Good debate last night--something big happened

[Blue_Roses]

and it was called DIALOGUE--dialogue with petulant moderators, dialogue with the audience, (hearty responses) and yes, dialogue with one another.

I don't know if it was Koppel's motive to set a fire under the candidates by asking such insulting questions, but it sure worked whether or not it was his intent. I saw fire in the candidates and even a unity that I haven't seen before in these people.

When Koppel shoved his infamous "poll" question about Dean at Kerry, I saw Dean give a huge laugh and a hearty clap at Kerry's AWESOME response. Kucinich's comeback about the media was powerful, Sharpton response to "why should he stay in the race with no money," was profound. CMB was strong in her stance on this too and especially how women DO have a place in politics. It showed a unity--a unity that said, "we may not all agree, but by damn we're all in this together." Clark was so strong and clear on Iraq. Edwards made a strong case against the corporate whores and even Lieberman, after the whining, sounded good. It was a "I can talk bad about my family, but YOU better not moment."

Maybe I like to see the glass as half full. I do believe that when the nominee is chosen,whomever it may be, the common bond (ousting corporate crooks) that we all share will become more evident. I was so proud of all these candidates. This was a good exchange, even though they didn't get to address alot of the issues--thanks much to Koppel's pathetic questions.

I have been active in politics since '88 and everytime an election rolls around I expect the heat to rise, but NEVER have I seen such passion in this party. It's great to see it and it's been a long time coming. With all the bickering that has been going on with the candidates and this party, I was beginning to feel extremely melancholy about '04. However, last night renewed my hope and my passion.

WE still have a long way to go and it won't get easier once we actually go toe-to-toe with Bush, but at least we have candidates who are willing to do so and that speaks VOLUMES!

It's a great time to be a Democrat!

:kick:

[Creideiki]

1. As bad as some people want to make it out to be

I don't think we're going to have ads running in New York on how one candidate or another is pro-breast cancer. I think the glass has always been at least 3/4 full--it's just that that doesn't make for interesting news.

[Blue_Roses]

4. BINGO!

"misery loves company" rings loud about now. AS for me and my house, I hate whinners and misery!

:kick:

[wryter2000]

2. Thank you!

I was so proud of all of them last night. I hope they shamed Koppel.

I loved Sharpton's response on separation of church and state. "God is not a member of the Republican party."

[Dr.Phool]

3. We're just getting started

It's about time democrats started taking over the debate.What was about to become another irrelevent Q%A session turned into a discussion of issues and policies.

It all started when Kucinich got on Koppels case over questions about polls and money. They were there to discuss issues, not nonsense, and it took Koppel a while to catch on.

Good show.It's going to make it a lot harder for the media to trivialize the cadidates if they stick to their guns, and concentrate on what Bush is doing to our country.

:nuke:

[PurityOfEssence]

5. That's what primaries are about. That's what we should want.

The Democratic Party power brokers have been trying to short-circuit this for at least the last twenty years. Foreshortening the season in '84 was designed to coronate Mondale, and that's exactly what it did. Hart almost pulled it out, but he stumbled against "where's the beef"; had it been a longer campaign, I feel that he would have recovered and been able to win. He could have beaten Reagan, and he was a truly missed opportunity in American politics: he could have been a statesman for the ages.

Just as planned economies don't work, this doesn't work. That's why communism failed. Primaries are the free market of ideas, and it's often very surprising what resonates and who rises to the top. To cheat ourselves of those out-of-town openings and shakedown cruises is just stupid.

The longer the field is kept open, the more different voices are heard against Junior; even a suckup media has to give some coverage to each. The sooner the nominee is decided upon, the longer the enemy has to concentrate against him/her. It's bad for both of these reasons.

I want a primary. It's cleansing and invigorating. With a long primary, we can really hear the voices of the factions that make up the establishment left; if we rush headlong into the general election, it's easy to slant things to seem like there really is no vast groundswell of anti-Bush sentiment out there.

It's a bad, bad idea. It's also silly of Gore to say that one of his impulses is to quell the internecine nastiness by blessing the nastiest of them all. Talk about irony.

[Blue_Roses]

9. the only reason

why I can think of that Gore endorsed Dean this early was to also light a fire...looks like it took...

[cryofan]

6. it is about building solidarity among citizens

That community and solidarity is why the progressives and unions were able to get the 40 hour work week and other reforms decades ago. But today we are isolated from each, commuting in our cars, captive prisoners of talk radio propaganda...


see this URL for more:
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/racism/articles/welfare.htm

[stopbush]

7. I appreciated Clark and Kerry refusing to let Teddy interrupt them

before they had made their point. The RW commentators are famous for doing this. They ask a Dem a question and before the respondant can get to the punchline, they interrupt and try to send the discussion somewhere else. Of late, Clark will have none of this shit. He displayed the same tenacity on Crossfire. I wish the other Dem candidates would adopt Clark's posture and stop being so accomodating of these diversionary tactics.

On another note - why is it that the moderators are allowed to ask rambling questions that take, oh, 45-60 seconds in and of themselves...and then limit the respondant's answer time to abut a minute? The other guy was worse about this last night, but Koppel enganged in this tomfoolery as well. They should have a rule that the moderator's question can only take 15 seconds to ask, maximum.

[Blue_Roses]

8. that's a good question

ane I never thought of that. Koppel did do alot "rambling" with the questions along with the stupidity of them. I wonder if Koppel thought that since Dean had the endorsement from Gore that all the other candidates would sit in mute.

Koppel ...he's one weird dude.

[Mountainman]

10. After the debate, some repub callers were looking for a Dem to vote for

Only a couple of callers on the repub line criticized the debaters. Many criticized Bush and said they were going to vote for a Dem and it seemed like they were watching the debate so that they could make a choice.

[Blue_Roses]

where were

you at to get callers?

[Blue_Roses]

11. where were

you at to get callers?