babbling blue

It’s been awhile, but I decided it’s time to make a return to political blogging. That is to say, blogging at least a little about real politics, not CTA foolishness and the bumbling idiots in Springfield.

I don’t normally watch many debates, but for some reason I felt compelled to watch both the Democratic and Republican debates this past week. They could not have been more different. The Democratic debate was first, on Monday. It aired on CNN and was moderated (if you can call it that) by Wolf Blitzer. The only participants were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. It was clear that the two front-runners are Hillary and Obama. They didn’t really view Edwards as much of a threat. For much of the debate, Hillary and Obama were at each others’ throats, flinging accusations back and forth like they were playing catch. At one point Edwards commented that there were three people in the debate, not two. The debate was in two parts. The first hour was supposed to be a traditional format with the moderator asking questions and the candidates having a certain amount of time to answer and rebut, if applicable. It turned out to be more of a barely controlled near-free-for-all. Edwards mostly stayed out of it at first, then ganged up with Hillary against Obama. Could he be looking for a ride on her ticket as VP? Maybe, but then later in the debate he turned on Hillary for a bit too. The second half of the debate the candidates were allowed to sit down and were supposed to basically just discuss issues amongst themselves, prodded along by Wolf. The main difference between the first and second halves were that the candidates were standing up in the first and seated in the second. The bickering was pretty unbecoming. The main issues discussed seemed to be health care and Iraq. And how the other candidates eat babies.
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