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Thoughts on PA Democratic Debate

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I had not intended on watching the Democrats’ debate last night. In fact, I didn’t realize one was going on until I got to the gym in the early evening to do my daily cardio and looked up and saw the two Democratic presidential contenders on the various video monitors.

What struck is me is what struck a lot of people who watched out, how tired Obama looked, lacking the passionate expression and fluidity of movement which characterize most of his public presentations and debate performances. His rival, by contrast, seemed wooden, her hand gestures forced, as if someone told her she needed to use her hands when she spoke.

Later, after having dinner with a friend (and Hillary supporter), he insisted we watch a replay of the debate. I have to say, while her voice seemed harsh (and shrill at times), Hillary came off much better with sound. She offered far more substantive remarks. Obama seemed to stammer a lot and retreat to platitudes while offering evasive responses.

I only caught the last half of the debate. I thought Hillary offered a decent diplomatic response to the question about her promise to use former presidents and how she would use George W. Bush when she took office (in the unlikely case should that unfortunate event takes place).

I thought Obama looked better toward the end, but both candidates seemed to be reciting standard talking points in their concluding remarks. It was the only time Mrs. Clinton smiled readily, but then her expression seemed forced as if she were doing it because a campaign consultant told her to do so. Almost seemed that smile were pasted on.

My final thought is this: I recall reading that those who heard the Kennedy-Nixon debates on the radio in 1960 thought Nixon the winner while those who saw them on television thought Kennedy the winner. As to last night’s debate, I think those who heard it on the radio would easily give Ms. Hillary the win. Those who saw it on TV would also rate her the winner, but by a much narrower margin.

Glenn has a good roundup of blogosphere reaction here and links this excellent compendium.

UPDATE: Just realized the expression I was looking for to describe Hillary’s hand gestures. She looked like a marionette with some “expert” campaign consultant pulling her strings when he thought she needed to emphasize a certain point.

Comments

  3. Congratulations to George and Charlie at ABC-TV for asking Obama about his strange relationship with the Vietnam War-era terrorist who admitted bombing the Pentagon, Capitol and a New York CIty police station and then in 2001 said he regretted he didn’t do more. Until last night’s debate FOX’s Sean Hannity was about the only person talking about Obama’s relationship with the terrorist. I’m sure much of the large audience for the last TV debate between Hillary and Obama had never heard about that part of Obama’s background.

    And, unlike some media types that refer to Obama’s comments to a behind-closed-doors meeting of San Francisco liberals as simply about calling smalltown voters “bitter”, the ABC moderators dealt with the full statement.

    Obama didn’t seem as cocky as normal. While the latest polls seem to show he wasn’t hurt by the latest blunders and revelations,unlike many of TV’s talking heads Obama knows that since all the current polls sampled through April 13 they might not have picked up slow growing anger about Obama characterizing smalltown voters as gun totin’, Bible thumpin’ bigots.

    Democratic pollster Pat Caddell, who doesn’t seem to like Obama, Clinton or McCain, said the slur against smalltown voters will hurt Obama in the fall (as will his association with Rev. Wright, etc.) and also thinks that while it has yet to show up in current polling he expects it will follow Obama into Pennsylvania voting booths next week.

    Had the mainsteam media not waited so long to start peeling away the veneer on the carefully constructed Obama image, we would be awaiting a Clinton-McCain showdown in November.

    As I’ve posted several times, my first election experience was in 1952 when I was 11-years-old and passed out Eisenhower-Nixon brochures door-to-door. I was 21 in time to vote in 1962 but couldn’t vote in a presidential election until 1964. In that election and for the next 40 years I voted for, and often actively campaigned for, every Republican nominee. But this year I could not bring myself to support any of the GOP candidates, including the presumptive nominee John McCain.

    For reasons which are not relevant to this discussion, I became very excited about Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Not being a Democrat, there was little I could do to help her in my state’s Democratic primary but I looked forward to being very active in getting her elected in November.

    Once Obama surprised most people, including the Clintons, and forced Hillary to fight it out delegate by delegate, I gave a lot of thought to the situation and decided that I would have no trouble supporting Obama if he were to take the nomination (which I did not think would happen).

    As time passed, however, I became very uncomfortable about Obama. I couldn’t put my finger on it. For a time I thought of him as the “cotton candy” candidate. His inspirational oratory that lifted hopes and promised some loosely defined changes made his candidacy look attractive and solid but, like cotton candy, when one took a bite all one got was a little spun sugar and a lot of air.

    But there was more to my unease. It had something to do with Michelle Obama’s attitude, which to me seemed like she felt they were entitled to the White House to make up for what she perceived as racially-motivated slights at Princeton. As far as her husband was concerned, I felt he was snarky and smart-alecky. He was serious and mournful when he whined about the Clinton campaign’s “attacks” on him but had a smirk on his face and a gleeful chuckle when he’d make even worse attacks on her. (BTW, his direct mail lies about Hillary’s record are among the most vicious attacks of the entire two-year multi-candidate campaign.)

    Once Obama edged ahead of Hillary in the delegate count he acts like he’s entitled to the nomination even if he’s far from the 2,040 delegates he needs (and Hillary ought to give up her dream and get out of his way).

    (Sadly, I think Geraldine Ferraro and Robert Jackson are correct about what Obama’s color means to his success. If he were a white senator from Illinois he would have long ago gone the way of Dodd and Biden et al. But the mainsteam media, the leftist bloggers and bandwagon Democratic pols are enamored with the idea of electing a black [leftist] to the White House and the impact that would make on how the world looks at America.)

    Obama’s comments (that weren’t supposed to be reported) at a behind-closed-doors fundraiser with San Francisco leftists may have revealed the real Obama and answered the gnawing questions I had about him.

    His surrogates and apologists can talk all they want about his humble background, including a single mother on food stamps, to counter allegations Obama is an elitist. But elitism doesn’t really have much to do with one’s upbringing, one’s wealth, one’s possessions, one’s accomplishments; elitism is what one thinks. And the Harvard-educated Obama is an elitist. (I’m convinced the real purpose of his remarks in San Francisco — which he never thought would go beyond the adoring crowd in the mansion — was to complain to sympathetic leftist elitists about what he has to suffer through to win the presidency…having to spend so much time in backwater small towns with the gun totin’, Bible thumpin’ bigots who can swing a Democratic primary.)

    I think he will win the Democratic nomination no matter how many more blunders he makes, no matter how many more revelations are made about his past and/or associations (which reflect on his judgment). The Democratic left is putting intense pressure on the party establishment and those super delegates aren’t going to risk alienating blacks and young voters, even if it means losing the November election to McCain.

    Frank Luntz ran a focus group in Philadelphia during Wednesday night’s debate. The group of generally undecided voters was almost evenly split between those leaning toward Obama and those leaning toward Clinton. After the debate more potential Obama voters had moved toward Hillary than potential Hillary voters had moved toward Obama.

    Obama was seen by many as evasive; Hillary as very sharp on the details of issues and policies. One man may well have put his finger on the pulse of the Democratic party when he said he wished they had a candidate with Obama’s charisma and Clinton’s brains.

    At the end, Luntz asked how many would vote for McCain if their choice of Democrats didn’t win the nomination. Almost every hand went up and Luntz had to remind the TV audience that everyone in the focus group was a Democrat. McCain’s honesty was most often cited as the reason so many would go for him if necessary.

    When it comes to November, I don’t think focus groups and polls mean much so many months out. Events over which neither candidate has any control (such as a terrorist incident) could overnight change the direction voters are moving.

    McCain heads into the general election campaign with a lot of baggage — George W. Bush, an unpopular war, an economy that could become a disaster, his age and a temper Democrats will try to trigger — and he may not be able to shed enough of it.

    Obama also has some baggage. If the media finally forces him to go into detail about the changes he seeks he’ll be revealed as perhaps the most liberal candidate to carry the Democratic banner in recent times. He can be painted as too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief. He seens to have shown poor judgment in his relationships with pastors and terrorists and it’s possible there are even more revelations to come. The working class voters he’s insulted leaned toward Hillary and think highly of McCain as honest and trustworthy.

    What worries me is that Obama might be the ultimate Teflon candidate.

    I would have no hesitation to vote for Hillary but as much as I don’t want to face it, she isn’t going to be the nominee (unless someone uncovers something Obama has really wanted to keep secret). While, yes, the election of a black American president would immediately impact the nation’s standing in much of the world, there is no way I can vote for Obama.

    It appears I will be an uninvolved voter since at this time I can think of nothing that will change my mind and let me vote for John McCain, as much as I admire and respect his service to America in the Navy and Congress. When I learned Friday evening of Obama’s insulting remarks in San Francisco I decided to honestly rethink my refusal to support McCain. But then on Saturday I caught Justice Antonin Scalia on C-Span, explaining what it meant to be an originalist on the Supreme Court. I had never before heard his judicial philosophy so thoroughly explained. Once I finally was able to pull my chin up from the floor I renewed my vow to never again vote for a Republican candidate who promises to use Scalia as a model when looking for nominees to replace the aging and physically frail Justices who are likely to die or retire during the next President’s time in office.