Debates: Don't Believe Pundits

Quote of the day:
“Memories were made to fade. They were designed that way.”
--Joe Giella, in Mary Worth, April 25.

Quote of the day no. 2:
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”
--John Lennon

It’s awfully, awfully early for a presidential debate. The election is more than a year and a half away. Jeez.

But I did watch tonight’s debate among the Democratic presidential candidates, and here’s what I learned: don’t believe the pundits who analyze, summarize and comment on the debate, especially those who appear right after it’s over.

My guess is that the in-studio pundits only watch half the debate or less. The rest of the time they are talking with their producer, talking with each other, having their makeup refreshed, calling their contacts, reading prep material and so on.

The advantage of watching a debate for yourself is that you see the candidates unedited and un-pundified. You see how they react to both what they expect and what they don’t expect. This is much more significant than reading the three or four highlighted quotes or moments from the debate, which is about all that’s reported when these things are finished.

Tonight’s debate really gave a sense of who these people are and how they go about figuring out problems, and how they might (or might not) work with others to get something done.  You don’t have to believe me either, but here’s my summary.

Dodd was interesting and was easy to imagine as president. Too bad he’s not on the radar screen at this point.  I'd have no problem voting for him. 

Biden knows the issues and had his moments. 

Kucinich was Kucinich (meaning that he has good ideas but clearly would instantly rankle anyone he had to work with).

Mike Gravel (former senator from Alaska) was a joke, but very entertaining in his attempt to say big, important things. 

Edwards was his usual nice, sweet, articulate, anecdotal ("let me tell you a story about my dad") self. 

Richardson scowled and had the annoying tic of answering every question by holding up fingers while listing points he was obviously extracting from a convenient bodily orifice.

I had high hopes for Obama, but to me he seemed unprepared and rather vexed by some of the questions.  Other than short news clips, I had never heard him speak before.  He tends to speak in wonderfully idealistic nugget-sized abstractions.

To me, Hilary clearly dominated the debate.  She was confident and clearly knew what she was talking about.  What I most appreciated was that, in her allotted two-minute chunks, she managed to not just say her ideas but lay out the beginnings of a clear, coherent and practical way to realistically achieve them. 

Did you watch the debate? Feel free to comment by clicking below.