Cowgirl's Democratic Debate Roundup

I's so much fun reading the hardcore Primary Warrior's posts on the debate. "Edward's clearly won" "HIllary kicked butt" "Richardson sucks" I guess they were watching a different debate than I was. Here's my take.

Best One Liner: Bill Richardson, "I've been in hostage negotiations that were more civil than this." It would have been more effective if he hadn't followed it up with a rather long complaint about how his vast experience has made him a "leper". He has a point of course, but we all know by now that he's negotiated successfuly with every bad guy on the face of the planet just as we all know that John Edwards is the son of a mill worker. Enough already.

Best Dressed: Hillary Clinton--Even Barack Obama said so.

Worst Dressed: Bill Richardson, no one's going to accuse him of getting a $500 haircut. Sadly, in our superficial society, an overweight, middle-aged guy who looks like he needs his wife to make sure he doesn't put a blue sock on with a brown sock will have trouble convincing people that he can lead the country.

True but So What: Hillary Clinton saying that just the fact that she is a woman represents a vast change. Once again, true enough but it would have been more effective had she been in the other debate, you know the one with all of those white guys. Since she was standing across from the first viable Black candidate for President and next to the first serious Hispanic candidate--it sort of lost some it's power. O.K. Ma'am, I'll see you one woman and raise you a Black and an Hispanic.

Match a candidate with a style of Music:
Obama--Jazz--Cool, oh so cool but able to riff off of a single note in a sweet etherial tone.
Edwards--Roots Rock: Hard pounding populist in the Springsteen, Mellancamp tradition.
Richardson--Classic Country: Been everywhere, done everything--seen it all--and has the face to prove it.
Clinton--60's Pop: Sort of like the Supremes. Energetic, precise, maybe a bit dated but can still pull up the memories.

Almost Moved Me to Tears Moment: It's a tie

John Edwards talking about his father and grandmother and the 17 year old girl denied a liver transplant by her insurance company.
Bill Richardson talking about how he is tired of hanging flags at half mast on the New Mexico capital building. I thought he was going to start crying when he said "...that's why I'm running for President"

Theme of the Night: Change and how to bring it about.

This was the most fascinating thing to me. The candidates agree on the fundamentals of what needed to be done--though there's some differences on the details. The real difference is how they would achieve these changes.

The two younger, less experience candidates are the strongest advocates of change but they differ on how to bring it about.

Obama believes that he can be the catalyst for a movement that will bring Americans of all persuasions together to demand change and that if we unite, we will be able to overcome the powers of darkness with hope. His message is compelling and inspirational. People complain about his lack of detail but Obama's a poet--not a laundry list kind of guy. Obama sincerely believes that if you sit everyone down in a room together, you can come up with something that works. He sort of sees himself as a surfer riding a wave of popular will to sweep the entrenched interest out of power.

Edwards sees himself as a latter day trust buster, a champion of the people. He believes you cannot achieve change just by consensus--you have to fight the entrenched interests tooth and claw.

The two older candidates believe that it is not just enough to fight for change or give poetic speeches about it, you have to know how to work the system to bring it about. Both at times sounded angry that their experience was being discounted. Richadson said he felt like a leper and Clinton launched into an angry defence of her record as an agent of change.

Richardson promotes his experience to the point where he sounds like a broken record (for you younger people--back in the days of vinyl...oh well, you wouldn't understand--time to find a new metaphor) His point is that he, as someone who has been a part of the Washington Establishment who then left the rarified air of the Beltway and caught a heavy dose of reality as he worked to bring progressive change to a struggling border state with conservative leanings, is someone who knows how to actually do what Obama and Edwards are talking about.

Clinton, believes that change occurs through hard work and dedication. She cites her 36 years of working for change.

The problem both have is that the spirit of the times has somehow changed the equation. The experienced people, the old guard, the establishment if you will, has screwed up royally. People are looking for something different--they may not be entirely sure just what it is they want. Barack Obama has tapped into this amorphous desire for change. John Edwards has been mining the anger and frustration that many people feel. Bill Richardson, a good man but not one graced with the looks and easy articulateness to project himself strongly on television, tries to bridge the change and experience gap. Clinton, appears to many to be the champion of the old guard.

The Winners:
Democrats and by extension the American people. Whichever of these canddiates wins the nomination, I am convinced will prove a good and decent leader.

Please allow me to be the first to kick and recommend.

***edited because I lack basic typing skills***

very nice

Great post- entertainig and insightful.

Champions of the old guard will not win.

Let's get readyyyyyy to rumble!!!

I agree with your conclusion: any one of these candidates will make a great
president.

KICK KICK

GREAT POST!

As an overweight middle aged guy, I see nothing wrong with occassionally wearing a black and a blue sock. . . .I mean, who goes around checking people's socks to make sure they "match" perfectly. Sheesh!

Get a life!

:rofl:

whose favorite attire consists of jeans (casual) chinos (work) and a long or short sleeve t-shirt depending upon the season, I agree, it shouldn't matter but unfortunately it does.

If Bill Richardson looked like, oh say, the guy who played the hispanic candidate on West Wing (sorry, having a pre-senior moment and I absolutely love the guy too) he'd be right up there in the polls.

I must say you have the best unbiased assessment of the debates that I have read here on DU.

I was looking for something like this. You can't find it on television and few reality based (meaning progressive) talk show hosts are able to keep their own biases out of debate summations.

That debate did something for me. It made me feel that no matter who got the nomination, the difference would be one of degrees of change. The nice thing is that I now feel I'll be able to support the Democratic nominee with enthusiasm no matter who it is.

That's a good thing.

Obama doesn't appeal to me. He is jazz and poetry, both of which I can only take for a minute or two because then I want to scream. It's not that I don't want to like them, but I can't. Jazz actually makes me feel like I'm going crazy, I can't make any sense out of it. It sounds like a bunch of unrelated sounds, and it gives me a headache. With poetry, I've tried and tried, but it's only words to me which doesn't make any sense. It has to be someone TRULY gifted reading it aloud for me to make heads or tails out of it.

zalinda

I'm more of a rocker myself but now and then I like a bit of cool jazz, like when I want to concentrate on something.

A little poetry can go a long way. Kerry, sadly, lacked it. I remember right before the election, Kerry did a rally with Bruce Springsteen. Bruce (a man with poetry in his soul if ever there was one) gave a beautiful short summation of his hopes and dreams for the country. Then Kerry came on and the poetry dissipated into a long laundry list of programs and promises. I'm not saying that I don't like programs and plans, mind you, but a politician needs to be able to give an overall statement of where we are going and why as well as be able to propose the ways in which we are going to get there. Obama seems to have that ability.

Maybe Kerry should have hired Bruce as a speechwriter.

It really is tiresome seeing all the exaggerations and attacks based on each candidate. All the Democrats would be such an improvement over shrub that it can't be imagined. Frankly, I think that all the current candidates are more progressive than Kerry and would likely be more effective than Gore.

My question for the candidates never comes up! When the neocons steal the election again; who will stop them?!?! I don't think that anyone running has a chance except for Hilary no matter what policy they advocate if the votes don't count! I don't see the process fixed yet, and in fact it may be as big a rip off election as the previous two. It's amazing that the election process never comes up in these debates.

Bill Clinton KNOWS what happened with Kerry and Gore, and he would have the voice to bring attention to the problems if he were motivated. None of the candidates are in a position to fight for fairness during the election simply because they are candidates. I'm not even sure that Bill would do it.

:kick: 'n' Rrrrr

I agree, any of them would do a good job.

And since the inevitability meme has been punctured, showing that the primary will be a democratic process, and that she will have to earn it, I think I can now warm to a Hillary candidacy.

Especially your last line.

Well done.