But I think the New Hampshire debates tonight will be a bit different. Both Democratic and Republican debates are scheduled for the same day, back to back, 90-minutes each. That's different. Since New Hampshire boasts a large percentage of "independent" voters, I guess they will be attending BOTH debates? The impact of Iowa will be felt, as well as the pressure of the New Hampshire primary (not another caucus) coming up in 4 days. The dropping out of Senators Dodd and Biden may free some time for more in-depth discussion among the remaining democratic candidates. All in all, I think this will be good Saturday Night TV.
Broadcast on the ABC network. Check your local times.
Click here for full promo details from ABC News.
Or read these Who-What-When-Where "snips":
Saturday, January 05, 2008, beginning at 7:00 PM EST
Live from Manchester…It's Saturday Night !!!
"That's the Way You Do It! That's the Way You Debate!"
Tune in tonight to watch the Republican and Democratic candidates battle it out in two separate debates hosted by ABC, WMUR, and Facebook.
"World News" anchor Charlie Gibson moderates the Republican contest first from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, from 7:00-8:30pm ET. The Democrats take the stage second, from approximately 8:45-10:15pm ET.
The participants for the Republican debate will be:
Rudy Giuliani
Mike Huckabee
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Fred Thompson
The participants for the Democratic debate will be:
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards
Barack Obama
Bill Richardson
There are a few phrases that are being tossed around like candy as it looks like the campaign is getting nastier – "the gloves are off!" the pundits shout; "down and dirty," scream the headlines. So, get out your umbrella for a rainstorm of clichés, with the race this close and each candidate trying to distinguish themselves from their opponents...
19 comments:
I've readied my waders because I think we will be hip deep in bull-shit. Sigh.
The ABC debate will be worth watching, I hope. Anything coming from Faux Noise, aka the Bush/GOP Reichsministry of Propaganda, will not be worth watching.
It's sad that these were scheduled in conflict with an NFL Playoff game. Dang!! A choice between politics and religion!
Diva: I "threw this up" here before I realized Kucinich isn't even going to be at the debate tonight. What's the deal?
Tomcat: no conflict for me! The saddest thing in my house is husband EVERY YR trying to explain to me why it goes from 4th down back to 1st down. Baseball, I understand. Basketball is fun. Football? I must be unamerican cuz I just don't get it.
thanks for the reminders....Kucinich does not know why he was not allowed and he was not given a reason....he is filing suit against ABC...it was wrong...
debate was interesting...but diva is right WADERS...esp for the repuke part....go see HUff post Headlines...wow...
and Hill bit the dust..awfulll....
and Edwards and Obama were great...
come over when you are done-= we are doing a postmortem.....
Enigma: It just seems to me that if Richardson was there, Kucinich should've been there, too. I just finished watching it & am very tired of Richardson's bloviating. That's not a word I use often, but it certainly applies to him.
There seemed to be a lot of reaching out between Obama & Edwards. I hope that's not just me hoping. I thought it was really was the best "debate" so far. This really should've been when the campaign season kicked off anyway. Why-oh-why have we had to endure a whole year or more just to get to this point? Makes me almost ill to think of another 11-months.
I just left you some left-handed comments at your place. Should go well with the "post-mortem" (grin).
I sure wish Edwards and Obama would team up, and that is coming from a Kucinich supporter. What is it about Dennis Kucinich that the media mistreats him so? I am glad he is suing, but that does him no good now that the debates have been held. I was stunned when Obama won Iowa and would love to see his momentum continue. Obama on foreign policy, Edwards as VP focusing on domestic issues, that would be a great combo.
Edwards and Obama did team up. Although Obama poked at Edwards earlier on, Edwards refused to team up with Hillary and sided with Obama when she attacked him.
Pursey: I long to see them team up, but realistically, I don't see Edwards interested in VEEP. Obama has the momentum now, if he can keep the indies in NH floating his way, and not toward McCain.
Tomcat: Those were good moments & I treasure them & hope they mean something. I assume you saw TV coverage of all the Hill supporters brandishing their signs outside the venue? What struck me was not the great number of signs (although it was impressive), but that the only other signs I saw were a few for Ron Paul. Now if her supporters feel so threatened by repubs & other dems, that they will only allow a few Ron Paul sign-holders to penetrate their throng, that says something.
**********
I have a question that's been bothering me: WHY did Charlie ask that nuclear attack question of the Dems the way he did? He postulated something like a 30% chance of nuclear attack of an american city by 2020, a 50% by 2040. WTHF? This is more than passing strange, almost like a prediction.
I guess if it were GWB answering, he would've said that's a problem for the next president.
**********
Ok! Finally a debate held on not pay for view private cable/dish viewers only. the repubs were hard to listen to although Mitt was bitch slapped by his peers- even though he won the Wyoming Caucus. The Huckster got a good jab in-- when Romney said something about "his position" on an issue & the Huck asked "which one".... meaning he changes his position alot.
A remark McCain made confirmed my fears about him-- he said "America is not safe, but it is safer". We all looked at each other (3 of us in the room) what that extreme perplexed expression- WTF does that mean???
The war monger ideas by Rudy-- more troops, more military ships (more wars), was hard to endure. The husband left the room when Rudy mentioned Ronny Reagan as a "hero".... he'd had it.
The dems had Hillary on the defense-- she came across as being backed into a corner & lashing out. Her experience platform is breaking apart. If you look at her voting record, her experience is a bad thing-- a negative element.
Richardson was mighty cocky considering his numbers are so low. Guess he figures he's got nothing to lose.
That nuke attack question was weird... the experts predict it is just a matter of time.... sooner or later, the US will be attacked in the homeland...
how would you handle it as president?
Too bad they can't do comedic answers--
• Why, I'd get my copy of the *my pet goat* book, and start reading.
• I'd go to my extra safe bunker & hunker down, visit with the VP if he stays hidden in an undisclosed location.
• I'd bend over & kiss my ass goodbye
They sure do like to play the fear & terrorism cards. Although I would not vote for him, I liked the concepts Ron Paul put out there.... stop being world police. Tamperproof ID for immigrants (yea right), stop pouring trillions into war so there would be money for healthcare. The novel idea of actually following the constitution as law.
They treated him like lunatic fringe.
Oh! In the beginning of the show they said the criteria for being included was that you had at least a 5% following. Who or how that was calculated, I don't know. I think every legitimate candidate shoud be allowed to participate.
We should e mail ABC & tell them so.
Thanks for that wrap-up, Fran! Yes, the first 90-mins were hard to take, don't blame your hub for walking out. When Rudy got all googly-eyed over the prospect of clamping down on our freedoms, I wanted to walk out, too.
On the safer, but not safe, McCain ... I can't bring myself to listen to a guy who claims to be a straight-talker & then sucked so hard on the evangelicals (even tho' they rightly rebuffed him seeing as how he's not one of them, so all his suckin' for nuthin').
I like your responses to the NUKE question (which I found the wierdest question of the night)! But I guess the format for these debates is to save all levity for the very end (like Hillary pretending to get her feelings hurt or choosing diamonds or pearls). To me, the question was phrased very like the one that derailed Dukakis (remember him being asked what he'd do if his wife were raped & murdered ... to which he didn't show enough visceral reaction). so I think that's what they were hoping for, a moment when the dems would be shown to be weak on defense.
I was happy to see Obama & Edwards almost (but not quite) linking arms. Now we'll see how NH goes. and Super Tuesday is coming up fast!
In the final analysis, Mitt= very creepy
Huckster= creepy light
Rudy= psychotic war monger
McCain= safe, safer, unsafester? I think the poor old man is not playing with a full deck.
Thompson= not a politicial leader, but plays one on TV. My creepy-0-meter is in the red zone with him too. He wreaks of entrenched good ol boy crap & he had a bad response to the what about the highest profits ever for the big oil companies, closing the gap.... he spewed out something about them enduring hard times.
Hard times of drunken oil tanker ship captains?
These are not hard times, these are literally highway robbery times, and so many businesses are having to impose extra gas charges.
How about Richardson's remark about sending a high level envoy to convince Mushy to step down?
What is HE smoking? Do you get the impression in the last 2 months of mass imprisonment of anyone who disagrees with him, and the assissination of Bhutto, that he would be inclined to let the US tell him to step down?
Let's not forget he has his finger on a nuke button himself. That whole segment of Richardson's basically tied the knot in his own noose.
Presidential campaign RIP, dude.
Hill stepped right up to paint her nuke retalliation scenario. She'd given this potential war some thought. Yuck. No safe havens, let the neighboring country know the bombs are coming.
Comforting, Hill, really. (NOT!!)
At least Obama spoke of non proliferation.
Edwards rode the fence saying we must retaliate,
but be careful.
Oy!
Fran: I'm laughing over your "thumbnail" descriptions! Though I think Huck would be "Creepy with a Cross". And yeah, I am so tired of Richardson's long-winded recitation of his grand diplomatic expertise. I guess he can now add "running for president" to his resume, but not to the "Goals Realized" section. Plus he pissed me off a few debates ago when he said he wanted to use Yucca Mtn as a laboratory to explore how to store nuke waste. Hey, Richie! Go set up a nuke lab in ya own state! I'm gonna have to rewatch their answers to Charlie's nuke question. I was so stunned by the question, I think I missed some nuances. But, really! I wanted to scream at Charlie, if you know so much as to be able to give percentages and years, why not give us the city & fallout pattern, too? Details, man!
Hillary was outraged when Edwards defended Obama against her mindless attacks.
Our first ever Nevada Caucus is next Saturday. I will be going. For us it's at the High School across the way. They are asking for volunteers, perferably folks who can't participate i.e; out of state people, high school students. So I volunteered Kira. We'll see what happens there. But I am looking forward to it. I just whish my phone would stop ringing, as I don't answer those polling questions. Ethan saw some guy canvassing in the neighborhood with a "hat that had a flag and an eagle on it". So now I'm not answering my door either.
dk~ Creepy with a cross nails it!
Or would that be Holy Creepy???
That Nukes question was disturbing.
Ugh!
Richardson drowns in his own blather.....
Ain't election years grand?
You get to have a Caucus..... how tempting to show up in a Mad Hatters Hat!
Krsty: I'm confused; the Nevada caucus is the same day as the So Carolina primary? At least you guys are doing it on Saturday, so you should get good turn-out. Smart. Kira will learn so much as a volunteer, democracy at work! Oh my, the guy Ethan saw wearing a flag'n'eagle hat -- I wonder if he could be a "screaming eagle"? They show up wherever there are strong anti-war feelings. And since NV is a "swing state" (don't you just love that phrase), of course you are being heavily courted, hence all the phone calls. Must be nice to be so popular. Our primary is part of Super-Duper Tuesday in Feb, but UT is so taken-for-granted, you'd hardly even know it was an election year (except in SLC)!
Fran: Huck ... maybe we should call him What-the-Huck? I just caught the Dixville Notch NH (earliest primary) vote. There are 2 registered dems out of a total of 17 total voters. Obama got 7 votes, which means ... CROSSOVERS! Edwards 2, Richardson 1, Clinton = Big Fat Zero! Rudy 1, Romney 2, McCain 4. Can you believe Obama got as many votes as all the repubs together? This is shaping up to be VERY interesting!
Krst is one of my sisters, in case you were wondering. I will have her report more on the NV caucus. Hillary was leading there before Iowa. Who knows now?
Post a Comment