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!

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.

The 2008 Electoral Map

In the first national poll of presidential preferences, SurveyUSA asked 30,000 respondents in all 50 states, if the election were held today, who would you vote for.

The Results:
Both Democrats Beat John McCain
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Hillary Clinton 276
John McCain 262

States Democrats Pick Up:
West Virginia, Arkansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida

States Democrats Lose:
Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire

View Clinton/McCain Electoral Map
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barack Obama 280
John McCain 258

States Democrats Pick Up:
Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia

States Democrats Lose:
Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey

View Obama/McCain Electoral Map

I’m always skeptical of national polls, but it’s interesting that this is the first conducted in all 50 states for the general election.

Pennsylvania: Santorum (R) vs. Casey (D)

I’ll be blunt- Santorum is screwed. Democratic challenger Bob Casey has run an excellent campaign in Pennsylvania, but he didn’t have to do much. The main reason why Santorum is getting raped this November is because his values have grown out of touch with the Pennsylvania voter. Like Ohio, Pennsylvania has been a moderate state- balancing the Democratic-dominance of Philadelphia and Pittsburg and the Republican dominance of the suburban and rural areas. Combined, they form a state that has been so politically mixed that it has caused some surprises and upsets in elections, and has forced its politicians to be more moderate in their stance.

In 2004 New York Senator Hillary Clinton wrote a book entitled, “It Takes a Village.” In her book, she detailed what the federal government ought to be doing to enable communities to battle problems on a local level. Clinton’s book had many liberal undertones- and Rick Santorum responded by writing his book, “It Takes a Family” to disagree with and (in some cases) parody Clinton’s opinion. In his book, he discussed several moral issues affecting society today and how they affect the moral fiber of this country. Outside of his book, Santorum has also condemned homosexuality, abortion and stem cell research on the Senate floor, and justifies these positions with his faith. Now in 2006, he is unsuccessfully trying to battle the image of being “out of touch” with the Pennsylvania voter- but Casey has not allowed him to escape his own voting record. Santorum is being labeled as a follower of George W. Bush, and hammered in an election cycle where the president is unpopular. To counter these accusations, Santorum has appeared on television claiming that he has “voted with Democrats” and even “cosponsored a bill with Sen. Hillary Clinton.” Despite his attempt to repaint himself in a new light, Pennsylvania voters will undoubtedly evict him as the latest Rasmussen poll taken on Oct. 26 puts Santorum at a meager 41%, as opposed to Casey’s 51%. Perhaps Santorum will reevaluate the meaning of serving a constituency with his free time November 8th.