Keeping Score at the ABC Democratic Debate/Prize Fight: The Referee Lost

[McCamy Taylor]

I miss the big stage and wrap around Vegas show lights from the CNN debates. This looks low budget. Maybe they will make up for it with high brow tone...

Round One Gibson inserts the word patronizing into Bitter-gate. Loaded word Obama acting like the god-king from mythology coming down from heaven to save the little folks from themselves. Playing patron in the old Roman sense, as in a man who freed a slave and now has a father/son relationship with him. Americans want to lift themselves up. -1 Bad guy point to Gibson. -1Obama

Oh man, are we gonna have to hear Hillary call herself the granddaughter of a mill worker every time she speaks from now on, the way that we used to hear my own favorite candidate John Edwards describe himself as the son of a mill worker? Isn’t there any other way that she (or he) can phrase it, just for variety? Thesaurus anyone? -1 Hillary

Stephanopoulos only had to ask Hillary twice if Obama could beat McCain before she said “Yes, yes, yes”, so she is better than Peter who denied Jesus three times. -1 Hillary

Obama said “Absolutely” immediately, but then he lost nice guy points for using the word “elitist” in reference to the infamous Hillary and cookies scandal of the 1992 election. He gets no slack for trying to disavow the sentiment, since he made the comment. (This tactic is a bit like asking “When did you stop beating your wife?”) -2 Obama (being nice is one of his signature issues, so when he is catty it hurts him more than Hillary)

Neither candidate would commit to a unity ticket. Minus one to both of them.

Wright gets rehashed by Gibson. Everyone is either bored or embarrassed. -2 for ABC -1 for Obama because he carries this albatross around his neck called Why the Hell Didn’t You Follow Your Own Pastor’s Advice and Change Churches Before You Announced Your Presidential Bid, You Dumb Ass, What Is a Pastor Good For If You Do Not Do What He Tells You To Do?

Round Two Video clip of an older guy who looks like he could have been in Nam or maybe Korea who is mad at Hillary for lying about Bosnian sniper fire. Hillary looks like a school girl who has been called to the principle’s office but knows it is just a formality. If she had a bow in her hair and tugged at it while saying Sowwy. Won’t do it again it would have been cuter. -2 Hillary

Even more bullshit question from a voter about whether Obama believes in the American flag pin industry At this point he must think that the worst is over. A kindergartener could field this one. -1 for ABC

Stephanopoulos pulls Bill Ayers out of his ass, something that will cause him to be labeled as both an RNC and Hillary Clinton mole by innuendo later this evening on Countdown by Obama-phile Keith Olbermann. From this, I am guessing that the Bill Ayers question is supposed to be a Big Deal. However, I do not see Democratic voters getting too worried about some 60s radical hippie who has made good. We are Democrats, not Republicans. The Ayers business has been out there for a while. Obama is obviously well aware of it and the political implications, that is why he is ready to attack Hillary by saying that Clinton pardoned two Weather Underground members, a charge that is also unlikely to make Dems lose any sleep. -1 Obama for attacking Hillary for her husband’s pardons. That is a Dan Burton tactic. Dems don’t like GOP tactics.

Round Three Iraq, Clinton gets questioned harder about whether she has the balls to stand up the Pentagon if they tell her they don’t want to leave. She makes it clear who will wear the pants in her WH. +1 for Hillary for passing the Commander in Chief testosterone test. Obama says the exact same thing and no one looks skeptical or says Really? Presumably they know that he has enough testosterone to stand up to generals.

On Iran Obama and Hillary say the same thing again, but Hillary says it like George S. Patton with a cigar in her mouth. Uses phrases like “incur massive retaliation” . Oh man, no wonder Bill was scared to tell her about Monica. I am taking back the one point Hillary got for passing the Commander in Chief test. She is too scary.

Round Four Taxes? Is this some kind of Republican joke? When the big issue is the economy as in where are the jobs and why don't I have a home and why does food cost so much unless you scrape it out of a garbage can, who the hell wants to talk about taxes, besides McCain? The only fun part here was when Clinton pointed out that Obama was talking about raising Social Security withholding above 95K and he tried to make like that wasn’t a tax hike and the referees (‘cause by this time it was a contact sport not a debate) ruled that Social Security is so a tax and then it was all “You said the same thing. I have witnesses!” I notice that no one wants to talk about that part. I wonder why. Maybe they are waiting for Paul Krugman for spell it out for us tomorrow. I will not assign any points yet, but I smell a story here, from the way that Obama jumped in.

Gun control Why? -2 points to ABC for irrelevance. I will bet a bunch of Dems took bathroom breaks.

Neither candidate was given enough time to do justice to any real “issues that affect Dems” questions except for the one about Iraq. So -2 more points for ABC for poor planning.



I don't have a calculator handy, but I think ABC lost the debate.

[Colobo]

1. One of the most STUPID debates I've seen.

[anonymous171]

2. Now that all the important stuff is out of the way, let's kill time and talk about the economy.

:puke:

[McCamy Taylor]

3. But you notice it was only the GOP economy issue---taxes.

[bhikkhu]

4. Good post, and thanks for the fairness and humor.

On yet another evening when both come with difficulty.

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Forgot most damaging thing for Obama: charge that his camp send emails calling Hillary a "liar"

on a regular basis to the press. Obama's image is that he is above the personal destruction. As I have predicted in several journals, if the press can show a pattern of his campaign spreading stories of a smear nature against Hillary, this will make his "good guy" image vanish. He is still an unknown quantity to much of America.

I do not see any of his supporters talking about this, but if the press picks this up, it could be trouble, so I expect that the Obama friendly press will talk about anything but the charge that the Obama camp is sending out lots of emails to the press reminding them to call Hillary a liar. Minus 2 on that one for Obama as well.

The guys at ABC were really after him on the character stuff. I guess they figured there was not much left of Hillary's character to trash.

[woolldog]

6. was that your analysis?

I enjoyed reading it. :)

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Yeah, that was what I saw. Everyone sees something different.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Still can't find a transcript but this Obama quote may get best irony of the night award

"The problem that we have in our politics, which is fairly typical, is that you take one person's statement, if it's not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death. And that's what Sen. Clinton's been doing over the last four days," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-debate17apr17,0,1890270.story

Here are examples of the Obama campaign actively propelling the Sniper-gate story

http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/attack-of-the-emails-as-clinton-bites-back/2008/03/26/1206207206759.html

The Obama campaign pounced on the remark, sending reporters an email which listed examples of Senator Clinton saying last northern winter that she ran from her plane in Bosnia or suggesting sniper fire cleared the tarmac. Television footage showed that she walked calmly and was greeted by a child.

http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2008/03/hillary-clinton-misstatement-about.html

Barack Obama's campaign spokesman, Tommy Vietor, issued a comment about the Bosnia blip, where he says that her story "joins a growing list of instances in which Senator Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policy-making."

Sinbad, a known Obama supporter, brings a little levity to the whole situation by saying that the scariest part of the trip for him was wondering where the next meal would come from.