The CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate - My Thoughts
Now that debates are up on YouTube for everyone who wants to to watch, I think I'm ready to post my thoughts about it.
Overall, I was generally impressed by the format of the debates. I thought it was interesting to get questions from a more diverse age group than what you'd see a a traditional debate, and from a more diverse geographical locations than just the state the debate is being held in. The questions seemed more difficult than many of the traditional debates I've seen in the past.
On the downsides, CNN didn't get their camera angles right when showing some of the YouTube videos. There were several where it was imparative to read what was on the screen, but they weren't zoomed in far enough to see the video. The YouTube videos should have been shown as close to full screen as possible.
Also, as comes with the televised debate territory, certanin canidates got more camera time than others... Here's the official count on how many times a canidate got to speak, including where times where all canidates spoke:
- Obama - 20
- Clinton - 15
- Edwards - 15
- Richardson - 13
- Dodd - 12
- Biden - 12
- Gravel - 10
- Kucinich - 10
I like Obama and all, but why does he get to speak as much as Gravel and Kucinich combined? Just because he has a better chance of winning?
That said, there were some rather notable moments in the evening that I'd like to point out.
Is is it okay to cite religion as a reason to deny gay rights?, I wasn't fully enthused about Edwards response, but on the same note, I liked the fact that he was honest with where he was coming from.... and where he's coming from seems to be where a lot of Americans are coming from on the gay rights issue
Are the soldiers dying in vain?, I personally agree with Gravel's take on this despite the fact that it's not PC to be saying that the soldiers are dying in vain.
No Child Left Behind - Scrap or Revise? - I loved Richardson's response. Spot on.
Are our "babies" safe? - I don't think Biden responded well to this. While I do agree if you're calling your assault rifle your baby, you're kinda weird and perhaps a little bit disturbed... but I don't think that calling it out on national television did him any service. He would have done better to ignored the fact that the dude called his gun his baby and answered the question as if he had asked normally.
Overall impressions? I was least impressed with Biden. The only thing I remember about Dodd was his campaign sponsored video that was obviously making fun of Edwards and his hair. Kucinich struck me as making a rather strong statement despite the fact that he didn't get to speak much. Gravel surprised me by being memorable for the dying in vain question. Richardson came off somehwhat impressive for his NCLB policy. Hilary only mentioned Bill once for the entire debate. Obama seemed to have his moments where he wasn't a strong of a speaker than I've seen him be... and Edwards... he has nice hair.
