Reply #85: The debates are okay but not enough -- the media has been

[DemBones DemBones]

selling Dean, paying little attention to Kerry, Graham, Edwards, Gephardt, Lieberman, and ignoring Kucinich, Braun and Sharpton. Thus, moderates and others who don't follow politics like we do, have already had a lot of exposure to Dean before they ever see the debates. Also, the moderators at the debates structure them a lot, helping some candidates, hurting others.

But my point was actually just to say that nobody should presume to speak for the moderates -- not you, not me.

Couple of questions about these paragraphs from your post:

"He wants to do too much via executive orders, and has too many shoot first ask questions later style answers to problems like NAFTA and defense spending.

I like Dean because he agrees on a lot of the same issues, but has a far more reasoned and moderate approach... like reforming NAFTA and evaluating defense spending before cutting."


What makes you think Dean could get anything done without using executive orders (assuming a GOP-controlled Congress)?

Why do you think Kucinich wants to cut defense spending? He's already evaluated it! Why hasn't Dean already evaluated it? Candidates who talk about "needing to evaluate" things (Dean's position on medical marijuana as well) make me nervous because it's often a delaying tactic that they continue to use once in office.