Quote:
Originally Posted by molson
None of them seemed willing to address the heart of the questions asked. It was mostly just stump speeches.
Edit: I think value from a debate, like an appellate oral argument, can come from having an opportunity to address concerns or perceived gaps in someone's candidacy or policy stance, rather than just have everybody repeat material from their websites that we can read anytime. Right off the bat, Warren is asked about concerns people have about the economic impact of far left legislation, particularly considering most Democrats think the economy is in a good place. Great question. Warren blew it off and just repeated a rehearsed shtick about the "government not working for everyone".
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That's just televised debating though, especially in this format where you're fighting for airtime. You're not going to be allowed to get in a nuanced argument, and you don't want to get caught in a position where you get cut off before you get to your main point, or have some minor mistake that can be used in later attack ads ("X said that 50% of Puerto Ricans were without power for 2 months, in actuality it was only 37%. More Dem lies!" etc), so you just pick whichever of your pre-rehearsed soundbites best fits the line of questioning and go with it. Maybe we'll get this field winnowed to 4-5 by September and they can start going longer, but until then you're welcome to read their websites or try to find individual town hall type sessions they've done where they can speak for longer.
Agree with others that Booker was a winner, Klobuchar the big loser, and Beto nearly at the point I'm ready to cancel his (2020) candidacy. Disagree on Ryan - maybe he's a slight winner because I couldn't identify him before, but while Hilary may have lost the electoral college in 2016 because she didn't pander to the Rust Belt-ish states enough you can't win a national primary doing that. Was surprised Julian Castro seemed to gain some support because I still think he needs to actually win some sort of bigger office than Mayor of San Antonio & he doesn't seem to have done much since he left HuD with Obama's exit. And surprised Tulsi Gabbard got more traction because she's crazy, but she sounded moderate last night, can present herself as a war vet, and most importantly she's kind of cute, so that'll always leave a good first impression on most people.