamental objective of the US media in general, is to distract the voters from the overriding fact of American life, namely that this country is ruled by a wealthy elite that President Eisenhower long ago referrred to, presciently, as the military-industrial complex. This basic reality is responsible, not only for disasters like the Iraq war (which, as Joseph Steiglitz writes in his new book has only benefited the oil companies and defense contractors), but for the erosion of basic civil liberties and the growing impoverishment of so many Americans (and immigrants).
As Tom Frank’s book (referred to in one of my previous posts) and many others have pointed out, it is in the financial interests of the elite to distract everyone else from the real issues by using crowd-pleasing “value” or “character” issues such as religion, guns, the American flag and, above all, prejudice against gays and immigrants.
Barack Obama has shown rare courage and character by pointing this out, just as he has discussed race openly and honestly, as no one else has has ever done in a presidential campaign. Therefore, the travesty that took place during the first half of the Philadelphia debate was no mere aberration by two publicity hungry “journalists” who were a disgrace to their profession. It was structural. America is unlikely to have a real campaign worthy of a democracy, much less a president who serves the interests of the entire country, until this changes, if it ever does.
Posted by: algasema | April 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm | Report this commentSorry for mispelling “referred”. I would like to add that, with all due respect to the Pope and the Catholic Church, which I do not belong to but whose stance in support of human rights, and especially, the rights of immigrants in the US I greatly admire and support, there has been far too much media coverage of his visit to the US, again to the exclusion of real news about Zimbabwe, the Olympics, and, yet again, the issues in Tuesday’s crucial presidential primary.
Whatever else he may have accomplished (or whatever controversies he may have stirred up, let us not forget those, either), the Pope is not a factor in US politics. Nor should any religious leader be.
Posted by: algasema | April 20th, 2008 at 5:04 pm | Report this commentAlgasema–Beware. Obama supporters are being drawn into a dangerous debate over his “honour”. When the Clintons and their machine begrudgingly return his honour, they will have taken much of his credibilty away in such wasted discussions.
Re: The Pope. His strategic US visit should be scrutinised. Yesterday’s Düsseldorf paper featured his picture with a caption and story that noted that he seemed quite happy preaching in morality’s heartland. In taking an absolute position on Iran, it has been noted that he seems to be mapping out the Vatican’s updated strategic alliances, which are increasingly with Israel. His other agenda items certainly seem to be more of a help to Hillary than to Obama. Gordon Brown, also an Israeli ally, seem to treat Obama as the junior candidate.
The Clintons are running a smarter campaign than they are credited for, and I never for a moment thought that the media was truly behind Obama. I still observe, thankfully, that none of the many impressive backers of Obama seem to be wavering their support. It does not help, however, when they begin to whine of unfairness or get dragged into schoolyard-level games of insinuation.
The Clintons display their sly tactics and lies; Obama still is standing and looking smart and honourable, except, as in Philadelphia, when he finds that he too has an 8-year-old’s defences when he finally gets tired of such noise from a woman who will never be more than America’s unhappy, but smart older sister.
Posted by: WCM | April 20th, 2008 at 7:35 pm | Report this commentJoseph Stiglitz, not Steiglitz.
Posted by: RCS | April 20th, 2008 at 7:37 pm | Report this commentWCM,
There is no doubt you are obsessed with Israel, which creeps up in every single one of your posts. I have also discerned a condescending attitude towards women (’think differently than men’). I believe both of these are connected, but I will not spell it out here…
Posted by: RCS | April 20th, 2008 at 7:46 pm | Report this commenti feel my country slipping away.it is not at risk because “they” hate our freedoms. it is at risk because “we” are not safeguarding our freedoms. are we so frightened that we have suspended logic. is w protecting or coopting or freedoms. do we buy this garbage that we must surrender our freedoms to protect them? isn’t it bush and cheney who truly hate our freedoms and ask us to surrender more of them each day? and as we surrender freedom without a fight out of fear there is w and friends to fill the void. great men suffered to found a dream. far lesser men are trying to tear it apart for their own profit.my only beef with MR Obama is that his brand of change does not go far enough. Mr Jefferson understood the value of a cleansing revolution when power has become centralized and corrupt.it is there for us to see. why do we ignore the signs? and i stand by my word-fascism-the very definition of which includes the planks and platforms of the bush cheney regime. if feelings are twisted by the use of the word then perhaps the word’s meaning will be explored. perhaps the actions of the fascists that threaten “the great experiment” will be examined a bit more closely.
Posted by: gym-bob | April 21st, 2008 at 5:01 am | Report this commentRCS–I deliberately push the Israeli question because of AIPAC’s long and much-discussed opposition to Obama. AIPAC and Likudites have not been very objective.
As far as the “woman question” goes, I think it is fair to discuss it and wrong to ignore it. The US stands unique in its one-size-fits-all mentality. This is neither true nor interesting. When it becomes a poltical device, it is dangerous.
Let it not be forgotten that women were the electoral base for Hitler in 1933, where a 20-percent+ gap was observed over men’s support for Hitler. As a FT book review cited two years ago, women’s support for Hitler did not drop until 1943.
Gender differences have also been widely discussed with regard to the Clintons. where women supported Bill by a wide margin over men, and also with regard to the Iraq invssion, consistent if to a lesser extent.
I’m sufficiently confident that I have not slipped into either racism or misogyny to banter a bit on these minefields in US discourse.
You can spell out whatever you wish, so long as it is not my name on an AIPAC mailing list.
Posted by: WCM | April 21st, 2008 at 11:08 am | Report this commentbtw–Before RCS responds, let me note that Hitler won women’s votes because he promised and delivered their full, independent participation in Germany’s social security system. Like all generalisations, this one has more than one side; Catholic women defied calls from their hierarchy to support Hitler and remained a fierce and confounding opposition.
Posted by: WCM | April 21st, 2008 at 11:46 am | Report this commentThe debate clearly illustrated which of these two candidates is better prepared to be President. Hillary?s responses were more articulate and more substantive. Obama struggled with most of his answers.
While Obama stumbled to put together improvised and deficient responses, Hillary articulated comprehensive policy descriptions with ease. Hillary shows a better grasp and a much better understanding of the issues.
Anyone who has not been blinded by Obamania can clearly see that the GOP would tear Obama down to pieces in the general election. He does not stand a chance against McCain.
Hillary is electable. Obama is not.
Posted by: Ernie | April 21st, 2008 at 8:14 pm | Report this commentI commend ABC and George and Charlie for having the guts to ask the tough questions in the Democratic Debate. Whenever there is someone running for the highest office in the land, besides having this person explain his/her stand on the issues, WE THE PEOPLE are entitled to know WHO this person is.
If Obama can’t handle George Stephanopulos, how is he going to handle Chavez and Amadhinejad when he invites them for coffee at the White House if - fortunately a big if - he is elected.
Obama should be treated just like any other candidate. The USA presidency is not part of an Affirmative Action program.
Posted by: Ernie | April 21st, 2008 at 8:16 pm | Report this commentDear Ernie,
Well said!
Posted by: RCS | April 21st, 2008 at 9:46 pm | Report this commenternie, rcs, “the usa presidency is not part of an affirmative action program”
Posted by: gym-bob | April 24th, 2008 at 2:16 am | Report this commentthat comment is disturbing on so many levels. if the us can elect a moron president than surely there must be room for an erudite politician. lets excuse the senator from illinois for being more interested and prepared for a debate exploring the relavent issues of an empire in obvious decline due to egregious mismanagement and corruption than the garbage that passed for debate moderation. by the way had you two guys noticed that Mr. Obama is black??