Crunch Time

Last night I got a chance to watch my first Presidential debate, I've heard a couple on Podcasts, but this was the first I've watched live on TV. Given that Mrs Clinton is running away with it in the polls, it promised to be a slug fest.

Most of the candidates (excluding Bill Richardson) threw grenades at Hillary. She didn't help herself by stepping on a few land mines herself.

Often I wonder why some of the lower candidates are invited. Bill Richardson is overmatched and Dennis Kucinich admitted that he had seen UFO's. Yes, a Presidential candidate admitted to seeing UFO's during a debate. However, if the lower candidates were eliminated, we would have missed the star of the night. I am surprised that anyone that watched the debate last night comes away with any other opinion that Joe Biden won the debate in a landslide. He was brilliant, sharp, well thought out, very Presidential for whatever that is worth, and on occasion funny. At one point I turned to my wife and remarked, this guy could have won my vote tonight. My wife's response said it all "he seems pretty good, who is he?". In one stroke she coined the theme to his new campaign song.

If you have followed Rudy's campaign at all, this was the debate's best line of the night.


Then there were the Clinton attacks. A conservative website put together this montage on the attacks on Clinton.



In addition to her opponents attacking her, she mishandled two questions. The biggest issue was when she was asked if she would release the Presidential papers on her advice to her husband since it is that experience that she is running on. She didn't come out and say no, but she double talked the issue so much that it clearly didn't look good. The second issue was her mishandling the question about illegal immigrants licenses where in the span of 2 minutes she said she was for it then against it. I expect that this will get a lot of mileage and could hurt her.

This is her double talk on the archives: