Dick Wadhams vs Dave Mudcat Saunders

These were the 'debate' opponents on tonight's Hairballz.

Wadhams is Allen's campaign manager and Saunders is Webb's.

Wadhams is *the definitive* yahoo who chose to wear a lavender shirt under his blue blazer and, as the crowning touch, had on a polkadot tie. Normally, this shouldn't matter, but it was so emblematic of what followed that it is worthy of an introductory mention. We won't talk about the just-plain-goofy facial expressions.

Contrast that with 'ol' Mudcat'. Ol' Mudcat is one of the most dignified men I have ever seen on teevee representing a candidate. He has a passing resemlence to James Carville, but mainly for the closely cropped white hair on his temples and neck, the rest of his head handsomely bald. And the voice. Oh the voice. A strong Virginia accent, steeped in cultured diction, a slowish cadence, eductaed and literate wording and phrasing, and not a hint of nasality. 'Gravitas' is a good word. 'Impressive' is another. He has much the same no-nonsense Southern seriousness that Webb possess, but has the added benefit of that accent. Oh that accent. Winning.

I know this is an incredibly superficial assessment of what we saw, but it was also a first impression. And first impressions are often about such seemingly meaningless things that, in politics matter .... sometimes they matter too much.

Now to the debate. If these two guys are any indication at all of of what we might see in any debates, George better start looking for an open partenr's chair with some K Streeters. The first call went to Wadhams and was about the Mess-in-potamia: Why did George Allen support the War? Incredibly, Wadhams tells us that Allen didn't support the war; he supported the President. Gack! Tweety pressed him on it and all he could do was hem and haw and equivocate. Everything except answer the question. In fact, at the end, Tweety laughed *at* him: "So your guy didn't have an opinion of his own?"

Mudcat handled it very well. Said they want the president to develop a two year plan. He made a huge point after that. He said that the *first* thing that has to be done by the Repubs is simply say "we need to get out; and they have yet to do that."

The rest of the segment was pretty much along these lines. Mudcat making points and Wadhams losing them.

I watched this with Sparkly. We were both *very* impressed with this Mudcat Saunders. He sure seemed to us to be another 'real deal' kinda guy.

Wow.

And I like him. He's plain spoken and Dems need him. Very intelligent sounding man as well, but doesn't seem to talk down at people. Wonder if we could get him to run for office...nah, he's probably better serving on the sidelines, where he can do some real good.

old day.

Did you somehow miss that part?? I like Mudcat, I would have liked to have seen more of him in 2004. He's got the right personality and image, but he was weak on his responses. He should never have let that guy slide with the flip-flopper bullshit. I also really didn't like hearing the 2 year Iraq strategy at all. I hope to hell Webb isn't backing off his commitment to end this war as soon as possible and is going to roll over to the Hillary crowd now that he's got the nomination.

I did find the back-pedalling on the war from Allen's guy interesting too though.

.... Tweety let Wadhams ramble on and on while he stepped all over Mudcat time and again. Nudcat left more than a few points on thetable, but that's sorta what happens in that stupid format.

I'm not sure I agree with your take on the '2 year plan' thing. He was pretty *non* specific about it, saying that a plan needs to be developed, not that they have one in place. I'll let that slide for the moment and let them get their position papers ready. Further, from a tactical perspective, they really needed to only say the least it took to win the primary. What they say from here on in is the least they need to say to get elected in a southern state. I know NoVa pretty well, but I really have little sense of what it will take to win downstate.

As I said, for now, I'll let them slide - particularly that they really had *no* position on the war except that it was wrong to start and that we need to just get out. That's sound. The rest is details. I know they matter to us wonky types, but for the Senate race in Virginia ... maybe not so much.

Not that they had a specific 2 year strategy in place. I was just surprised that they even mentioned 2 years, I thought Webb was more in line with Murtha on Iraq. But from a couple articles I just read, I guess he is a bit more open-ended than that. I recognize it's Virginia and all, so yeah, we'll see what comes along next.

Again, I like Mudcat and hope he really gets his points together - but doesn't end up sounding like another Clinton politician. I don't know how much more of that I can take.

Tweedy: "Mudcat, I like that. Maybe I should get a nickname!" Then he chuckled.

(I'm sure he knows about his Tweedy name.)

.... Mudcat gave him an odd sorta look when Tweety said that ... almost a kinda sorta fuck you look. But as I said, I may well be overstating what was pretty suble, no matter what it was.