VA Senate Race Debate
by midas
Allen and Webb had a debate yesterday on Meet The Press. It took up the entire 1 hour show, and it is available online to watch for free, here. Under the big ugly picture of the two candidates, it says “Click here to watch Sunday’s entire show.” Click on that.
Even though it looks like you could just click the picture, you have to click the little bar thing. Who knows. Also, it’s Windows Media Player and it wouldn’t play on my iBook. But maybe that’s just me.
There’s a transcript here; the link on their main page to it actually goes to last week’s, with Dick Cheney.
I haven’t watched or read this yet, so caveat emptor.
Midas failed to credit my dad with alerting us to the broadcast. He actually hung up on me in his scramble to watch the debate. Allen makes his skin crawl.
sounds like something a macaca would say.
Here is the google video version that *will* load on mac’s.
Also the moderator is apparently done by a Tim Russert robotron.
Ok so I am watching this debate. Here are some quick thoughts.
* Allen didn’t answer a single question. I wish one moderator would just ask him the same question over and over and over until he answered it. Even if it took 50 times.
* Webb has no personality at all. But when you compare it to George Allen’s constant stupid grin, I think it is a wash.
* Webb did a poor job answering the question about women fighting in the military. He had a great chance at just saying “yeah I was wrong.” But he was such a wishy washy baby.
* Webb said a cool thing about Southwest culture in context of affirmative action. He talked about how if you are going to open up affirmative action to every minority then you need to open it up to poor whites in Southwest Virginia.
* Sometimes I feel for Allen. They had these quotes from newspapers saying “OMFG HE HAD A PICTURE OF A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER!!!” I mean downstairs from the room I am in right now is a picture of a confederate fire brigade, a portrait of Stonewall Jackson, and a poster of Robert E. Lee. I certainly don’t consider myself a racist. It is just a weird how stuff is AOK in the old Dominion but not AOK on the national level. Allen did do a good job of admitting he was wrong though.
* Both Webb and Allen chew tobacco. Gross.
yeah i am against racial affirmitive action but i am for financial affirmitive action. it should be based on your family’s financial position instead of on your race. we shouldn’t use race as a clumsy approximation of poverty, when we can just measure poverty instead. i was happy to hear him say that, since it is against the rules if you are a democrat.
the confederate stuff, yeah, the only wierd things about that for me are that he had confederate stuff before he even moved here (when he was living in CA), which is strange… also the noose is kind of creepy. but i mean, whatev. lee hangs above my desk at home, next to tj (once i get a frame).
new drinking game: every time a politician admits he is wrong, chug a beer.
i think you usually pick things that happen often for drinking games
You’ll be sober for life.
I pretty much agree with you Max about the southern culture stuff – but I do think there is a distinct difference between a portrait of Stonewall and a Confederate flag. I guess, too, that Russert was getting at Allen habit of dabbleing in racism – you have Southern pride but you don’t go around using racial slurs and welcoming dark people to America.
I agree Webb’s no Warner (and he has a gigantic head), but he had reasonable answers and last night I felt like a vote for him was more than a vote for “not Allen”.
My favorite part was when Russert asked Allen what STAY THE COURSE means and he just muttered a bunch of GOP catch phrase – “Don’t cut and run! uh, Don’t flip-flop! I mean, Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve! etc…”
I mean if someone gave me an authentic confederate flag sure as shoot I’d have that in my house. It would be awkward sure. I think I’d rather have a sweet bonnie blue anyway.