New Hampshire Debate Analysis

I learned several things about the debates overall:

1. ABC really did the U.S. electorate a disservice in excluding Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) who has won several progressive, online polls and, despite having less chance at becoming president than I do in becoming a prima ballerina, keeps expanding the conversation and pushing boundaries in a progressive direction. We REALLY need media reform.
2. This format was better than most.
3. All the candidates in both parties looked tired from their exhausting schedules.
4. Any of the Dems is lightyears ahead of the GOP candidates. Paul, Huckabee, and Romney seem to have various degrees of awareness that the American public has turned against their party. The others seem to think they are still the majority party in the U.S., if not in Congress.

From watching the GOP debate I learned:

1. Except for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), none of the GOP presidential candidates has any plans for us to leave Iraq EVER and none except Paul have a clue as to how to deal with terrorism. They have all drunk Bush's kool aid about being in a global war against "Islamofascism." Bulls**t.
2. None of the GOP candidates, including Ron Paul, will get us anything close to universal healthcare--and most are in a dream world, fantasizing that Europeans and Canadians, etc. want to trade their healthcare systems for ours. NOT the "reality based" Party.
3. None of these old, rich, white men have ANY clue about what working people go through. Only Ron Paul is aware of the looming recession and his libertarian response to it is a non-solution.
4. Mitt Romney(R-MA) is an absolute idiot and the others on that stage like him even less than they do Huckabee.
5. Fred Thompson(R-TN) is a corpse that doesn't realize he has already died.
6. John McCain(R-AZ) is re-fighting the Vietnam War.

Things I learned from watching the Democrats debate:

1. None of them were brave enough to rebuke ABC for excluding Kucinich and, thus, further damaging our democracy.
2. Obama's strength is not debate, but he made no mistakes and, therefore, should still be getting the Iowa bounce.
3. Clinton is desperate.
4. Bill Richardson (D-NM) is no longer running for president, but applying for a job in someone's cabinet, Veep or Sec. of State. He knocked hardest on Hillary Clinton's door.
5. Richardson also had the best one-liner of the night: "I've negotiated hostage releases that were conducted with more civility!"
6. John Edwards (D-NC) has obviously decided to help Obama knock Clinton out of the race before trying to take on Obama directly.
7. Barack Obama (D-IL) welcomed the help and responded by helping out Edwards.

Clearly, both Edwards and Obama think they will more easily beat the other with H.R. Clinton out of the way. And their tag-team may have done it. I also think the two were being careful not to strain things between themselves--preparing for one of them to ask the other to be Veep down the road? It sure looked like it.