Just a couple thoughts on the Republican debate in South Carolina.

First of all, Tivo guide data for live events sucks. I’d forgotten to pad the ending, and they ran over by a few minutes, so I missed the end of the debate at first. They did replay it overnight, but the guide data did not say that. So I ended up staying up late enough to verify that it was starting, then just setting the Tivo to record enough that it would catch the end. Anyway, I finished watching the debate after I woke up.

Two real points though.

#1) Fred Thompson woke up. All of a sudden he was actually there, engaged, and actually stealing the show. There have been how many debates now with him in them? And in all of those he barely registered. Now he was in there and aggressive. He went after Huckabee, but he also was just much better overall. It was an amazing difference. Maybe he is just finally getting comfortable with this running for president thing? Maybe he’s getting serious because South Carolina is very soon and that is where he intends to make his stand. Dunno. But it was a big change. He was actually impressive. If he’d been like this when he first started his campaign, this race might look very different right now.

#2) Ron Paul was in good shape too. He for the most part refrained from his goofiest stuff and stuck to the stuff that while way outside of the mainstream, at least doesn’t make him sound completely crazy. He did an “meh” job parrying the question about the 9/11 Truthers. Those aren’t his views, he doesn’t support those views, but he can’t control what other people think. Fine. But it really doesn’t go far enough. Part of a President’s job IS to sway and influence other people’s opinions. In the Libertarian view definitely NOT by the power of government, but certainly with the power of words and ideas. It is not enough to say one doesn’t agree with the truthers, one should flat out say they are idiots with a questionable grasp on reality, and implore them to take another look at the clear facts. Now, having said that, I see no issue with continuing to take their money, or the money of people with any number of deplorable positions. If they want to give money to someone who doesn’t agree with them, that is their own stupidity and one should take advantage of it. Of course, that is most likely a big reason Paul won’t outright say they are idiots… there is a source of cash there that would possibly cut off. And that is a shame. Also though, the question itself was a misfire. The question SHOULD have been about the newsletters. The Truther question has been asked and answered many times. The newsletter, although it has been simmering for many weeks, only got widespread attention in the last week. Based on the weak responses he has given elsewhere, I think Paul would have given the same sort of “right, but not strong enough” sort of response as he gave to the truther question. Which just isn’t good enough. He really needs to do better. He did manage to swing me back to where I could probably vote for him though. Most of this debate performance was right on track.

#3) As for the rest of the pack, while I know neither of the two I mentioned are in very serious contention right now, nobody in the rest of the group really stood out for me at all. They all gave their standard sort of performances I thought. I’d avoided commentary on the debate though until I finished watching it, so I’m sure when I go looking I’ll find out that everybody thinks Romney won it or something strange like that. Oh well!

Just saw this posting by Brendan Loy. It points out that of course in delegates determined by the primary it was actually a tie, 9 Clinton, 9 Obama, 4 Edwards… but if you add in the votes of the 5 superdelegates (known before the primary) it becomes 12 Obama, 11 Clinton, 4 Edwards.

Oops. We’ll have to change all those headlines now, right? Oh, guess not. Oh well.

Hillary Clinton did not win New Hampshire
(Brendan Loy, Irish Trojan)

If the convention were held today, New Hampshire’s turn in the roll call would go something like this: “Mr. Speaker, the great state of New Hampshire, the Granite State, proud home of the first-in-the-nation primary, led by our great Democratic governor, John Lynch; New Hampshire, home of the 2007 Canadian-American League champion Nashua Pride baseball team and the 2006-2007 AHL Atlantic Division champion Manchester Monarchs hockey team; New Hampshire, whose state motto ‘live free or die’ was once again embodied last year when we became the first state to legalize same-sex unions without a court order or a threatened court order; New Hampshire, which cast its four electoral votes for John Kerry in 2004, and will once again proudly support a Democrat for president in 2008; Mr. Speaker, New Hampshire casts 12 votes for Barack Obama, 11 votes for Hillary Clinton, and 4 votes for John Edwards!”

New standings as of this moment in terms of everybody with at least 1 committed delegate:

Democrats (2025 needed to win):

• 183 (55.0%) – Clinton
• 78 (23.4%) – Obama
• 52 (15.6%) – Edwards
• 19 (5.7%) – Richardson
• 1 (0.3%) – Kucinich

Republicans (1191 needed to win):

• 30 (42.3%) – Romney
• 21 (29.6%) – Huckabee
• 10 (14.1%) – McCain
• 6 (8.5%) – Thompson
• 2 (2.8%) – Paul
• 1 (1.4%) – Guiliani
• 1 (1.4%) – Hunter

Apparently the delegates that Dodd and Biden had collected became uncommitted after they dropped out.

Here we are on yet another Primary day. I’m such a junkie. It is hard to concentrate on other things. But I will… for the next few hours. But at 01:00 UTC when results are supposed to start coming in, I’ll make sure I’m in front of at least my XM Radio if not a TV. Not like Iowa where by the time I got to where I could hear live coverage they had already called it for Huckabee. No no… none of that. I’ll make it in time for the beginning of the live coverage this time.

Cause I have a hunch we won’t have to wait deep into the evening for the networks to start calling the winners.

There were a few moments, but for the most part the Dem debate was nowhere near as interesting as the Republicans. Whereas the Republicans were very much interacting directly with each other, even when the Dems were talking directly about each other, for the most part they seemed to be talking to the audience or the moderator, not REALLY talking to each other. Although it lightened up later, it seemed like all four of them spent the first half of the debate or so trying to avoid eye contact with each other.

A lot less of it seemed to be spontaneous. They all got in their prepared lines. I heard lots of things which I had heard verbatim previously in other debates or speeches. That was disappointing.

It was amusing to watch all four of them try to claim the “change” mantle.

Don’t get me wrong, there were a few fireworks that were interesting. But it was a very different kind than on the Republican side. And the tension between them (well, maybe not Richardson) was much higher. You could just feel the antipathy. And there was less dynamic back and forth that seemed like actual conversations. Just talking past each other and a few attacks and parries.

I’m not sure how much either of these debates will change anything for Tuesday’s vote. I don’t think there were any clear knockouts on either party.

Now I’ll have to spend some time into reading other people’s reactions (I waited until I was done watching). Then sleep. It is past my bedtime and I have a podcast to record in the morning.