There's still a year's worth of presidential politics in front of us - followed by about 3 more months of political analysis. Can't wait till it's over. More than that - can't wait till we're done with Bush & Cheney. January 20, 2009 - Oh happy day!
I watched the Democrats debate last night, if you can call it that. The moderator, Wolf Blitzer, didn't seem to have much control. The candidates ignored the time limits placed on them. The Hillary supporters booed anyone that criticized her, as if it were on cue. There really wasn't much substance to the questions or answers.
It seems as if the media is determined to shove Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama down our throats. The questions given to Hillary seemed geared toward helping her clean up her image that was damaged in the last debate and clarify statements she had made to the media and in speeches. When asked if she was "playing the gender card" she said "No," then went on to tell how proud she is to have a chance at the presidency as a woman, and about an elderly lady that said women couldn't vote when she was young and she hoped to live long enough to see a woman president. If that's not playing the gender card, what is?
While Hillary's answers were pretty vague, Obama was a real disappointment. He got a decent amount of air time, but for the life of me, I can't tell you anything that he said. Richardson was unimpressive all around. Kucinich, unfortunately, comes across as a nerd on television, and we all know you can't be president if you don't look good on t.v. Biden and Dodd have the most experience with foreign relations, but the press isn't giving them any attention. (It's all about Hillary and Obama.) Edwards was well-prepared, seemed well-informed, clearly expressed his opinions on the issues, and had the strongest presence.
Biden, Dodd, and Edwards are the best qualified to be president, but the press finds it more important that a woman and a black man are running. Is this novelty really more important than covering all the candidates and letting the PEOPLE decide?
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I have to agree, the democratic debate left a whole lot to be desired. Hillary walked away the heralded winner - shocking. And you're right, Obama was disappointing. For someone who's building his campaign on the fact that he's not a career politician, he does an awfully good job of dancing around the question and giving a vague politician-style answer. When wolf asked him repeatedly for a simple yes or no, he stammered and stuttered into a paragraph-long answer - several times in a row. I like a lot about Obama, but the more I see him in debates, the less likely I am to vote for him.
Edwards may have spoken well, but I didn't like his answers. Biden, in my opinion, had the best answers and the best attitude, but his desire to push through the Law of the Sea Treaty is enough to make me a lifelong republican.
Kucinich was awful - his rant referring to illegal aliens as simply "undocumented" is indicative of the "politically correct" ridiculousness that is ripping our country to shreds. Simply being here without documentation is a violation of the immigration laws. Last time I checked, violating law(s) is the pure definition of ILLEGAL.
Personally, I don't vote along party lines. Both parties are horribly corrupt and have lost sight of the intentions of our founding fathers. I will be voting for whoever has the strongest stance on the issues that are most important to me: ILLEGAL immigration, national security, education, and economy.
NO ONE at the democratic debate had a decent stand on any of these issues.
Also, if you want to see which candidate most closely matches up with your issue opinions, check out this calculator:
http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html
And if you're one of the rare few voters who is willing to actually thoroughly check out their candidate instead of believing everything they hear in the opponents' ads, check out:
http://www.vote-smart.org
I'm not sure what you didn't like about Edwards' answers, but I saw him last night on a talk show. I think it was called Meet the Candidates. He was interviewed one-on-one (as are the other candidates - I just happened to catch him).
I really liked what I heard from him. He answered each question directly without any "dancing" (as you called it), stammering, or vague politician-style answers. He's the only candidate I've seen so far that has any real concept of the world WE live in. The rest are SO out of touch - born into wealth, and don't have a clue what is going on, except in their own privileged experience and surroundings. I found myself several times finishing his sentence with him.
Well, to begin with, I can't stand when they ask for a simple yes or no answer and they just won't leave it at that. Edwards wasn't nearly as bad as Obama on that one, though.
Second, the whole "rid the world of nuclear weapons" is a nice idealistic view, but let's be real. It's akin to the concept of "getting all of the guns off of the streets". When you do that, you take them away from the law abiding citizens leaving us unarmed and vulnerable, while the criminal element ignores the gun bans and gains the advantage. Criminals are funny that way - they don't seem to care too much about laws.
Same thing with nuclear weapons. You can't erase technology, and disarming ourselves because we think we've rid the world of nuclear weapons is just plain stupid. The technology, the knowledge, and the materials will always be there, and we'd be (for lack of a better term) shooting ourselves in the foot.
I did like his comment about not trading a bunch of corporate Republicans for a bunch of corporate Democrats.
I disagree with his complaint about "racial profiling" at airports and such. Personally, I'd much rather be singled out and scanned for weapons than to know that the screeners are afraid to screen Ahmed behind me with the box cutter in his belt because they're afraid of repercussions.
As far as the rest being born into wealth, I haven't researched all of their biographies, but Kucinich and Obama were not.
Overall, I just came out of that debate completely disappointed and disenchanted with the entire lot of them.
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