Dem Debate: Tinseltown Letdown
Wow, that was much ado about very little, wasn’t it? Both Clinton and Obama playing it extremely safe at Thursday’s night one-on-one debate in Hollywood. Quick CW: They both like where they currently stand in the race. My report direct from the love-in when you click here.
After the debate, I also spoke with the two top Latino supporters of each respective campaign: Obama national co-chair and leader of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, Maria Elena Durazo. And from the Clinton camp, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Watch by clicking below.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Clinton Obama Play It Safe In Democratic Pre Super Tuesday Debate…
You couldn’t exactly call the debate between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama a “love-in,” but this much was clear: it seemed as if both of the last man/woman standing candidates for the 2008 Democratic Presidential no…
February 1st, 2008 at 7:14 am
I think the Democratic Party took a look at the disastrous and embarrassing schoolyard fight between McCain and Romney in the last Republican debate and begged both Hilary and Obama not to make the same mistake.
McCain, the only Republican that stands a chance of winning a general election, did not help himself a bit by getting into a small, petty, ‘yes-you-did…..no-I-didn’t’ with Rommey. Pathetic!
February 1st, 2008 at 7:33 am
Oh, and to all candidates running for President, please stop repeating the same old lines we have heard over and over.
For McCain ‘I am ready to lead’ and ‘I was the first to support the Surge’.
For Obama ”I am the agent of Change’ and ‘I was the first to oppose the War’
For Hilary ‘I have the experience’, especially when she really don’t have much.
I wonder if they realize there are some 50 cable channels, 500 newspapers, and 50,000 blogs covering their campaign stops? We got it already!
February 1st, 2008 at 7:45 am
I been waiting for an oppo drop all week. It has to be today. The Superbowl will suck up the weekend oxygen; Monday will be too late. Otherwise, the Clintons figure they don’t need it.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:21 am
I’m sorry that Marc wasn’t treated to a suprise appearence by Bill rushing over to Obama and tackling him to the ground while shouting “Dis my wife will you, cur!” while Hillary cackled and said “I’ll get you my pretty – and your little dog, too!”
Alas, instad we got a fairly substantive discussion of the candidate’s views on a wide variety of issues and at a level deeper than 90 second bites. So sad!
But, as I wrote elsewhere last night, while neither can be said to have “won” the debate there was a lose and it was John McCain and the whole GOP stable that put on that verbal bloviator’s fest the night before in Simi Vaalley.
The difference between the two camps was so pronounced that anyone looking for a new Pres could instantly dismiss the sad old and grumpy old men of the Elephant’s graveyard!
Course there was a third force seen yesterday. On “Democracy Now” Ralph Nader told Amy Goodman why he was considering runing again. To energize the youn gs and promote progressive ideas. Funny but the young seem to be rather engaged this year by that guy with the funny name from Chicago. At least he seems to have roused them more in the past year than Ralphie had in the last twenty. And raise the progressive flag? Seems to me that lawyer from North Carolina did a fair job of that and the two remaining Dem candidates were all over themselves claiming his mantle last night.
You want drama? there it was. Ralph as King Lear!
February 1st, 2008 at 2:17 pm
As the day wears on, I wonder what Bill Richardson and John Edwards are thinking. To endorse or not to endorse? Whom to endorse, if anyone?
Richardson has to be thinking about his own future. if he was fully satisfied being New Mexico’s governor, he wouldn’t have run for president. My sense is that he would like to endorse Obama, but is spooked by the spectre of Clintonian revenge. And he might believe that Hillary is going to win. His endorsement of Obama, though, particularly if it occurred today, could be very helpful in the southwest. An endorsement would help Hillary as well, but would not have quite the same impact, I think.
I think Edwards will sit and watch for a while.
February 1st, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Well Edwards has already had an impact on 2/5. By dropping out he allowed SEIU here to endorse Obama and go to work for him. And MoveOn wouldn’t have been able to get the 65% threshold to endorse either.
February 1st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Love the first part, Ric, but leave Ralph alone. If anything, having him around would be a gentle but firm reminder of the likes of Cooper in 2000: You know, that evil BASTARD Al Gore; in some ways, wouldn’t he be worse than W?
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Obama’s tied to Saddam
http://counterpunch.org/cockburn02022008.html
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Yes jc and he’s also the cousin of the Kenyan Presidential candidate who is claiming foul in the recent election and, according to this writer, behind the current turmoil there – which is attributed in part to Obama’s support:
http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=26929
Yep, before long we’ll learn that the two year old Barack was playing at the Grassy Knoll in Dallas!
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Alexander Cockburn? He really is a nasty piece of work. He won’t let anything get in the way of a good slime job.
February 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Cockburn’s insistence on absolute ideological purity has gone so far around the bend he’s practically the biggest GOP ally around.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
So if people like myself and Alex happen to share teh views of the GOP that the Democrats are a bunch of a corrupt bastards, then we’re the enemy, but when we also share the Democrats view that the GOP are a bunch of corrupt bastards, we’re golden?
Its not ideological pourity. It is opposition to the prevailing order, not simply liberalism. Alex’s column in the recent print edition of the Nation says it all. There is no Left in America because most liberals support the continued existence of American Empire and capitalism.
I don’t.
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:48 am
Jcummings;
How on earth do you derive from that article that Obama is “tied” to Saddam? Because Obama knows somebody who knows somebody who is tied to Saddam? Cockburn himself doesn’t make this claim, although he’s happy to make the innuendo.
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 am
I was merely kidding and being provocative…though Republicans can and will make the inference.
Really I don’t give a shit. Let all the shit fly.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 am
“I was merely kidding and being provocative”
“Really I don’t give a shit. Let all the shit fly.”
Ah, makes sense. Is the bridge you live under along the QEW?
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 am
Marc’s apparent bond with Dem Obama explained:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/02/04/080204ta_talk_mcmanus
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
He’s a roll of the dice, I tell ya.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 am
Nice piece in The Nation by Christopher Hayes, on why the Left should support Obama — for those still on the fence (which here would be nobody)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/hayes
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I love the way Ron Paul, in the debates at least, prevents the mainstream Republicans from pretending to be libertarians and “strict constructionists.”
To anyone paying at leat a little attention, he makes it clear that the GOP is all about massive government, be it to manipulate the economy or bomb democracy into Third World countries.
Of course that won’t stop the Republicans from claiming to be for limited government, while advocating spying on U.S. citizens, secret court proceedings, economic steroids and the most powerful government hammer of all: war without end.
But at least for a time, as long as Ron Paul is there in the debates to call them on it, the Republicans can’t triangulate on what’s supposed to be their ideological touchstone.
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I’d vote for Obama in a swing state, and think he would at least be a moderate improvement for Americans. Hayes makes a compelling case, though he is typical of many of today’s young “left” writers in that he’s not all that left at all.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I want to visualize more later on. ,