
John Edwards, Democratic Presidential Candidate debate, Orangeburg, SC.
Mike Gravel
Barack Obama
Chris Dodd
John Edwards
Dennis Kucinich
Joe Biden
Bill Richardson
Hillary Clinton
These are the Democratic Presidential Candidates and the first televised debate between them was rather like an aperitif, served with a couple of crackers in the form of long-rank outsiders Dennis Kucinich (impeach Dick Cheney) and Mike Gravel (who aside from having a good name for a stand-up comedian, suggested that being in Iraq should be a felony), who due to their cat in hells chance, can piss in the wind as much as they want and not worry about how wet their trousers get.
There was no real confrontation and no gaffs, helped by a time restricted format and the lack of direct debate between contestants. This led to a lot of issues rather amusingly being boiled down to a show of hands but at least that cuts the waffle and shows where people stand and after all, that’s what voting comes down to.
The common ground was the easy-with-hindsight area concerning President Bush’s policy over Iraq, with candidates clambering over one another to pull troops out of Iraq the quickest; one gets the feeling that they have little idea of what impact that would have on the country in question, especially the long term effect on global conflict but the number of dead Americans is piling up as the debate prolongs itself.
Having read a whole raft of sources, its seems that Hilary won it by a nose with show pony Obama disappointing with his lack of show pony behaviour and the other candidates blurring into a Democratic mass. Certainly with the audience present, Mrs Clinton won it hands down.
As a non-American, something that brought joy was the conciliatory tone of the Democratic candidates regarding re-engaging with global politics; rather than ploughing some lone, aggressive furrow. However, it’s one thing the Democrats understanding that a volte-face in foreign policy is required, we’ll see what attitudes the incumbent political party bring to the debate.
Freedom fries anyone?