So far this really sucks, big-time. Virtually substance free, with all the creativity of a half-assed job interview. “What is your best quality and what is your worst?” Way to go, corporate hacks! Wake me up if anyone asks a substantive question.
I will point out here that with the race and gender subtext, this primary campaign is in uncharted waters. All the conventional consultant wisdom is useless here. Usually, white Democratic candidates will not directly attack a black candidate - but sitting back really isn’t an option here with a powerful candidate like Obama. Female candidates traditionally pull an additional 3% on the basis of gender, so you can’t ignore Hillary, either. So try not to be too pissed off at the campaigns over this - it’s a real paradigm shift and they’re obviously floundering.
My suspicion is, this is all going to work out to Edwards’ benefit, at least in the short term. (Which suits me just fine.) People are really, really reluctant to get into these race and gender wars, and even if Hillary and Obama’s campaigns stick to the truce, voters will remember the ugly noise of the past several days and see it as a mild preview of the general election.
Edwards may pick up a lot of support simply because he’s, you know, a white guy.
UPDATE: Okay, things did pick up and they did talk about real issues. The one good thing is they’ve all gone on the record about getting all combat troops out of Iraq within a year.
Now that it’s over, I can’t help but notice that the post-debate bobblehead chatter doesn’t mention Edwards at all, nor did the cameras show anyone but Hillary and Obama shaking hands with the audience. I mean, it’s weird - he’s tied in the polls and yet he’s the Invisible Man. Or maybe not so weird, considering this is MSNBC and they’re owned by G.E., who brings good things to life - and then drops bombs on them.
Transcript here.
Went down to the Board of Elections today and voted absentee for Edwards in the NY Primary…
As I recall, GE is in the engines business, including ones for Westinghouse, which (surprise) is in the nuclear power industry. And Edwards doesn’t like that industry and said so.
I don’t understand why they don’t run commercials during the “debates.” It would give the candidates time to think up something intelligent to respond with and may even make them appear more seemingly lifelike.
Forget the hosts. There’s no hope for them. They’re caught up in an endless loop of stupid.
We are SO fucked! But at least we’ll have a NON-Republican in the White House, right?
If it’s all about impressions, here are mine: Edwards is telling me why he should be my advocate, Hillary is telling me that I should hire her to be my business manager, and Obama is telling me to enroll in his class (boring, honestly).
More candidate to candidate questions, less reporter or audience to candidate questions. Let them strategize their questions to define themselves and their opponents.