Democratic Debate

Today is the Democratic Debate from South Carolina. I thought about doing a live blog detailing Dick Cheney's stint as president yesterday while Bush got a colonscopy, but I figured it probably wouldn't be very interesting because all he was probably doing was masturbating to a picture of Lyndie England torturing detainees. Anyway its off to the debate!

4:00 PM Anderson Cooper is the moderator of tonights debate. Sadly he is more presidential than most candidates in the actual debate.

4:04 PM The first question is a rambling monologue where the guy asking it uses the phrase "uniffectual". If this is the first question than this is going to be a long debate.

4:08 PM Clinton gets a question asking her to define the word liberal. The questions are so broad that the debate is the opposite of what it was promised to be. The broad questions are allowing the candidates to talk about whatever they want. The point of the youtube debate was to get narrow questions that the candidates couldn't dodge.

4:12PM Gravel comes out swinging at Obama and gets destroyed. He attacked Obama on his campaign contributions but came out looking like one of those WW2 veterans who still believe the war is going on.

4:15 PM Chris Dodd shows a video saying how he is qualified for the White House because he has white hair. Of course George Bush has white hair and it doesn't seem to help him to much.

4:19 PM Richardson finally gets on the board.

4:23 PM Edwards says he doesn't want people to vote for him who wont for Obama because he is black. With that statement Edwards can pretty much stop campaigning south of Pennsylvania

4:26 PM The debate has entered the stage where the candidates praise the other candidates...This is more like a potluck than a debate.

4:30 Richardson gets applauded for saying he wont discriminate. Are the expectations of the president so low that promising to not discriminate get applause??

4:32 Edwards answers a question and then the guy who asked it emerges from the audience and dramatically says Edwards didn't answer the question. The stage is set for a showdown. Anderson then asks the guy why Edwards didn't answer the question and the guy's response is "to many people were moving around and I couldn't hear".

4:36 Commercial. How can there be a commercial during a debate????

4:39 Richardson lets us know that he was at the same refugee camp as refugees who submitted a question about Darfur. I think someone could ask a question about Mars and Richardson would answer by "well the last time I was in Mars I was able to...."

4:42 Clinton says we need to "start acting and stop talking" with regards to Darfur. She then rambles on for a minute before saying she wouldn't commit troops to Darfur.

4:45 Iraq somehow doesn't get mentioned until 45 minutes into the debate.

4:46 The name of the person asking a question is "mother of solider in Iraq". She tries to blame Democrats for not ending the war fast enough. She instead might want to blame the person who started the war in the first place. You yell at the person who breaks the dishes, you don't yell at the person cleaning up the mess.

4:51 My roommate asks me "who are the popular candidates??". And people wonder why the future of America is shaky.

4:55 I love how the candidate are all bashing the Iraqi parliament for going on vacation, yet don't seem to mind the American Congress going on a 3 month summer vacation.

4:57 Gravel says that "we don't have enough boots on the ground to invade Iran". Ummmmm

5:00 Someone submitting a questions adds at the end "I feel this is a legitimate question". If that has to be added to a question posed during a national debate than it probably IS a bogus question.

5:04 Some guy who had his grandfather, father, and son die in wars wonders what the politicians will do to prevent his other sons from dying in the military. I hate to break the news to this guy but that is a risk you take when you sign up for the military.

5:08 Biden destroys Richardson and the rest of the field with his Iraq argument. How can any of these candidates justify not voting for a bill that would send equipment to Iraq that would save lives. Biden is right in saying that it is responsible to vote to bring the troops home as well as to vote to make sure the troops still there get the best equipment they can.

5:10 Kucinich is telling people to text the word Peace to him.

5:15 The question is "who is your favorite teacher and why" Gravel answers by saying "a brother who is now deceased".

5:20 All the candidates are having to defend sending their kids to Private schools. This is maybe the dumbest topic in debate history. Rich people send their kids to private schools because public schools stink. No need to be ashamed about it.

5:26 In a show of hand question, Richardson cant remember if he took a private Jet to South Carolina for the debate.

5:32 The first surprising question is about standardizing the voting process in all states. The debate should have included more surprising questions like this instead of the same questions we always see in the debate.

5:38 The third commercial of the debate. Kucinich uses this time to see how many people texted him.

5:40 I wonder what the candidates do with the writing pads they use during the debate. I have to think that Gravel or Kucinich could auction theirs off in an effort to keep their campaign funded

5:43 Biden makes a great point by saying that for every dollars the government invests in prevention programs (like crime prevention, and health wellness programs) the government saves $6 in dealing with the problem on the other end.

5:50 The debate shifts to health care and everyone starts yapping about their health care proposals.

5:56 Gravel makes a decent point about how all of Clinton's campaign contributions are from the people who are responsible for the shape of America today (bankers, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies,etc...). Hard to see how an establishment candidate like Clinton can win in a change election.

5:59 1st question about gun control. The guy asking the question brandishes some huge gun that looks like it belongs in Iraq. Biden questions the man's mental capacity and presumably is now being stalked by the guy who asked the question.

6:00 A question comes out requiring the candidates to say something good and bad about the person to their left. Edwards says he doesn't like Clinton's coat. Clinton refuses to answer the question at all. Biden says he likes Kucinich's wife.

6:08 The debate ends and I must say it was a disappointment from start to finish. Nobody really did anything memorable and none of the questions were that refreshing. I guess if I had to pick a winner I would pick Biden, but picking a winner out of this crowd is like picking a starting QB between Brady Leaf and Dennis Dixon.