Watched the Debate Last Night

It was okay. Didn't really hear anything new. I think Bill Richardson made a better impression than heretofore; John Edwards is really starting to bug me; Joe Biden is one smart cookie, not to mention being cute as all get out (what a sexy smile he has!); Chris Dodd is pretty smart, too; Hillary is smarter; Obama has lost his gloss and is looking more like a smarter than average, average Joe; Kucinich has a good sense of humor; and Gravel has good points but he represents himself as such a crack-pot it would be impossible for anyone to take him seriously.

So, I'm still no closer to deciding whom I'm going to vote for in the primary. I'm closer to knowing whom I won't vote for, but I have to admit that right now I'm pretty sure any one of the Democratic candidates would do a much better job than the current administration, and that includes Kucinich and Gravel.

I gotta say, tho, I was really looking forward to this debate and I usually like Tim Russert, but what was up with all those hypothetical questions to start off with? I nearly turned the TV off. He starts the debate off by asking them all these hypothetical questions about Iraq and foreign policy. Questions that it would have been stupid for any of them to give yes or no answers to (tho some of them did). I especially disliked the one about making the promise to have all of our troops out of Iraq by 2013. How can you expect an intelligent person to make a promise about something that far out in time? That would be so stupid, especially for a politician. Then again, a few of the candidates did make that promise. It was still a stupid question, and one that I would have expected of someone from Fox News, not MSNBC or Tim Russert. I liked Hillary's answer best of all of them, on that question: "I would like to think that we could have them all out by then, but we just don't know what we will have to deal with when we walk into the White House in January 2009." Good answer. Cause we don't know. This administration is so secretive and underhanded, there isn't any telling what the next president will find when he/she gets into office. I'm certain that Bush and his cronies will do all they can to make things as difficult for an incoming Democratic president as possible. (call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, that's just my opinion)

Then I watched the show after the debate, you know, the one where the media types and the so called experts and analysts sit around and debate the debate. The show where the media tells us what we just saw. I like Chris Matthews but I just didn't see the same debate that he saw, I guess. I didn't think Hillary looked or sounded 'testy' (but I guess that's the label men put on a woman when she stands her ground and doesn't let a man push her around). I didn't think John Edwards scored any points. About the only thing we did seem to see the same was that Dennis Kucinich had the best line of the night when he said something along the lines of: "you can have a president who will get the troops out of Iraq, [do some other things], or you can have a president who is tall." that was pretty funny. And accurate, since we seem to base our votes for president on looks not substance. Tho that doesn't explain how a goofy looking idiot like Bush got elected, does it? I suppose there are exceptions to every rule, eh? But the thing with the media is this: I didn't agree with most of their assessments of the candidates, but it struck me last night while I was watching Chris (and disagreeing with him) that a lot of Americans are just going to take his word for it. Even if they were thinking differently than him before they watched his show, when it was over, they agreed with him. Like they can't trust their own judgement. The media has such power to shape public opinion and they don't use it responsibly, at all.

Anyway... that's my take on the debate last night. I'm no nearer making a decision than I was before. But I don't think I'm the only one in America in that dilemma. Yes, all the candidates have their core supporters, but I think the majority of Americans are still undecided. These upcoming primaries could be interesting. Then again, most Americans could choose to sit them out and wait until there is only one Democratic candidate and one Republican candidate before they strain their brains too much trying to decide who to vote for. Most Americans will likely sit back and let a small percentage of their countrymen decide who their choices will be. But that's the way it always seems to go, isn't it?