Login HereJim Geraghty says that Thompson is out of the next debate and won't endorse: "At one point, I asked this source if the attitude was, 'if you can't be Reagan, be Goldwater,' and the source responded, 'exactly.'" Can we all agree that one of the best moments of last night's debate was the royal smacking around that Ronald Reagan got from all involved? Loved every minute of that and thanks to all who participated.
The post mortem continues: Jeralyn gives the Reagan scrap to Hillary, while Stoller thinks it is still a step forward for Obama.
Shipjack and Economaniac argue about the credit card limit exchange. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on the subject.
Roxanne: "Obama is LDing it, while Clinton is CXing it. Edwards switches back and forth. And that's why, sometimes, it seems like the three of them are talking past each other."
The three candidates seemed ready to anoint McCain last night as the inevitable GOP nominee. Howie Klein wonders if this is so.
Share This 
Spotlight
zed
Now to read!
Facebook Frameshop sez:
Hi there Jane:
I sent you email…
E-mail from Russ today:
This is where my heart is ever more so that the presidency.
From the debate last night:
What Clinton said that Obama said: “You talked about admiring Ronald Reagan … You talked about Ronald Reagan being a transformative political leader.”
: “I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the ’60s and the ’70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he tapped into what people were already feeling, which was, ‘We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing. All right? I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now.”
Also from the debate:
(Same link as my 6.)
Weird how a few days ago the Clinton/Edwards whispers “Our guys should talk” about the # of dem candidates in forums from last summer bounced into my head. Now they met privately backstage. To be a fly on the wall…..
I’d never heard of LD and CX debating! Shows how unstructured we are in the UK.
I can’t tell you how happy I am that everyone is now having to distance themselves from the St. Ronnie show, backtracking on former praise.
This is how the narrative gets re-written.
Also, having read the two diaries on the credit card limit exchange, I have to say the one in favor of Obama is more persuasive on the face of it, though you’d probably have to know the politics of the Senate at the time to know for sure.
New narrative: David/Edwards vs the Goliaths….
Indeed. What do you think of the continuing Obama-Hillary combat?
I am not sure there was a winner or loser in last night’s debate. I doubt many were persuaded or converted. More likely, hopes and suspicions were confirmed.
Although Obama did much better in the second half of the debate, I am growing concerned about his seeming inability to answer criticisms in a clear and efficient manner. For most of Clinton’s criticisms there was a good answer, but he failed to articulate it.
AS for Clinton, it wasn’t pretty, but you have to admire her fighting spirit. She has game.
Edwards was good. For the first time the man and his passion came into focus for me. The early timing and the location of the first contests were cruel to him. Imagine if this tussle had started today and in an economically ravaged rust-bucket state. Things might be different. It is probably too late.
Both Hills and Obama bowing at the feet of St. Raygun and denying it for the sake of the Democratic voters they supposedly represent. Both of them backpedalled like hell last night. I find their Reagan coddling to be sickening. Why can’t either of them or anyone tell the truth about Reagan and his cruel and murderous policies.
Check the front page news box! The folks at FDL have the story in there already. Damn their fast here!
I was obviously happier with the more substantive, less contentious second half of the debate, but the other was good political theater. Whatever it takes to get people tuning in and paying attention, I guess would be my answer — though long term, if it becomes the bulk of the content the sniping will just turn people off.
Sh*t. That’s “they’re” not “their.”
I think we heard the beginning of the 21st century New Deal when Hillary made a point of shared responsibility and universal healthcare being a “Core Democratic Principle” and declaring that she was going to stand her ground and never give up the fight for it.
*THAT* was the highlight of the evening for me. More of this please!
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com
And IMHO this is the ugliest bit of the spat:
Thank you for posting this clip. I had missed the debate. Edwards rocks! That’s how you discuss race issues during an election.
Newsbox doesnt show when reading the comments.
Yes. There does appear to be a problem with Obama’s ability to defend himself and his positions clearly and strongly. He seems unprepared to face the barrage that will surely come from the Republicans if he is the nominee.
Never fear!
Underdog is here!
I think the three way combat is very good preparation for the General election. What is happening with the Dems is “playtime” compared to what the Thugs will dish out. Obama will benefit the most if he is the Dem candidate. I think Obama can intellectualize what the attacks will be but I am sure that both Edwards and Clinton can tell him that the reality is much worse. Obama needs a much tougher skin and this is the way to get it.
I still don’t see how insurance is the equivalence of healthcare.
True. But I’ve been trying to force myself to check the front page and even drill down a couple of pages in the news box just in case someone has been faster than I have in bringing forth the news.
health care has to be an industry expense not a personal expense
they need to pay for their heat, their electicity, the health of their workforce
and we need to tariff any country’s goods or services that does not provide health care for their workforce
that is the answer to national health care
Its not. But how will the poor insurance companies fare if they can’t loot their policy holders on premiums and cheat their policy holders out of coverage?
That is pretty mild stuff compared to what is coming in the General. BTW, I hope Obama was right about how few hours he worked on the Rezko account; sure as shit someone has the billing records from Davis Milner Barnhill.
Yep. Can we say “Rose Hill Law Firm billing Records?”
I thought we could.
S2D2.
You have a point here…
As long as we’re getting personal, let’s talk about money. AOL has a People Magazine type story up about Lifestyles of the Presidential candidates. It was interesting which houses they showed and which they didn’t…
lifestyles
It doesn’t matter what Jeralyn, or Taylor Marsh or Jerome Armstrong think. All three are pimping for Team Clinton and doing everything in their power to make sure the least progressive candidate gets the nomination. What really matters is what the people of South Carolina thought about the performance of the three candidates. The response of the audience suggests one particular candidate is preferred over the others.
His answer may have been technically true, but it wasn’t the whole truth.
Obama has had a long and very tangled relationship with Rezko.
I am really glad that FDL is neutral.
And I agree with Jane @ 18 that the second half of the debate was substantive on the differences among the candidates on issues.
insurance is in the bussiness of denying service and improving the bottom line of their financial reports
health care is in the bussiness of providing service rather then denying service and in so doing that strategy improves the bottom line to America
insurance is not interested in the total bottom line, they are interested in deferring their costs, denying claims, at the expense of the rest of us and at the expense of our economy since in most cases the revenue a healthy person returns back to society far outweighs the cost of keeping them healthy
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....301/441095
“The possibility of a cascading recession that spreads to global markets is real. The need for an anti-recession “insurance policy” is urgent. Chairman Greenspan, Chairman Bernanke, President Bush, Secretary Paulson, Congress and Wall Street leaders have all been wrong about this crisis. They must restore their credibility with policies equal to the task.
First, there must be a six-month freeze on foreclosures. If another million homes are foreclosed upon, the stimulus will be swept aside under a tidal wave of trouble….”
We all pimp our faves…whatever the backstory on why. I can live with that.
Demand better, do better: Edwards [see, it’s easy ;-)]
The real hard part is pushing thru the media fog. Or finding ways to go around it. Because they are, as Matt Taibbi noted, the problem. [sorry I don’t have the link from an earlier thread] And their crocodile tears after the fact won’t mean shit.
The Wal-Mart corporate lawyer meme is crap. Wal-Mart has a large in-house legal team but Rose and other law firms have done work for Wal-Mart. When Hillary was working at Rose she had a lot of non-work stuff on her plate. There is no way they let her have any responsibility on a major account.
The proper attack on Hillary re:Wal-Mart is that she was on the board but didn’t speak out against the virulent anti-labor policies of the company.
I must say, the more I see of Obama, the less he inspires trust and confidence in me. Indeed, if he’s as good as he is purported to be, then his remarks about Reagan did not just roll off the tongue. As they say, these campaigns are planned so that accidents are unlikely. That leads me to the conclusion that the mention of Reagan in such a positive manner was meant to do three things: 1) pander to certain elements of the Republican party and 2) bait certain elements of the progressive movement and 3) bait and otherwise piss off the Clintons.
I think maybe Obama has an underlying agenda that has not yet become apparent. I also don’t think he can answer any question briefly. He’s great at long speeches, but he’s certainly not a man of few words.
I suppose universal insurance is another way to roll out RealID as well.
Obama did say she was on the board…:
A Biden in the making?
Jerome Armstrong is an Edwards supporter. He has said that and he traveled on the Edwards bus in Iowa. Not that supporting a candidate obviates the validity of someone’s analysis, but on that point your critique is not accurate.
Don’t all politicians pander to people who may vote for them?
Also, what is wrong with long speeches? It seems that he puts a lot of thought into what he says. Very different from what we have now.
Yep, that is my recollection.
Same here. If people take nothing more than that away from the debate, I will be happy.
And did Obama really have to bring in the Blacks got rhythm bit:
(Same linky as my 21.)
Interesting, that is the second time I’ve heard that about Jerome in the last two days and didn’t know one way or the other.
Good op/ed by Krugman out today on the Obama mention of Reagan. Krugman is convinced that Obama mentioned Reagan in order to get a newspaper endorsement from a right leaning paper- which he in fact got. He may deserve a little shit about the comment.
Still I’m pretty tired with the shit flinging. Makes my eyes glaze over and I crave a nap. It’s not as if any of this stuff is witty, creative, entertaining, or memorable. Death by blunt trauma.
The real news is the drop outs. Will says Huckabee is done- but that he just doesn’t know it yet.
Freddie appears to be done- AND he knows it.
Edwards knows he’s done but he’s gonna keep on truckin for a while- for whatever reason.
Rudy may be done by next week.
Gettin down to a four horse race it seems.
Progressives will never prevail until they discredit Reagan, Reaganomics, and Reaganism. So far, our Democratic leaders are still praising all three, and very few progressives are taking the opportunity presented by the economy’s meltdown, the failure of private-sector healthcare, and Ron Paul’s campaign for extreme laissez-faire captialism to attack Reaganomics and the tenets behind it — a notable exception being Paul Krugman.
In all fairness, Obama was pointing out how Reagan convinced a large number of Democrats to vote against their own financial interests and support him to get his agenda pushed through. Obama then indicated that in order for the Democrats to get a progressive agenda to be put through, Democrats will have to gain the support of Independents and some Republicans. He was not supporting Reagan policies, just outlining a tactic that Reagan sucessfully utilized.
And this might be Edwards finest moment in the debate:
Hi folks….
That clip of Edwards was superb….
Couldn’t be prouder….
True..and she also a Corporate Lawyer on the boards of..The Legal Services Corp., Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Children’s Defense Fund, TCBY, Lafarge and Wal-mart.
It IS true that in order for a dem prez to get elected AND to get things done, he/she will have to have the support of the great political middle- the place where indies and the survivors of that endangered species- moderate goopers- live. That will piss us all off.
The way Randi Rhodes said it was that he was not praising Reagan’s policies, but was admiring his political skill.
When Obama said “some of this other stuff” my mind went straight to the gutter thinking about old Bill’s “stuff”.
As long as the insurance companies and for profit organizations remain in the business of healthcare, bean counters will remain high in the decision making process regarding who gets what kind of healthcare. They will be in charge of saying who can take experimental drugs, who will get transplants, etc. I want a single payer plan for this and other reasons, portability being my highest priority.
I don’t understand why, since Medicare pays my insurance premiums to my insurance company, this wouldn’t work on a countrywide basis. That does not cut the insurance companies completely out, but it does put them under more direct governmental regulation. Then, hopefully, the government will be in charge of taking care of our interests. But if that’s not possible, then get rid of the insurance companies, I just don’t care. I want a single payer system!
He was quite done before he jumped in the race. As I’ve said before, his (non)candidacy is one of the most hapless and expensive fool’s errand in contemporary American poliitcal history…
It was the universal aspect that is the core Democratic principle. Also, several European countries, such as Germany, run their healthcare plans through private insurance companies. The money to pay for it is deducted from your pay like social security is.
But the beauty of a “universal” plan is that the costs are shared by everyone and not dumped on the backs of the few who have coverage. And when that happens, people who are sick will not wait until the last minute to seek help because they have no insurance. And when that happens, there will be fewer uninsured people in the hospitals for preventable problems. And when that happens, hospitals will have fewer unpaid bills that they need to pass on to you. And when that happens, the overall cost of insurance should actually go down.
The insurance companies aren’t going to like it much because it *will* cut into their profit margins when they are forced to cover things like mental health care and contraception and we’re going to hear the Republicans screeching like Banshees keening over the loss of their slush funds. But I don’t care.
Do you?
Answers irt stimulating the economy from last night’s debate:
Obama had no real ideas he just pointed out the problems.
If a dems mentions Reagan without bashin hell out of him, he’s doing it for a distinct political purpose–probably to show that he’s not a “partisan”.
These speeches are not academic excercises in history.
yup :) I hope that voice stays in the race.
EVERYTHING pisses us off.
If you wanna put it that way, yup!
…fools errands…
Thanks for the well worded reply.
Here’s my problem with Obama’s comment:
(Reagan) put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the ’60s and the ’70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating.
The growth of the USG in the 60’s and 70’s paled in comparison to the growth of the USG under Reagan. Lack of accountability? VP Bush was put in charge of all USG counter-narcotics operations and a cocaine epidemic ensued. Drug-fighter Bush was famously photographed riding in a cigarette boat given to him by a big-time drug smuggler!
I was furious when I read Obama’s comments. Cost him my vote in the Cali primary. Why would I change my party registration for a guy who spouts GOP talking points about the truly pernicious Reagan Admin.?
How is Clinton the least progressive when it’s Obama? Your assumptions about her and Obama frankly don’t match up with the reality of their respective domestic policies on SS, health care, and the economy. Check out Obama’s economic advisors: http://louisproyect.wordpress......-advisers/
How have any of those bloggers listed (exception: Taylor Marsh) not been telling the truth, using facts or evidence? If so, when?
I guess you can add Krugman to the list of “pimps” for Team Clinton:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01.....ugman.html
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c.....believing/
From Joe Trippi’s letter that just arrived in my inbox:
Obama is naive if he believes he will win republican votes, not gonna happen, and he thinks we can be deluded into believing this crap. I’m glad old Bill & Hill are putting it to him, he should consider this an appetizer to what the repub establishment will do to him if he wins the nomination. Still hoping Edwards is the last man standing.
Good!
I agree. Obama was making a historian’s judgment on why Reagan succeeded given the kind of policies he let his people pursue. His analysis rings true to me. The trouble is, he shouldn’t be making that analysis in public. It does nothing to advance the public debate or his candidacy. It’s the kind of thing you discuss in private, and write down in your memoirs after it’s all over.
We are electing a President, not an historian.
Well…I would suggest that the reason it APPEARS that the Dem candidates have annointed McCain as the likely GOP winner is because out of the pile of shit that is the GOP candidates, he is the “most formidable” that they would have to face. Any of the rest would be even more of a cakewalk to crush in the general. So, you plan based on the worst case scenario (McCain, on many levels, would be worst case), not the best case (any of the other GOPers).
What’s wrong with long speeches is that frequently someone else writes them. Over the last seven plus years of the Bush administration, it seems to me this Prez has gotten in more trouble due to his poor choice of words in sound bites than he got into over his delivery of lengthy speeches. The sound bites come when he does press conferences, when he gets questions shouted at him by reporters while he’s making his way to the plane, etc. My point is he needs to be able to think on his feet and say things that people have the time to hear on the news where sound bites are favored.
Edwards is easily the most progressive candidate in the race…
I am hoping we’re watching a tortoise and hare story with Obama and Edwards. Obama is flashy but Edwards is steady.
You are right..think of what they did with Jim MacDougal and White Water…..Tony Rezko will be the same or worse.
Yes, so damn true it kills me that he’s not leading this race. At least Clinton had the good sense to follow Edwards’ lead. He’s been so ahead of the curve.
When did Kucinich drop out?
Sorry Steve-AR, you misunderstood me. I was using the “Rose Hill Law Firm Billing Records meme to highlight what Senator Clinton had to go through in the ’90s with all the subpoenas to her old firm. I was not raising the issue of her working for Wal-Mart in other than being on their BoD.
Steady Eddie
I agree. I think he was doing a little pandering to the Indies and Moderate R’s. IMO.
Agreed. But any of the current Dem candidates would be far superior to the current resident.
I think it is a mistake to arbitrarily locate independents in the center. They are all over the place. I’m an independent and I’m nowhere near the center. As for moderate goopers, what does that mean? I haven’t seen one of those in an age. Republicans nowadays come in various stripes from the far, far right to the right. I doubt that there are any in the center. And that I suppose is my point. I doubt that the center exists anymore. The GOP’s take no prisoners partisanship and Karl Rove’s tactics of polarization destroyed it. Now the center is a void used as a political talking point by the likes of Joseph Lieberman.
Obama is seldom specific, pretty much motherhood and apple pie — or in his case change and harmony. As I’ve pointed out before, the main way that presidents achieve change with harmony is by implementing the platform of their opponent, as Johnson did when he went to war in Vietnam within a year of his election as the peace candidate. (Of course, things didn’t stay harmonious long when the reality of the draft hit middle-americans.) Similarly, a Democratic president would be much freer to say attack Iran, than would a Republican.
Reagan achieved change without much controversy by having a team of theorists with a well-honed pitch about “unleasing the miracle of free enterprise” etc. In the words of Obama, the Republicans have been the party of ideas. But if he’s going to have a big impact with harmony, like his hero Reagan, he’s going to need some fresh new ideas, ideas that are much deeper that “change and harmony.”
When he said he had an encounter with UFO’s :-)
Id give again. I read that we raised 300k last week.
Hair of the Dog
hangover from Rove’s new math for a permanent Republican majority: the Dare of the Hog
the die has been cast…. lookis to me like hil is going to be the nom….and nader making noises that he may run again….
Kucinich “is no longer a viable candidate at this point” (to quote verbatim what Andrea Mitchell said about John Edwards last week on MSNBC). *g*
I think that would be less so if he had has to “vote”. I suspect if he had done a second Senate term his voting record would be between his first term and his present positions.
Obama isn’t tryin to win gooper votes, he was tryin to win an endorsement from a moderate gooper newspaper- and he did- according to Krugman. He’s takin the road GW Clusterfuck took to the White House- tryin to stay vague enough so that everyone thinks he’s singin THEIR song. It’s the best way to go- if your opponent lets you get away with it. May work as Hillary is pretty much takin the same path- but she is by nature more specific and practical- so she ends up taking more positions than her staff would like.
I agree with that completely, which is why Edwards is also my choice of candidate. The only thing that bothers me is that Feingold said that when Edwards had the opportunity to vote on some progressive programs, he didn’t. Feingold says that Edwards is campaigning on Feingold’s record of votes, but he didn’t vote that way himself. That worries me, but the other two candidates worry me more.
That’s not good enough, and here’s why (per Paul Krugman).
WHEN U ARE CONFRONTED WITH LIES YOU EITHER CONFRONT THEM OR THEY STICK.
Hugh,
You make accurate points- but the center IS alive and well. It’s the group that wants out of Iraq- but not for a year. It’s the group that wants better deficit management, but no tax increases. It’s the group that wants universal coverage- but at NO COST- etc. They want abortions to be legal- but rare, etc.
They’re there all right- I meet em daily.