infinite improbability

Democratic Debate, Two words: "Broken Record"

The debate between the Democratic presidential candidates was like listening to a broken record. Instead of dealing with substantive issues and answering the questions that were posed, they turned every answer into variations on the "Bush is bad" theme. I watched the debate trying to get a better picture of what the candidates stood for, but I wasn't more informed than I was before because the candidates didn't say anything other than the same old Democratic party buzz words. The main talking points were nationalized healthcare, education, and the war.

As for performance in the debate, I would have to say that Al Sharpton won the night. He did the best job of actually attempting to answer questions, and his performance in denouncing the many hecklers was impressive. Also, I think his involvement in the debate was important because he kept trying to force the other candidates to do more than just pay lip service to racial issues. Despite their claims to the contrary, all the other candidates (with the exception of Mosley-Braun) did nothing more than pay lip service. No matter what he says, Dean's claim that rural (and mostly white states) need fewer gun control laws than states with large urban (mostly black) areas does not have anything to do with race, he wasn't particularly convincing on that count.

The candidate who really needed to do well was John Kerry, who's performance was lackluster. His closing statement was disjointed and was coming from way out in left field. He did not look the least bit presidential. Joe Liberman's broken record on Florida in 2000 made him look like a whining sore loser who is incapable of moving on.

Overall, I don't see how, based on this debate, any of the current candidates are electable. Howard Dean did not make any big mistakes in the debate, but he didn't do anything of note either. Unless something changes, he'll probably win the nomination, but he's so far to the left that I doubt that he could actually get a broad enough base of support to actually become president.