CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate

[JazzManJim]

I think just the opposite. Now is when you will hear what they have to say. By March the two parties will have chosen their candidates and all you will hear is the party line and promises that won't be kept.

Dude, we're pretty much hearing the party line right now. Every one of these candidates is telling you what pretty much any random Democrat will tell you, tempered by what they think they need to say to get your vote. The only real variation is how far to the left the candidate actually is on any given issue.

 

[PoastMonkey]

Dude, we're pretty much hearing the party line right now. Every one of these candidates is telling you what pretty much any random Democrat will tell you, tempered by what they think they need to say to get your vote. The only real variation is how far to the left the candidate actually is on any given issue.

If you love politics, like I do, the debates are fantastic. If you are cynical, what's the point of even voting?

 

[Recidiva]

I know. Color me less than convinced. I've been following the debate online and the last half pretty much consisted of people asking "Well, what are you going to give ME?!". I wouldn't mind it so much except I'm one of the folks from whom they're going to take that money. Well, they are, too, but I'm not sure a presidential debate is the place to be teaching YouTubers about basic economics. Or maybe it is, but not this particular one.

Lesbian couples asking if they'd be allowed to marry is "what are you going to give me" but it's the sort I'd rather hear compared to tax cuts.

 

[caela]

If you love politics, like I do, the debates are fantastic. If you are cynical, what's the point of even voting?

Ooooo, for shame! Even if you're cynical you should get off your ass and vote. If you don't you deserve what you get.

 

[JazzManJim]

If you love politics, like I do, the debates are fantastic. If you are cynical, what's the point of even voting?

I'm hardly cynical about the issues. I simply don't find the debates are providing anything approaching a half-assed answer. Once in a while something real and useful comes out, but for the most part, it's the same old catch-phrases and press-release fodder I've heard for six years.

Here, let me give you a few examples.

Energy: Let's cut oil company subsidies. Let's find alternative fuels. Let's move toward energy independence.

- Okay, I'm on board with the first one, but then what? What do we do with that money? If we put it into researching alternative fuels, it means a corporate subsidy for someone. But who? I'm good with finding alternative sources of energy, but we saw the candidates who fielded the question pooh-pooh using nuclear energy (they must not know how well it's worked in France thus far) Okay, so which alternative sources do they think are most promising? Solar? Wind? Ethanol? If it's wind, are they they prepared to condemn the two Congressional Kennedy's who are holding up a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast because it ruins their view? If it's ethanol, are they prepared to address how much oil it costs to make a gallon of ethanol (it's pretty much 1-1, and ethanol is less efficient as a fuel source also) or are they willing to take on what using much of our corn crop is going to do to food prices?

The Environment: Alternative Fuels. Less Oil. Better MPG for cars.

- Again, no real complaints. But when it comes to MPG there are problems as well. We'll end up putting people out of work as has happened recently because of the new fuel-efficiency law. We will, at least in the short term, be sending jobs overseas. We'll also be makinng smaller, lighter cars that are, by definition, less safe. That was one of the unintended consequences of the MPG laws in the 1970s. Are we prepared to revisit that? Are the candidates at least cognizant of the potential consequence? They've shown no signs. No one seems to be addressing the real scientific concerns that perhaps, just perhaps, the IPCC report was not the wonder of rational thought we're led to believe it is (at least according to the guy who chaired the last one). No one's proposed a way of making incremental and reasonable progress while continuing to nail the science down, no matter where the science leads.

Iraq: Get out.

- If that's your strategy, that's fine. But you have to face that everyone with even the slightest hint of expertise, including the Iraqis themselves, say that if we leave, there'll be a slaughter. If we're willing to live with that slaughter, then that's what we ought to do. But I didn't see where any candidates faced up to that reality. As well, I didn't see where the word "Iran" was mentioned at all even though it's been steadily working against us and the Iraqi people for years. It could be that they're content to ignore Iran and let it have what it wants when they leave. But they need to at least acknowledge the likelihood and tell us why that's not our concern.

Darfur: Troops (one candidate). No Troops. Diplomacy.

- It's nice to say that someone should do something about Darfur, but everything that's been mentioned (except for what Joe Biden had to say) has been tried and has failed miserably. If the candidates really do care about the genocide in the Sudan, they need to be prepared to mobilize public opinion toward a real solution. That's going to take more than what was said tonight or in any other debate thus far. It'll be tough to do that if they get their way and there's a genocidal slaughter in Iraq.

The Bad Guys: Talk to them.

- We're talking to them now. We've been talking to them. We've tried being unilateral and multilateral. What has that produced? What if our talking doesn't actually work. What then?

This is the kind of stuff the debates need to bring out. Thus far, they've just been a bunch of folks reading their own campaign copy and not actually engaging on any issue at all. I'm not at all cynical about the process. I'm deeply cynical that we'll see something that resembles an actual debate this far out from the elections. If anyone actually does take on some of the tougher questions in the issues, they risk far more than they'll likely gain right now. So, it's pap.

 

[JazzManJim]

Lesbian couples asking if they'd be allowed to marry is "what are you going to give me" but it's the sort I'd rather hear compared to tax cuts.

I'd rather hear much less "what are you going to give me" and a lot more "what will you get out of the way and let us do".

 

[Recidiva]

I'm hardly cynical about the issues. I simply don't find the debates are providing anything approaching a half-assed answer. Once in a while something real and useful comes out, but for the most part, it's the same old catch-phrases and press-release fodder I've heard for six years.

You didn't even see the debate, dude.

That's some "on high" pretention that doesn't even bother to study the subject matter.

The questions were good. The answers were good and bad, but there were more questions answered than I'm used to, because they weren't dodging a moderator, they were dodging a cancer victim.