The First Debate: Grading The Democrats
General observations: the front-runners didn’t suffer any huge gaffes, but they were pretty unimpressive for the most part.
Mike Gravel: F-. My God, what a nut…anyone who watched that debate and would still consider voting for Gravel must be a blood relative. ‘Nuff said about this VERY marginal candidate.
Dennis Kucinich: B. Kucinich is a blazing liberal and half a socialist, but he was well-composed and had good answers to all the questions he was asked (not answers I agreed with, mind you, but responsive answers). (My beagle was very impressed with Kucinich, but then again, she always goes for the underdog).
Bill Richardson: D-. After this truly atrocious performance, I don’t want to hear anyone talk of Richardson as if he is a serious candidate ever again.
Barack Obama: B+. If it weren’t for his strength on the Israel question and the Iran question, he would be worse. I was extremely disappointed in Obama’s performance. A couple of his answers were downright non-responsive. A marginal loser for the night, because so much was expected of him, though he gained steam towards the end.
John Edwards: C. A down-the-middle, bland score for the ultimate down-the-middle, bland candidate. There is a lightweightness about Edwards that I don’t believe he can ever shake.
Hillary Clinton: B. Because of her front-runner status, and because Obama did not do better, I think she gained a little tonight (though she did not win the debate – more on that later). Hillary does indeed, however, have a simply awful speaking voice, but she basically treaded water, and that might be all she needed to do.
Joe Biden: C. Biden got the night’s biggest laugh – but from what? The failure to answer a question that has dogged him throughout his career (basically, does he have the integrity to be president?). Biden pretty much stunk otherwise.
And the surprise winner: Chris Dodd: A. Dodd impressed me mightily. He was the grown-up in the room, he was composed, but more than that, his answers had substance behind them. Dodd came across as everything a senator should be: intelligent, compassionate, and creative in his thinking. His only miscue (and the reason he didn’t get an A+) is that he stumbled on the difference between gay marriage and civil unions. I doubt very seriously we agree on very many policy issues, but if Chris Dodd were the next President of the United States (based solely on this debate, I stress), I would feel in very capable hands…
And a big raspberry for no one asking the nuclear terrorism question, though Obama gets extra marks for bringing it up himself in the context of Iran…
Mark, I did not watch the debates so I’m glad for your grading. Keep up the good work.
Interesting way to judge the debate. I agree for the most part with the debate, but think you undergraded Biden. I am not a Biden supporter, but felt he answered the questions very well and did get one of the big laugh lines of the nights with his symbolic one word answer of “yes” to respond to whether or not he could reassure people he wouldn’t be too verbose as to cause more political problems for himself. Biden and Dodd are probably the two who came out better in this debate than when they went into to it. Everyone else either did not damage or some slight damage. I agree Richardson was annoyingly over on time and looked angry the whole time – except for when he defended his remarks about how he wanted to give Alberto Gonzales more than just the benefit of the doubt because he was Hispanic (i.e. if he had been white, black or Indian we should have written him off without such!?!) It was fun to watch, and I can’t believe we vote in just a mere 500 days or so.
Ben Franklin, any 3rd-rate comedian could have come up with the one-word answer to the question about verbosity. Now if Biden got laughs out of it, then superb for him, but I don’t think we should give him too much credit for it.
News Boxers…
In other news, Democrats held a debate today. Mark at Decision ’08 has a roundup and grades. Who won? It’s not who’d you expect….
I think Dodd did well also, I just dislike the Ginsberg answer and of course I will be supporting those who Supreme Court Justice picks will be for those who will give rights back to the states.
How anyone watched that last night and thought Dodd did best is beyond me. I forgot he was there most of the time.
As far as Gravel, I would like for the poster to realize that his view is pretty representative of what most primary-voting Democrats think, just as Tancredo’s views next week are pretty representative of what most primary-voting Republicans think. He went into this debate with no one knowing who he is and came out with the base loving him and will certainly get some contributions because of it. If you don’t believe me, check out his results in a winner poll at DailyKos. (fyi, Dodd got last there with 1%).
Mark, I wish you were one of my professors. You basically said Obama stunk and still gave him a B+.
rj, I hope Gravel gets the nomination, then.
At least that actually believes what he says running Aaron, even if he is a bit out in left field. Tancredo is going to get the same reception from the press that Gravel is getting and purposely be bombastic because conservatives don’t like any of the Big Three Republican candidates and he’ll get mad props from the Republican base for it. How is that a bad thing? But I could take a straw poll of random Republicans out there and most would agree with Tancredo, just as I could take a straw poll last night with Democrats and Gravel’s/Kucinich’s views. Why can’t Democrats look in a mirror and realize who they are? It’s a bit like Republicans and how they can’t. Just come out of your closet and openly state we are nativist and don’t support any immigration, period, like Tancredo? That’s what most of the Republican Party thinks anyway. The doubletalk by the major candidates is disgusting.
Both the Democrats and the GOP is quite split on immigration. There are anti-immigrant Republicans who are, as you said, nativist or xenophobic, and there are anti-immigration Democrats who support the position as a part of a populist economic platform; their reasons for this policy are similar to those against outsourcing — they don’t want foreign laborers taking Americans’ jobs, whether the jobs are coming to them or they are coming to the jobs. Likewise, the GOP has ardent free-market/free-traders (like myself and President Bush) who support reforms of legal immigration to allow more foreigners to come into the country. If the (pro-immigrant) Democrats in congress can bring themselves to work with the president and the free-trade Republicans instead of just investigating him, they may be able to come together and pass serious immigration reform along these lines.
And, if you’ll check the PJM Straw Poll widget, you’ll see that Congressman Tancredo has never done that well.The best he has ever gotten has been 11.3%, and more often than not even been over 5%.
I, for one, consider myself a conservative, and I find Tancredo disgusting.
If the majority of Democratic primary voters think like Gravel, then have fun in the lunatic asylum, boys.
The man is a grade-A idiot; thus, I’m not a bit surprised he did well among his peers at Kos (nor that Dodd, a grown-up sane man, did poorly among the lunatic fringe)…
JB, only because of the Israel and Iran answers, which were the two strongest answers by any candidate that evening. Absent those two, I would have given Obama a C+, probably…
“There are anti-immigrant Republicans who are, as you said, nativist or xenophobic, and there are anti-immigration Democrats who support the position as a part of a populist economic platform; their reasons for this policy are similar to those against outsourcing
And, if you’ll check the PJM Straw Poll widget, you’ll see that Congressman Tancredo has never done that well.The best he has ever gotten has been 11.3%, and more often than not even been over 5%.
I, for one, consider myself a conservative, and I find Tancredo disgusting. ”
To be fair, I find most liberals and conservatives disgusting.
You are misunderstanding what I am saying. What I am saying is that all those people that are Republicans – the voters, not the candidates – are Tancredo if you put them up on the stage. I’ve yet to meet a commoner Republican in favor of greater legal immigration, let alone illegal. That’s Tancredo’s view. The only reason Tancredo does not get more support is because Republican voters want to defeat the Democrat in the general.
Likewise for the Dems. Gravel’s view is what I’ve read commoner Democrats – not politicians or the MSM – saying for the last four years. Both parties are controlled by a bunch of left-wing (Dem) or right-wing (Rep) nutjobs just cause the nutjobs are the only voters that have enough intereste to vote in primaries.
[...] One reader noted that, when I graded the Democrats’ performance in Thursday’s debate, I said Obama was pretty awful, yet still gave him a B+. The consensus among most watchers was that Obama did indeed underperform, but yet, he’s still perceived as doing pretty well, all things considered. [...]
Post 10: “If the (pro-immigrant) Democrats in congress can bring themselves to work with the president and the free-trade Republicans instead of just investigating him”
The Congress issued over one thousand subpoenas to the Clinton administration. In the first six years of the Bush administration, it issued exactly five subpoenas, none of which were directed towards senior administration officials.
It is beyond dispute that the administration deceived Congress and the American people in its march to invade Iraq. Every American (besides George Bush) recognizes that Alberto Gonzales lied about his involvement in firing the DA’s (curiously, Gonzales’s dissembling testimony gave the Decider even greater confidence on him). It is evident to any sentient being that the administration used the Justice Department as a political tool to indict Democratic candidates and delay any investigation of Republican candidates based on the electoral calendar. The administration’s deceit about Katrina (“nobody could have imagined that the levees would fail” — oops, let’s go to the videotape) and FISA (“the government would never wiretap without a warrant”) are also a matter of public record.
Is it your suggestion that the Congress ought to continue to abdicate its oversight responsibility and continue to sweep this administration’s misdeeds under the rug?
Wow! I never knew that MI6 got all of its information from the United States President.
Is it your suggestion that the Congress ought to continue to abdicate its oversight responsibility and continue to sweep this administration’s misdeeds under the rug?
Well, let’s take a look at what I said again:
If the (pro-immigrant) Democrats in congress can bring themselves to work with the president and the free-trade Republicans instead of just investigating him.
Did I say that they should stop investigating the administration? No. It doesn’t appear that way. All I said was that they ought to try to work with him, too. I never thought that the idea that Congress should work with the president to try to accomplish something would be so controversial.
Anyway, have fun with your strawmen.
#13: To be fair, I find most liberals and conservatives disgusting.
Based upon your comments the most likely cause for that would be that you have a warped view of them.
If I misread Aaron’s post, then mea culpa. However, the implication I see is that the Democrats are so consumed with investigating that they lack the time to pass legislation or work with the President.
However, given the number of times that Bush has thumbed his nose at Congress — as one example, abusing the recess provision to appoint Sam Fox as ambassador — I’m not sure why Congress ought to bend over backwards to accomodate the President. I have yet to see an example of the Bush administration accomodating Congress.
We have an administration which is clearly delusional. (An example within the past week: Bush claiming that the American people “voted for change” in Iraq and he “listened.” Uh, no. The electorate voted to get out of Iraq, not to escalate and send more troops there). It is abundantly clear that the administration is incapable of doing its job, and if Congress can provide adult supervision — or at least prevent the administration from making more catastrophic mistakes — then we will be much better served than we have been for the past six years.
No; with Mr. Fox, it was Kerry and his buddies on the foreign relations committee thumbing their noses at the rest of Congress, where he would have been confirmed.
My first post under this thread was, for the most part, based upon an issue on which the president and congress can work together with relatively few policy concessions on either side, but I guess you were to busy copying-and-pasting the talking points from the DNC website to notice.
I disagree that the Senate would have confirmed him. However, this is moot: if the foreign relations committee votes him down, then it wouldn’t get to the Senate floor, and it is a certainty that the committee would not have approved him. The executive was given the power of recess appointments back when Congress was out of session for months at a time, so that the government would not shut down during Congressional recess. A one week Senate recess does not qualify. This is a clear instance of Bush disregarding Congressional authority, and it is one of many. Ignoring FISA and over 700 “signing statements” are others. If Bush is so unwilling to work with Congress, why should Congress be willing to work with Bush?
As for DNC talking points: whether these thoughts are talking points are not is unimportant and irrelevant — what is important is whether they are true or not. Are you willing to disavow everything Bush and the Republicans say because they are also RNC talking points?
If the Bush administration were comprised of well-meaning but inept people, that would be one thing. They are not well-meaning: they are venal. (If you had any doubt, ask yourself why Dick Cheney never called Scooter Libby after he was convicted. Libby took a bullet for Cheney, but he couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone. Or ask yourself why George Bush has yet to attend a military funeral.) Bush and Cheney are the sort of people who will look you in the eye and lie to you: they have done it numerous times, all on the public record.
Call me old-fashioned, but when this country’s leaders have strayed so far from any moral compass, I think it is shameful. I rarely agreed with Reagan, but I respected him as a leader who put the country’s interest ahead of everything else. Ditto for Bush I. I think they were mediocre Presidents, but they did the best they could in the most difficult job in the world. These guys are different. I grew up watching George Reeves in black and white as Superman fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. (I ought to add that the episodes were first run when I saw them). Our government is so far from these ideals that I find it both painful and shocking.
or, not are
Peter, I’ve stayed out of this one until now – but Reagan, a mediocre president?
Then I guess we haven’t had a good one since Lincoln (a Republican, wouldn’t you know)…
If you are looking for a recent example of an effective President, you need not go any further back than Bill Clinton.
Sure, sure…Reagan ended the Cold War, and Clinton…
Uh…he…uh…well, he felt our pain!…
Mike Gravel: F-. Agreed. Needs to learn how not to be a raging nut-job.
Dennis Kucinich: B? In my opinion, around a “D.” He came off aggressive at first, but even after making good, highly liberal points, he kept saying “no thats not true. no thats not true. no…no…no…” and turned into a whiny snit. It was like a 4-yo crying that he lost his lolly. Lost his composure, much live Gravel.
Bill Richardson: D-. Agreed. I really think this man is amazing, but a truly horrid performance. Looked flustered all night long.
Barack Obama: B+. Agreed. Too little time and I think he tried to do too much. But he shoudl survive with his solid standing and when the field narrows down, he’ll have more time to shine.
John Edwards: C. Agreed. Riding his looks and smile. I got no substance from him.
Hillary Clinton: B. In my opinion, around an “A-.” She started with a dodge, but really became clear and concise. Her health care response was driving stakes in the others. A really good night for her.
Joe Biden: C. Big disagreement. “A.” Not only did he get the best laugh, but he kept it up all night long. Always clear, concise, and gave more than rhetoric. Gave solutions. I was stunned at how well he did. Hit me blindside. But will it matter?
Chris Dodd: A. In my opinion, I’d hit him with a “C+.” Not for any lack of composure or detail, but because he always echoed someone else. He never seemed forceful enough and kind of blended in like a good weave. He needs to stand out more to gain traction.
David, thanks for the thoughts, very interesting…
It would be churlish to deny Reagan credit for the end of the cold war, to the extent that he influenced it. This is the crowning achievement of his Presidency. However, I think Gorbachev had more than a little to do with it, and the fact that the Soviet Union was crumbling from within was an even greater factor.
However, I think the idea of selling arms to Iran to support the Contras is an impeachable offense – which is also what George Schultz said at the time. Violating the Boland amendment and lying to the American people is, in my view, an unforgivable sin.
Ronald Reagan ran up a huge federal deficit — which increased under Bush I — until Bill Clinton turned the deficit into a surplus.
We had eight years of peace and prosperity under both Clinton and Reagan, and I think that we owe both Presidents a great debt for that. I think Reagan will probably be viewed kindly by historians. However, I think Clinton will be viewed in the future as a much more capable and effective President than Reagan was. I don’t think there is any comparison between the two.
Well, we’ve have to agree to disagree. It’s not that I think Clinton was a bad president, he was a pretty decent one – but Reagan was much more historically significant, and you’re already seeing historians coming around to that view, I think…
As a professor of mine once said: in the fullness of Time, the Truth will be revealed to us all –
I agree with your grading for all the candidates except for your winner Chris Dodd. He should have all the answers because he’s been in Congress for 20+ years. The question is can he bring some fresh action to the table after playing follow the leader for so long?
We’ll see.