ABC’s Debate Sucked

It was awful, just absolutely disgusting. ABC News has managed to host the worst of the Democratic debates (and mind you there were 21 of them in contention). Almost 1 year after the first Democratic debate in South Carolina–a period long enough to designate this presidential season as a reality TV show–we have managed to move away from talking about serious issues and into the hands of a relentless media cycle.

Here’s the chronology of the first hour of questioning:
1. Any chance at a “Dream Ticket?”
2. “Bitter, much?”
3. “Do you think your opponent stands a chance against McCain?”
4. “What about Reverend Wright?”
5. “Wait. I have an even stupider question about Reverend Wright.”
6. “Seriously. Who were you fooling with that Bosnia shizz?”
7. “Hey, Hussein! Why no American flag lapel pin?”
9. “Hey, Sean Hannity wanted me to ask you something, Barack! I got a question on the Weather Underground! Maybe later we’ll talk about the Symbionese Liberation Army!”
–Huffington Post

Notice how 6 of the 8 are directed at Obama. Clinton only had to defend herself against the Bosnia craziness, while Obama had to answer questions on the Bittenerss remark, his realistic chances against McCain, Rev Wright, his patriotism, and the Ayre controversy (which only the right-wing media is bitching about but now will certainly be brought into the 24 hour news stream because it’s been baptized by the mainstream media as a legitimate story).

There is no doubt in my mind that Obama can, and rightfully should, defend himself against this criticism. He’s done an excellent job doing so. My issue is with ABC and how they felt compelled to bring up trivial political stories over issues. The reality is that Pennsylvania has lost a ton of manufacturing jobs because of NAFTA, health care in the state is in crisis and the housing market is in a shambles. Why did they only spend a half hour on these issues? Why did ABC decide to spend the duration of one hour criticizing Obama with trivial political stories over serious issue-oriented questions.

Never in the 21 debates has a network botched a debate this bad (and mind you I thought ABC was a respected news organization.)

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OVERWHELMING NEGATIVE REVIEWS:

All of these questions have been beaten to a pulp, grim death. And neither candidate really had anything new to add to the responses they’ve already offered time and time again. It was as if ABC News, left out of the twenty-four hour news cycle that spawned these zombo-droid queries, needed to get in their licks on the same matters, too, just so they could feel like they’d played a part in every last one of the primary season’s glittering inanities.
–Huffington Post

Continuing Debate: Looking around other sites, I guess I’m not the only one that thought this debate was unmitigated travesty. Maybe the embargo on debate rebroadcast was a pro-human rights stand.
–Talking Points Memo

The questioning in tonight’s debate–—mostly straight out of 1988—was an abomination… For those who think it’s great that Hillary Clinton won’t drop out, even though there’s no way she can win the nomination and her only hope is some bizarre destruction of Barack Obama between now and the convention, ponder the effects of tonight’s debate. The questions asked were not the kinds of questions Democratic primary voters care about. But they are the “gotcha” kinds of questions Republicans try to spring on Democrats in general elections.
–DailyKos

In the first 40 minutes of the debate, most of the questioning was on Obama’s negatives (except for a lone Bosnia-sniper question to Clinton) and that’s what helped create what was a near disastrous performance by Obama in those first 40 minutes. He was weak in a lot of his answers on his personal negatives. (Did he really compare Tom Coburn to a one-time ’60s radical/terrorist?) Clinton, meanwhile, piled on, particularly (and surprisingly, actually) on Ayers. While I’m not sure if Clinton’s piling on ever is good for her in the long run — see her current poll standing — it created some post-debate issues for Obama. Many news organizations will feel compelled to do Ayers stories in the next few days. While some may question the fairness and relevancy of the Ayers issue, it’s not going to be good for Obama.
–Chuck Todd, NBC News

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.
–Greg Mitchell

Seriously “does rev. wright love america as much as you?” Really? REALLY?!!!

Also, “what will you do when clips” of Wright “play over an over” on TV? [...]

A woman asks if Obama “believes in the American flag” because he doesn’t wear a flag pin.

Charlie Gibson says that questions about the flag are “all over the internet” — along with Pamela Anderson’s sex tape, cats with bad grammar, and Rick Astley. Journalism at it’s finest. [...]

And now, we’re on to William Ayers. Gaaah. Obama says Ayer’s is someone Obama knows… says he’s also friendly with Tom Coburn who wants to give the death penalty to people who perform abortions. Attacks the whole idea of guilt by association, says “the American people are smarter than that.” [...]

The debate is 46 minutes in, and nothing remotely meaningful has been discussed.
–Sam Boyd

Obama is receiving unprecedented political and associational scrutiny here from ABC. Has he gotten a pass for the first 21 debates? Or is ABC going to precipitate a backlash? I’m getting lots of e-mail feedback from usually temperate Obama supporters, like: “This is the craziest thing i have ever seen. Did they take money from the Clinton campaign?” On the other hand, I can envision Clinton supporters saying to themselves, “Yeah, baby, now you know what it feels like.”
–Marc Ambinder

It’s 9:03, time for the first real question about the economy.
–Ben Smith, Politico
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I can’t post all of it… there’s more but it gets boring.

Check this out… this was all posted on ABC’s blog at exactly 11:57 PM from readers… I’ll only post the first few words because you can pretty much guess whats next:

1. Shame on ABC
2. SHAME ON YOU ABC!
3. Gas prices, housing market, War, the environment????……come on ABC News, you do know that we Americans actually have brains and care more about issues rather than Church leaders, and Bosnia lies.
4. I thought the questions should have stayed within areas of policy and not all this rev wright stuff I am tired of hearing about.
5. Mr. Gibson’s performance was unenightened and unenlightening
6. This was the worst debate I have ever seen.
7. Lousy debate that went over all the issues including Rev. Wright that I am tired of. Senator Clinton cannot honestly and fairly win this nomination and it is becoming a farce.
8. Americans lost tonight. ABC should be ashamed.
9. ABC your questions are shameful.
10. This was the most disgusting excuse for a “debate” I’ve ever seen in my life!
11. Shame on you, George Stephanopoulos, shame on you.
12. It’s truly astounding that Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulis chose to spend the majority of tonight’s debate hammering Barack Obama on issues like flag pins and guilt by association with others.
13. WHAT a @#$#%@ waste of time.
14. You lost a view tonight ABC. Y
15. It is 8:49 Pacific time and you have yet to ask one question regarding the war, the economy, education,the environment, etc – this is the poorest job done by moderators yet.
16. You really should be embarrassed.
17. ABCNews should be ashamed of itself for tonight’s debate.
18. I actually took the time to register on this site, because I have been so appalled and worse, disheartened, by what I have seen of this debate.
19. I’ll try to be succinct: this Faux News inspired debate was a steaming pile of horse ####. People need to lose their jobs over this embarrassment.
20. A new low in “mainstream” journalism.

Pennsyl-bama

Interesting story in Politico today on how Pennsylvania voters resent James Carville’s ‘Alabama’ comparison:

“People think it meant that basically there are two areas of the state where people can read and write and treat people with a certain amount of respect and the rest of the state is redneck trailer trash,” said Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia public affairs consultant with ties to the Democratic Party. “It ended up being a slander on people who are living in those places. I would like to see the line retired.”

A quick observation: what are they saying about the state of Alabama?

Carville is a Clinton loyalist, but in his defense, he was referring to the strong socially conservative, churchgoing tradition in the sparsely dense center of the state. It’s not his fault that his analogy is so apt, nor that the people of Pennsylvania can’t control their narrow minded anti-Southern bias.

Seriously–the South isn’t incest-ridden, backwoods, redneck hillbilly trailor trash. If people are seriously taking offense to this comparison, then they should look at themselves and their own biases.

Also noteworthy, a Public Policy Institute poll has Obama taking the lead over Clinton in Pennsylvania, 45-43. I haven’t been able to look at the specifics of the poll, but based on precident, PPI has been better than most polls.

My nerves are a little shocked, I’m getting a root canal in about an hour so wish me luck!

How I met Chelsea Clinton, and the truth about her college tours

As a young Democrat, when I learned that the Chelsea would be coming to my school to promote her mom, I cringed. It wasn’t because I dislike Chelsea, nor because I believed my college campus was untouchable to the Clinton campaign.I didn’t want her to come because of the utter fakeness her presence brings: my college, like all institutions of higher education in America today, is an Obama stronghold. And as expected, with Chelsea’s visit came an arry of Clinton banners, signs and staff members.

I was walking through our student center when I first saw Chelsea. Following her was an entourage of men in black suits and campaign staffers. I was walking in one direction, she was walking in the opposite. As she approached I stopped to greet her. She reached out her hand and I reached out mine and said, “Chelsea, thanks so much for coming, we really do appreciate your visit. Your father was a great president.” She smiled, and responded, “why thank you, I hope you’re voting Tuesday.”

My jacket was partially covering my Obama ‘08 button. I looked down, uncovered it, and pointed to it. She still smiled, and I said politely, “but we really do appreciate your visit.” She walked away.

Honestly, I feel like a dick. But in my defense, I was as cordial and honest as I could be.

Admittedly, I wasn’t happy with the Clinton campaign at that point. I had just got back from spending two weeks in South Carolina for the campaign, and I had grown angry with the Clinton campaign for the race baiting remarks of President Clinton. I suppose that played a role in my interaction with the former first daughter.

Chelsea continued on and went to a podium to deliver a speech to a crowd of about 150. I had just came from that direction, and I can say with certainty that most of the people there were not students. They were locals–townies as we call them–local residents who had heard about the Clinton visit through the local papers and decided to come out to listen to her talk to college kids. Problem was, the audience had ’salt and pepper’ color tones from far away–if you know what I mean.

Her visit was actually pretty pathetic. Like most college campuses, we have a local chapter of Students for Barack Obama, of which I’m a part of. The campaign gave our group roughly 36 hours to get ready for a visit by actor Kal Penn, and in the end, we managed to get about 240 students during a time when less than one fourth of the campus was actually at school (it was winter break/session). We actually had students–no adults.

Perfect grassroots youth outreach. Only student media, no old people, a young actor, prominently known in my age group, talking about issues involving us. It was low key, yet with maximum impact.

That is how Obama is winning college campuses: college youth organizers putting on events that are far more low key that “OMG, CHELSEA CLINTON IS COMING!!!” No one in my age group remembers Chelsea Clinton–how stupid to think she is actually reaching out to youth.
And what about that Chelsea Clinton event? Well she talked about her mom to a media-covered event with that ’salt and pepper’ audience. I know because one of my friends was there with a tape recorder.

Displayed behind her–a ‘Hillblazers: Young Leaders for Hillary in 2008‘ sign. In reality, there is no such youth group on campus. The Clinton campaign wanted to make it seem like there was, a distortion.

Actually, it’s ‘Clinton’, NY

A reader rightly made a correction to an earlier post.

In regards to the Hillary Clinton pastor problem post on AdvanceAmerica, reports WKTV-Utica, NY:

Procanick was pastor at Resurrection Assembly of God Church in Clinton before stepping down in Spring of 2007.

As it turns out, the ‘Clinton’ lead in the story had nothing to do with “the Clintons” but was a reference to the town of ‘Clinton’, NY.

To be fair, I would like to mention two points:

1. The initial WKTV article was not specific enough in its elaboration that this was in fact, a city.
2. My point in bringing up the issue has been one I’ve consistently ranted against and addressed: media sensationalization of the ‘horse-race’ aspect of this presidential contest. The post also included an excerpt from the Nation that discussed the shady “Clinton family.” While I am not a Hillary supporter, I’m still willing to defend her against ridiculous claims.

The “Wright” controversy at the right time

Barack Obama will deliver a “major speech” on race and society tomorrow in Philadelphia.

After everything that has erupted in the past week regarding comments made by spiritual adviser and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, this is an appropriate step by his campaign.

As of right now the political implications of Rev. Wright’s comments are not known. I can say that 1) the length between now and the Apr. 22 primary gives Obama a lot of time to calm the issue, and 2) the speech, if delivered well with media attention can fizzle down tempers. What Rev. Wright said is explosive, but we need to let it sit with the public for a week or so before we can gauge the extent to which this has damaged his campaign.

My guess is that this whole Rev. Wright thing will appear in those Obama smear emails. By the time the general election rolls around, the only people discussing this issue will be the same people who believe he’s a Muslim.

March Senate Predictions

I’m going to forecast some Senate races in 2008. These are obviously extremely preliminary, but early polling data can give us a rough estimate over what to expect in the fall. And I decided to be gutsy and not lump them into “Democratic favored” or “leans” categories…

I’ll keep up with Senate race predictions on my new “Senate Races” section.

Democrats Keep: (11 seats)

Pryor (D-AK), Biden (D-DE), Durbin (D-IL), Kerry (D-MA), Levin (D-MI), Reed (D-RI), Rockefeller (D-WV), Harkin (D-IA), Baucus (D-MT), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Johnson (D-SD)

Republicans Keep: (14 seats)

Stevens (R-AK), Sessions (R-AL), Chambliss (R-GA), McConnell (R-KY), Wicker (R-MS), Dole (R-NC), Inhofe (R-OK), Graham (R-SC), Alexander (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Roberts (R-KA), Cochran (R-MS), Enzi (R-WY), Barrasso (R-WY)

Democratic Takeover: Close races but are currently trending Democratic takeover (4 seats)

Norm Coleman (R-MN) to Al Franken, John Sununu (R-NH) to Jeanne Shaheen, Pete Dominici (R-NM) to Tom Udell, Open Seat to Mark Warner (D-VA)

Republican Takeover (1 seat)

Mary Landreau (D-LA) to John Kennedy

Too Close: Close races with no clear front-runner (3 seats)

Bob Schaffer vs. Tom Udall- Colorado, Gordon Smith (R-OR) vs. No Clear Challanger, Susan Collins (R-ME) vs. Tom Allen

I put in the “too close” category because there are truly a few races that will be very close in November, or at least they’re trending that way right now. Republicans Smith, Collins, Sununu and Coleman are vulnerable while Democrats have their eyes on open seats in Virginia & Colorado. If everything goes as planned for the Democrats, they could walk away with a net gain of 5 seats in November, giving them a 56-44 majority in the Senate. It currently looks like, unfortunately, Mary Landreau (D-LA) will lose her seat. In the after math of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of New Orleans residents fled Louisiana, depressing the city’s Democratic electorate. Landreau squeaked by in 2002 (before Katrina). Now it looks like without the base that elected her, she will be unable to win in November. That’s the only bad news for Democrats–and the only reason she is vulnerable is because of the political implications of a natural disaster. Republicans are certainly going to be on the defensive this year.

Once again, this is where I stand as of right now. I’ll post more in depth info about some of these races and new predictions as the year progresses. Public opinion changes, events happen, controversies erupt: you never know what can swing an election.

Al Franken for Minnesota

When I was 15, humorists like Al Franken and Bill Maher spurred my interest in politics and shaped my liberal ideals.

Now Franken, formerly a Saturday Night Live actor and host of liberal Air America Radio, is running to defeat Norm Coleman (R-MN) in 2008. His Minnesota campaign has come on great success, matching Coleman and the RNC in fund raising dollars and rising to the top of the Democratc primary field.

Two people now remain for the Democratic Party nomination (known as the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party (DFL) in MN): Franken and Jack Nelson-Pallemeyer, a professor at the University of St. Thomas. On March 10th, Franken’s top Democratic opponent, trial lawyer Mike Ciresi, dropped out of the race, allowing Franken to focus his energy and step up his campaign against Republican Coleman.

One of the greatest hurdles to his campaign have been questions over Franken’s seriousness: is Franken actually serious about running? In the past he has wrote books criticizing far right ideologues such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly, and he has wrote extensively about the bias and simple absurdity of the Fox News Channel. An iconic liberal humorist, is Franken actually running to become a United States Senator in 2008?

With absolutely certainty, the answer is a resounding “yes.” Al Franken has serious plans to end the war in Iraq, bring health care to all Americans, fund our public schools and initiate a massive Apollo-like energy program to start a new era of alternative energy. His campaign has laid out detailed plans at his website.

A recent poll by Rasmussen had Franken leading slightly in a head-to-head match up against Coleman, 49-46 (3% difference). There is still time to grow his lead, but so far Franken is the only Democrat to beat Coleman in the fall.

Building a Democratic majority in the Senate is going to require that we run candidates with a decent chance of winning in November, and that means securing seats in liberal states such as Minnesota. Al Franken looks to be the man to do it; he is indeed a serious contender for the United States Senate.

Obama wins Iowa… again…

Today Iowa had it’s state Democratic convention, and according to NBC’s Chuck Todd:

The state’s 99 county Democratic parties held conventions today and the two campaigns were actively fighting to gain even more pledged delegates. At stake: the 14 pledged delegates John Edwards earned during the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. Tonight, the Obama campaign claimed a gain of 7 pledged delegates, added to the 16 they earned on Jan. 3.

I averaged out the difference between the major media outlets’ estimates of the delegate lead (Washington Post, New York Times, AP, CNN, ABC, CBS & NBC). Right now Obama has a 123 delegate lead over Clinton, including among superdelegates. Since her Ohio win, she has lost 7 super delegates, while Obama netted 6 today alone. She also lost the Texas caucus, allowing Obama to net more delegates out of Texas.

Update: 
Looks like Obama will gain two more delegates after last night. According to Todd:

Last night, when I reported the net gain of 7 delegates for Obama out of yesterday’s 99 county Democratic conventions, it was based on 96% of conventions reporting. But there were two Cong. districts where Edwards was teetering on the edge of viability, the 1st and the 4th. Well, Edwards teetered the wrong way and Obama netted the delegates. So, here are the final results: … the overall delegate take for each candidate: 25 for Obama (that’s up from 16 during the Jan. 3 caucuses). 14 for Clinton (that’s down one from her 15 during Jan. 3). And 6 hung with Edwards, that’s down from 14 on Jan. 3.

Manlove lost!

A little back I wrote a post about John Manlove who is seeking the Republican nomination for Texas’ 22nd Congressional District. And… in a more than immature way… I poked fun at him simply because his name was “Manlove”.

Well upon looking at this race more in depth, I learned that some interesting stuff has happened in Texas’ 22nd Congressional District in the past two years.  

In 2006, Rep. Tom DeLay resigned from his seat (for being a corrupt SOB). Texans voted on Nov. 7, 2006 casting two ballots: one to fill the remainder of DeLay’s term, and the other to determine who will serve the next term.

Republican Houston City Councilwomen Shelley Sekula-Gibbs won the special election to fill DeLay’s seat for the remainder of his term, however Democrat Nick Lampson won on the general election. Lampson most likely beat Sekula-Gibbs because her name wasn’t on the ballot. In a last ditch effort to stop the Democrats from taking a safe-Republican seat, the RNC pushed a voter education drive to learn how to spell Sekula-Gibbs name to write her in on the ballot. They failed.  

In 2008, it looks like Rep. Lampson is extremely vulnerable. Up to a week ago, there were 3 (of an original 10) Republicans vying for the opportunity to take the Republican nomination to defeat Lampson. Among those was John Manlove, a former businessman and missionary. They all seem to be flexing their conservative creds, and so I have no idea how Lampson can be anything in Congress other than a Democrat in name only if he intends on keeping his seat. It’s normal to have a wide array of primary challengers in a contested election; it’s not so normal to be the only moderate in the race and have every other guy vowing to uphold strict conservative principles (and stand a decent chance of winning).

Manlove dropped out of the race last week, and the field has been narrowed to two. It’s been getting contentious for the Republican nom… probably because Republicans feel they can beat Lampson in this district by a significant margin no matter what happens. The RNC probably believes, possibly rightly so, that Lampson’s victory was only a fluke.

But let’s get to the real story: there won’t be a Congressman Manlove (R-Texas). Oh well… it’s upsetting I know.

But in January of 2008, there might not be a Rep. Lampson either.

Dear Florida,

Lets have a chat.

I love your weather, your amazement parks, and the great family atmosphere (I have so many Florida memories! )… But I resent the fact that you’re trying to ruin our party in 2008!

Kathleen Harris and her skum Governor Jeb Bush stole the election in 2000 from Gore… I don’t blame you so much for that. It really wasn’t your fault. But in ‘08, the Florida Democratic Party is shooting itself in the foot!

They knew they were violating party rules, and damn it, they moved their primary up anyway. Did they think that the party would just “excuse” them because they’re Florida? Who do they think they are? Look Floridians… it’s not because the Democratic party doesn’t like you that you’re Jan. 29 vote shouldn’t count, it’s because your party leaders are idiots. I’m all for a revote, hell I think Florida should have voted on Feb. 5 like a normal state.

And hey, if you want to vote early, apply through the DNC to be an early state in 2016. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to accept your offer!

Lets look at the reality though: no one campaigned there. You had the lowest Democratic turnout (per capita) than any other state. Many voters didn’t vote, because they thought their vote didn’t count.

And from an economic perspective, you missed out on big rallies, the offices that open all across the state, the tourism of incoming volunteers, and the major income revenues in your media market. Not to mention the exciting atmosphere and buzz.

Really, for a state which knows how to run a very profetable tourism industry, you really missed f-ed up this opportunity.

And now this talk that you’re mail in vote program isn’t going to work? It’s your best shot! The DNC said it’s not seating your delegates, just accept that reality that move on. If the DNC seats your delegates, imagine the precident. We won’t have a democratic system anymore; in future elections, we’ll have early states and Feb. 5 states and no one will listen to the DNC. You need to be an example. So either get your act together, do the mail in vote/another primary/ a caucus (which is the cheapest option by the way!) and be happy.

And vote Democrat in ‘08. We need you Florida… lets be sensible again.