Liveblogging The Debate
Well, we’re about fifteen minutes out from what promises to be a night of fireworks and fisticuffs in politics as the final two Democratic candidates square off days before a critical primary voting day.
Live webcasting will be hosted by ABC’s local affiliate here, and I truly hope that you’ll join me for tonight’s debate. Because things are getting down to the wire, I’m not going to spend too much time explaining the backdrop for this incredibly important event, but I will take a few moments to explain how this works for those of you who have never participated in one of our liveblogging events.
Unlike many bloggers out there, we don’t do our liveblogging through updates or using fancy widgets, our minute by minute coverage occurs right there in the comments section. This means that anyone who wishes can come and be a part of the play by play commentary.
It’s proven to be great fun in the past, and I expect tonight to be no different.
We simply ask that you follow a couple of simple guidelines. Keep your language relatively civil; a curse word here and there is forgiveable but blatantly offensive language has to go. And please no spamming.
With that said, let’s get it on!
64 Responses to “Liveblogging The Debate”
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Well, it’s looking as though they’re not going to open up the live feed until things actually start. I don’t like that. It always makes me nervous that something is going to go wrong.
For everyone else, a warning, I do have some things going on in the background here in the office, and I may have to intermittently take my leave. I apologize for this, and hope that it doesn’t happen too terribly often.
For the purposes of this event I will be dining on a Croissantburger… if that’s not elitist enough for you, and rootbeer. Ah yes… healthiness… I haz it.
AND HERE WE GO!
No problem Mike!
Oh man, the local feed isn’t playing around, they are opening this up like a major sporting event.
I LOVE POLITICS!
Charlie Gibson opens us up. He should be good.
Give me a feed link!
Obama gets the opening remarks first. He is definitely striking a much more populist tone in this statement than he has in the past.
Ok, got it. Your link in the post above goes to a video that is not the stream. This is the stream. http://a.abclocal.go.com/wpvi/livemedia?section=news/politics&id=6083174
Actually, it’s going to be faster if you just go to the link in the main post. Go to the home page, and you can get to it from there.
Hillary just wrapped up her closing remarks. Neither opener was much to speak of, and we’re in commercial now.
The first question: Will you take the opponent as the running mate?
Laughter erupts as there is silence.
Obama returns to his “premature” response to that question, and he is using it to tie John McCain to George Bush. Well done, and Obama gets a good response in the sixties.
Hillary is up.
This line of questioning is asinine. It is a waste of time to ask two candidates that believe they can win the Presidency if they will agree to be loser… VP.
And Hillary also comes up with a Unity concept.
and here we go with the “bitter” comment, let’s see how it plays.
He gives a toned down version of the response he’s been giving on the stump, I’m wondering if he’s leaving an opening for Clinton…
He got a solid response during his graph, and it’s up to Clinton who immediately begins with the pandering.
Oh wow.
She didn’t bite.
Okay, so I was totally wrong.
Now, George asks Clinton if she thinks Obama can beat John McCain.
She bit but not hard. I think the larger question is when will Suffinenvelopes ask her about her ludicrous negatives on trust.
She’s actually performing very well this far. She’s not doing as she typically does. HAHAHA
George pressed her to actually answer the question, and she has to admit that “Yes” Obama can win.
She finally said he CAN win in November.
Obama’s on the attack, and this is tricky ground for him… I don’t like it when he does this… so far the mood meter is buoying him though…
Wow, the whole cookie baking argument was SOLID, ends up in the mid seventies, and he was baiting her, and she took it.
For those who missed it, Obama, in a long winded response, brought up a Right Wing Attack against Clinton, and not only reminded people of it, disagreed with it, and pivoted on it to condemn old style politics.
And now we are on the Wright situation.
And I’m going to tell you right now, this is starting to irritate me. We’re almost a third of the way into this and we’ve yet to discuss a single issue.
In the end I really believe the issue of his “bitter” comments will be nothing but a butterfly farting in the wind. It is a non starter, a polyester straw man, crap.
And now Clinton is asked about her comment about how Wright wouldn’t be her pastor.
I am going to have to bail on this little exercise - work calls. Keep up the good work my man.
That was a deft pivot Obama just did, implying that since Hillary’s pastor supported Wright, what’s wrong with her?
I agree gail.
Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I am starting to feel pretty sorry for the residents of PA.
You would almost believe that the entire country can be run on Wright and Bitter alone.
And Hillary attempts to tighten the screws on this issue.
Finally, they’re addresing the honest & trustworthy question. Ooh, even with questions from “people in the street” — good concept!
Nex tquestion: Six in ten voters don’t feel she’s honest, and now she’s on the hot seat on Bosnia.
If I were Obama, I would just back off of this.
Don’t hit her.
Well, Gail, at least there are no snowmen.
And unlike Obama who managed to pull his mood meter up on his tough questions, Clinton is struggling, and her mood meter is dropping pretty heavily.
Somehow, it doesn’t hold water that “the battle of the Tuzla tarmac” was an oversight. I think if I were shot at, I would remember that clearly and would not remember that I had been shot at when I hadn’t. But then, maybe I just have too uninteresting a life.
BTW — She was sure in a glass house, suggesting that Obama was hiding something by bringing up various different explanations for Rev. Wright.
Back momentarily…Sorry but the question I was waiting for was asked and she failed miserably to answer it. She admitted she “said things she knew were false.”
So far he’s doing well, he’s not just resisting attacking her, but actually being gracious in giving her a by, and then focing the ISSUES into the debate, and the mood meter goes WILD!
Oh, she fumbled the question alright.
And Obama is asked why he doesn’t wear the lapel pin, this should be a great opportunity for him to score some great points.
And now, Obama is asked about being friendly with William Ayers, a former Weatherman
Wow…
Obama just took George Stephanopolous to the woodshed on this, that this is entirely silly that because Obama knows someone he shares their values.
And here comes Hillary with digging dirt.
Oh jeez.
And now Hillary gets to attack Obama by saying the Republicans are going to attack Obama.
Snap, and he dished it right back bringing up Bill Clinton’s pardoning of weather underground. Then defended his own ability to defend himself.
Well, with the first third of the debate ourt of the way, I’m pretty much disgusted with what we have seen so far.
there has been not a single question on issues as of yet and this has been a back and forth on controversies that have risen in the campaign.
Covering controversy is fine, don’t get me wrong, but this is more than a little lopsided.
As for how they’ve been performing thus far, both candidates have done well, with Hillyary really stumbling a couple of times while Obama perhaps had his hardest time in the beginning of his answer to a question concerning his relationship with Rev. Wright.
Clinton is being overly aggressive, though, and unless she lands a knock out blow, that is not going to work well for her. so far I’ve seen no knock out blows though.
Oh wow, a real question on issues. How will the candidates bring the troops home. Gibson adds, would Clinton still withdrawl even if it destabilizes Iraq.
And Hillary seems to be in her wheelhouse here in standing by her campaign’s stance so that she can begin withdrawl in sixty days.
I do not like the blaiming Iraqis meme, but I supoose that that’s the best we’re likely to get in this political culture.
Okay Gail, I’m going to leave it to you for the next few minutes, I’ll be back shortly.
Okay, I’m back, so give me a moment to back on balance here. Hillary apparently talking about Iran and doing okay.
It bothers me her hawkishness on this, and now we go to the economy.
ugh. she had a great answer on middle class tax increases, until she plugged her website website.
LISTEN! DON’T PLUG YOUR WEBSITE ON TV!
Strikes a great populist chord on capital gains taxes, explaining how hedge fund managers pay less taxes on capital gains then their secretaries.
And pivots and puts it on John McCain.
Not a bad answer.
Clinton takes over.
Oh, Hillary hits Obama on his plan to lift payroll taxes, and he goes to respond.
I’m back. What is this meme Gibson is pushing, that revenues go up when capital gains tax rates go down? Is this “voodoo economics”, or is this legitimate?
oh no… Obama went on the attack and he’s not doing well at this point, his mood meter took a hit, he’s starting to pull it up a little bit, but this is not his best answer.
No clue, Gail, I’m not good with econ stuff, and really my eyes have glazed over at this point.
Now what I want to say at this point is htat Clinton has said that if things had went the way her husband had things going, we would be better off now. She uses this to riff on Bush, but here’s the thing, that’s not the situation that we have right now. We didn’t have Al Gore in 2000, we had Bush. So this, well, if we had stayed in charge, is just crap.
We have to fix Bush’s mistakes.
As for this payroll cap issue, this is one thing that I understand decently, and Clinton is most certainly NOT taking the progressive track on this.
Keep in mind that, as Obama has mentioned, payroll taxes are capped at 97K a year. Lifting that cap, especially with a donut hole, as Obama has suggested he would employ, is exactly the right track. Think about that, if you make a million dollars a year, you only pay payroll taxes on 10 percent of that, whereas people who make 50K a year are paying payroll taxes on everything.
So yes, we should be looking at lifting the payroll cap, that’s not a tax on middle America, that’s raising taxes on the top six percent.
I’m not there, are you ?
And from the quote of the second amendment to the reference of the Virginia Tech Tragedy by Charlie Gibson, it’s time to talk about guns.
Now Charlie Gibson has asked Clinton on her pandering for gun owners. Now, she’s giving a pretty good answer on gun control, on striking the right balance.
Obama is giving a law professor answer to this, so far it’s doing okay with the mood meter. And he’s losing on this issue pretty bad.
In general, he’s done okay during this debate, but it has not been his best performance. Thus far.
Okay, realistically, neither candidate is fairing very well on the gun issue.
And with no segue at all, we go straight to Affirmative Action. “People who have been locked out of opportunity can go through the doors of opportunity in the future”.
Clinton pretty much ignores the affirmative action question, and goes into her bread and butter issues.
She’s performing particularly well right now.
Damn, I was pulled away for a moment. So I have no idea what i may have missed.
I pretty much have a bead on how this debate has gone, though.
In general, what we are looking at here is that Hillary Clinton has performed the best, however, she also suffered the worst moment of the night in her response to the Bosnia situation.
Obama did not have his best debate performance tonight.
But we have an unusual situation wherein Hillary’s the PA frontrunner, and Obama’s the national frontrunner. i don’t think that either candidate did anything to disrupt either standing. But this means that Clinton has locked in her win in PA.
uh oh
Final question, the primary process itself.
*sigh*
Okay, this is more along the lines of each candidate has a minute and a half to convince people they should be the nominee.
Hillary’s is a pretty standard stump speech fare. slow build to the low seventies on the mood meter.
And Obama puts his strength on the depth of his coalition of supporters. His answer rates a little less than Hillary’s did.
So now it’s time for some final thoughts.
Glad you guys are here, looks I didn’t miss that much.
Okay, first, I want to thank Mike and Gail who both joined me for this debate liveblogging. They’ve definitely helped make it an enjoyable experience.
I think we got some tech issues to work through between now and our next live blog event, there was definitely some slowed performance on my end that was frustrating, but hopefully this should be the last notable debate until the General Election.
On to the debate itself.
Hillary Clinton seemed to have found the stride that she lost a long while ago. For most of the debate she reminded me of the Hillary Clinton of the early primary season, the candidate who was calm, well versed on the issues, and typically above the fray.
that’s not to say that she didn’t stumble a little bit. She did, and her Bosnia answer was thoroughly inadequate, and the mood meter showed that the people in attendance were not buying any sleepiness story on her part. She also struck me as being too aggressive and may get called for overreaching in the days to come.
Senator Obama, on the other hand, did not have a good night, and was more reminiscent of the earlier debates when it looked as though he was trying to find his footing. That’s not to say that he didn’t have his good moments as well, though, perhaps one of my favorite being when he took George to the woodshed for trying to make hay on the issue of Obama’s relationship with a former Weatherman.
In all, I would have to say that no knockout blows were delivered, and no candidate did himself or herself fatal harm during this debate. I do think that Clinton performed marginally better which means that Obama’s chances of an upset in Pennsylvania on Tuesday have gone down. Meanwhile, Clinton may win Pennsylvania, but I don’t believe her performance was significantly better than Obama’s to the point where she could look to rack up a game changing lead.
Nor do I think that she is likely to winover North Carolinians which is going to be a landmark moment in this Primary for her.
But it all comes down to post game spin and which stories out of this debate, if any, change the direction of the narrative in the days to come. I’ll be watching eagerly.
Until then, thanks to everyone who joined us, and good night.
First, regarding the final question: I thought Obama’s answer was spot-on, and it clearly reiterated the message of his entire campaign. But it’s not the kind of answer that “plays well in Peoria” straight off. This is something you comment on frequently, Kyle.
Rather, his answer is one that will roll around in people’s minds and, as they see actions by Team Obama over the next several days, they’ll begin to see things just the way Obama laid out in his final answer. So, over time, his answer will resonate best.
As to Hillary: her answer reflected her normal style — to use a baseball reference, she plays “small ball”. She’s out there trying to get singles, and bunts, and steal bases. This can often win baseball games, but it’s not the sort of strategy that really gets people enthused about the team.
As I think back over what I wrote just now, it seems like it pretty well sums up how I saw the whole debate. She was hitting on detailed policies (where she has them, like early childhood education), but not providing any sense of strategy to the whole effort. She came across as playing “small ball”.
Now, I’m obviously biased here, but Obama came across (in the second half, when real issues were discussed) as being more strategic. I LOVED his answer about Iraq - that the President sets the overall mission and basic strategy and ground commanders can weigh in on tactics.
Gotta go. . .
I think I found out the answer to the capital gains tax rate vs. revenue issue: Capital gains accrue when an asset is sold. Except in a few specialized instances, people have a choice about when to sell an asset. If they know the capital gains tax rate will be going down as of a certain date, they are likely to sell assets AFTER that date rather than before it, in order to minimize the tax due. So the increase in revenues experienced once the capital gains tax rate goes down is largely due to the fact that more people are selling assets.
Short answer: Charlie Gibson was technically correct, but his statement reflects an artifact.
[...] that goes over your head, my colleague DrGail did some quick research on the subject in the middle of our liveblogging event a…. I think I found out the answer to the capital gains tax rate vs. revenue issue: Capital gains [...]
Nice play-by-play.
I agree with just about everything you have written about the debate - the worst I’ve ever seen - but there’s one thing that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention and that’s Hillary’s “security umbrella” for the Middle East.
She said she wants to put in place a set of alliances in the Middle East, along the lines of NATO, to protect Israel and the oil producers from possible attack from Iran.
This strikes me as very odd and as an over reaction to the threat Iran really poses to the region. With what we know now about our lead up to war in Iraq and Hillary’s vote to support it despite not having read the National Intelligence Estimate on the matter, I can’t trust her assessment of Iran’s danger.
Fact is, Iran hasn’t invaded another country in a very long time, maybe centuries. In the event that they produce nuclear weapons, and go on to use them, an automatic retaliatory strike seems not only foolish, but also something that we won’t be able to back up, just as we can’t follow through on Iraq.
Such an arrangement essentially puts Iran’s finger on the trigger. This security arrangement is fundamentally different from the NATO arrangement during the Cold War because back then you could point to Soviet imperialism, they really did take over other countries, but they weren’t nihilists. A region where nihilists drive so much of the attitude toward conflict is not a region in which military engagement should be automatic, it’s a place where long-term, careful diplomacy is required. Hillary’s plan does not recognize that. It seems as though she thought it up on the spot.