Notes on the CNN Democratic Debate
These are some quick notes I took while watching the CNN Democratic debate last night. I didn’t watch the entire thing, but I assume it didn’t get anymore insightful than what I saw. Excuse my spelling and grammar. I was typing while I watched it:
*according to obama, one of the reasons that people are struggling financially is because they don’t think Washington is listening to them…oh…that makes sense…? off to a great start with the hollow rhetoric.
*first 5 mins…it’s already chaotic. hillary, obama, wolf and a few people in the audience compete for the floor. i thought the democrats claimed they were united, unlike the bickering republicans.
*edwards concedes, he’s not perfect. i agree.
*why exactly does hillary propose tax credits for health care? she has a plan for universal health care, but she wants to make sure people can afford it…? is anyone else confused by this. i was under the impression that universal health care meant that every person received health care for “free.” furthermore, how does she expect to pay for this “free” health care, if she’s giving everyone tax credits?
*joe biden is way cooler than the other dems. and funny too. still no substance though.
*edwards keeps talking, but there does not appear to be a point to his bantering. wait…nope, nothing. it sounded nice, but there was nothing related to public policy. the audience eats it up.
*dodd want to focus on packing washington full of people with a (D) next to their name. who cares what they stand for, as long as they are democrats. that’s what america needs: party loyalty!
*bill richardson chimes in. he wants to “give peace a chance.” but he wants to use the brute force of government to take the fruits of one man’s labor and give it to another. that’s not very peaceful. In fact, that’s downright violent, when it comes down to enforcing it.
*kucinich is the only one who does not agree to unconditionally support the democratic nominee, if it’s not him. good for him.
*peculiar isn’t it; illegal immigrants often work without “protections” like minimum wage and worker safety laws, and obama is concerned about this. why is it then, that they want so badly to have these miserable jobs? illegality aside, why should the government intervene when the employee and employer are both content, and make a consensual adult transaction — labor for money?
*obama does an excellent job of dodging the drivers license question: should illegal immigrants be issued drivers licenses? but then it comes back — wolf blitzer demands a yes or no answer — and he fumbles. almost as badly as hillary did during the last debate
*hillary does a much better job of answering this question than last debate. she probably practiced because she couldn’t answer it last time. she said “no.”
*richardson: teachers aren’t payed enough. we need a minimum wage for teachers at $40k/yr…merit pay…? how about teachers get compensated based on their performance, judged by their employer — who has a direct and personal stake in the quality of education the children receive? novel idea. it’s not going to happen with any of their proposed plans, because that is what would happen in an economically free society, and they don’t condone that.
*cutting off military aid to pakistan might undermine our national security because they have nuclear weapons and a strong terrorist presence? umm…shouldn’t that be a reason to quit funding them? I guess we won’t realize that until we are invading packistan, 10 years from now, and fighting terrorists that we trained and armed.
*edwards will rid the world of nuclear weapons. that’s very ambitious (i.e. not gonna happen). let’s get rid of all the guns and knives and explosives as well.
*what’s more important…human rights or national security? some say human rights; others say national security. clearly it must be one over the other (sarcasm).
*i changed the channel because i got word that MSNBC was airing a story on giuliani’s latest scandal. it gives me great pleasure watching his campaign crumble due to his corruption. that debate was getting boring anyhow.