Hey, I'm Not Finished!

Karol Collymore

The other night I was falling asleep to the smooth monotone of a OPB show. I was almost off to dreamland and Dale came in and changed the channel to MSNBC and the replay of the AFL-CIO debate. I was instantly awake with a racing heart and a streak of anger. Oh well, I thought, I can fall asleep to this debate because it will be boring as watching water boil, right? Wrong.

First off, these aren't debates, they are 30-second blasts of talking points. No one is arguing back and forth and I haven't heard anything new in months. Candidates gently debut their increasingly aggressive positions - not face to face but at a Wendy's or something - and you'd think they'd cured cancer for as much news their new talking points get. But what kept me awake the most - besides annoyance at Dale actually wanting to watch another rehash of "issues" - was the cries of, "I'm not finished!" coming from Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and Bill Richardson. Well yes, they are not considered top tier candidates, I get it. Second or third tier candidates don't get to stand in the middle, they don't get as much time, they just have to hope they stay awake through Hillary's non-answering. But, they are the candidates who actually say things worth listening to and deep in their conversations are ideas worth hearing. Kucinich received the most applause at the AFL-CIO debate from this hard working crowd. Doesn't that mean anything? It certainly means more than Keith "I used to work at ESPN" Olberman asking Obama about Barry Bonds. It was a silly question. The people in New Orleans still live in tin cans passing off as homes; don't ask questions about baseball players.

And now comes the race for states to move up the primaries. South Carolina's is now January 19th. Seriously? As if being bombarded by "debates," appearances at "down-home" restaurants, and rolling up the shirtsleeves didn't start early enough? Now we'll never get to the heart of the issue. We will continue to be subjected to repeated talking points and people will eventually stop listening; if they haven't already. Or maybe that's their master plan...

When will we stop analyzing the canned speeches - jumping on every sound bite like it was Manna - and ask for something real? I will start. I want to know if our Democratic candidates will agree to reverse all of George "Lyme Disease" Bush's infringement on American liberties and get balance back to the office of the president. Do they want to keep that newly increased power? Are they wolves in sheep's clothing planning to use that power if elected?

What's your question?

  • (Show?)

    You know, all these primaries being moved up leads to a very interesting scenario.

    What if all the super-Tuesdays lead to no single clear-cut winner? We don't get a steamroller effect because the media doesn't have a chance to declare that candidacy inevitable? Obama wins the Midwest. Edwards the South. Clinton the North East.

    In that case, Oregon might be either: 1] a potential tiebreaker, 2] a state with the ability to push one candidate over the edge, or 3] a state with enough delegates to have a real impact in a potential subsequent rounds in a national election.

    May I also be the first to point out one other thing? If we do have no clear winner at a national convention, the delegates can vote for anybody. I can't believe I'm not the only person who thinks there is another towering Democratic statesman just off stage, that should have been President already, if not for the Supreme Court.

  • Harry (unverified)
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    <h2>"I can't believe I'm not the only person who thinks there is another towering Democratic statesman just off stage, that should have been President already,..."</h2>

    I think you may have an extra negative up there, because I could believe that you are not the only person who thinks there is another towering Democratic statesman just off stage.

    And I do like your scenario, where things get a bit mixed up at the convention. That is where representative politics really shines. And that's the way it used to be. The people elected their representatives to go to a convention and actually pick the person who they thought would be the party's best choice for the nomination.

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    Harry,

    You are flaunting the fact you are obviously not a Portland Public Scool grad. Everyone knows Portland Public School grads suck at grammar. Deal with it :-)

    Fred

  • mconley (unverified)
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    Karol: My question exactly! I think someone tried to get to that in the YKos "presidential forum," but I remember it being ducked.

    We need someone to promise to roll back some of the imperial powers that have been granted to the president, regardless of party.

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    Good question, Karol.

    I heard a YearlyKos blogger interviewed on the radio, who said that the "YouTube" debate was fundamentally not so different from the status quo, where vetted journalists screen the questions, the audience doesn't have any ability to ask follows, etc.

    His suggestion was that the blogging/netroots community should be putting on a debate WITHOUT the candidates being invited. They should have a televisable event in which bloggers, having studied voting records, campaign materials, legislative goals, etc. evaluate the candidates on various issues.

    Sounds like a fantastic idea to me.

  • (Show?)

    They should have a televisable event in which bloggers, having studied voting records, campaign materials, legislative goals, etc. evaluate the candidates on various issues.

    Hmmm... other than "televisable", isn't that what all the blogs are doing every day?

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    televisable

    Kari's got a point, but here's mine: without the candidates, who would watch it? other than the bloggers' mothers? and geeks like the rest of us?

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    Hey, no guarantees - but you don't know till you try. I could see something like this being really bad, or really good.

    If it's done in a way that's informative, entertaining, hard-hitting, analytical, media rich - and promoted properly - it seems like it could be a big hit.

    If it's done half assed, then you guys are definitely right.

    I hope folks keep mulling this over, and maybe take it somewhere.

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    More specifically, to Kari's comment:

    The idea is to take what bloggers are doing every day, and distill it into something that would be of interest to those zillions of people who don't have the time or inclination to read blogs every day.

    Accomplishing two goals: one, inform them about presidential candidates, in a way they don't get from traditional "debates." Two, give them a taste of what they're missing by not reading the blogs.

  • George Seldes (unverified)
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    Speaking of necessary campaign reforms, here's one I hope to spread:

    http://blog.onwardoregon.org/time-for-a-revolt-of-the-contributors/

  • Garrett (unverified)
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    No one is arguing back and forth and I haven't heard anything new in months. Candidates gently debut their increasingly aggressive positions - not face to face but at a Wendy's or something

    Of course...can you imagine the 8 or 9 of them up there trying to argue with each other? It would be pure chaos. If you would prefer maybe we could take the 3 candidates that have a chance right now and only let them show up.

    As far as Keith "I used to work at ESPN" Olberman goes. Can you think of someone who would have been better? So what if he asked a sports question. Its a billion dollar business employing tens of thousands of people (ballpark employees, team employees, scouts, minor league players, major league players, minor league employees, team execs, admins, etc...) that has one of the biggest draws in the game (Bonds) pumping steroids and HGH through his body in a successful assault on the most heralded record in sports. Its important because when you have the moneymakers (nobody pays to see George Steinbrenner sit in a box) walking around and their head sizes are growing at the same rate as their biceps people wonder and some of them don't trust the integrity of the game and stop going. Remember the year of the lockout? Thousands of people didn't go to work because of that. Millions of tax dollars weren't generated through sales at games, public arenas weren't used hence no rent was paid. As trivial as you may find a baseball question I am sort of interested to know how a Chief Executive would handle something like a strike or a scandal that threatened the viability of the league.

    Maybe a better question I would have asked would be Mr. Obama: How would you handle a government shutdown that was causing thousands of govt. employees to not be paid, not have health insurance, not be able to feed their families?

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    this debate actually was different, if for no other reason than the venue & audience. and while canned sound bites were prevalent, Keith was able to give response time that made the proceedings debate-like at times. Obama was able to chastise his foreign policy critics (who had proven they couldn't be trusted by voting for the damn war). Biden ignored one man's terrible tragedy to make a point about an earlier question; Hillary also got booed for ignoring a question. and thru it all, poor Keith trying to pull out more than just soundbites while having to stick to a schedule.

    <h2>i'm hoping the Logos debate was as good and that it's on YouTube so i can watch over the weekend. it's looking like these smaller, "special interest" debates may actually give us more than we get on the big network non-debates.</h2>

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