Flipping around the channels tonight, I'm watching snippets of a debate on PBS for our Texas senate seat. Um, I'm thinking Texas is going to look like the laughing stock of the country if anyone outside of Texas actually sees this.
First of all, the debate's video and audio quality sucks. Secondly, the moderator doesn't seem to understand what the format is - he's making Tom Brokaw look good in how he runs it.
But lastly and most importantly, the candidates are horrible! I mean, I don't like voting Republican but I may have to in this case even though Cornyn is way too conservative for my taste. Noriega is not impressive at all. And I don't know if any of you have seen the libertarian candidate but I absolutely swear it's Sarah Palin's mom.
Fort Bend Owl Wrote:I don't know if any of you have seen the libertarian candidate but I absolutely swear it's Sarah Palin's mom.
Just be glad y'all HAVE a Libertarian candidate.
Bad enough we can't get big-boy beer up here in Okieland... we get the damn kiddies' menu for elections too. Nothing but R or D. No write-in either, if I understand correctly.
I sure hope it's old-fashioned paper ballots, so I can deface mine. :billgates:
I'm just reading her bio. She graduated high school fourth in her class in 1966 (San Antonio McCollum) and I think the bio says she had a full scholarship to Rice but didn't go, instead choosing to enter the business world. Now I'm being serious instead of kidding around - does anyone know if she went to Rice?
I couldn't watch it past the first 5 minutes. It was so amateurish as to force me off the channel the third time the moderator called Rep. Noriega "the Congressman."
And they started with the amateur hour early on -- Rep. Noriega looked very surprised to find himself on camera as they introduced "incumbent Senator Republican John Cornyn."
The amateur quality didn't turn me off. In a sense its refreshing to know that not everything done in politics is as slick and polished as the national campaigns -- and costs as much money. It's a testament to how entrenched the Republicans are in Texas that a senator who rode W's coat-tails into office, and always supported the party line is projected to easily win. In many other states Coryn would be more vulnerable.
Quote:October 10, 2008 1:35 PM
HK: TEXAS SENATE DEBATE--WHY BOTHER?
Last night's debate seemed more intended to conceal than to reveal
After twenty minutes of last night's three way Texas Senate debate, this political junkie turned off the tube.
It takes a lot to inspire me to skip a political engagement that takes place only every six years, but this one was insulting.
The country is in two wars and facing the most wrenching financial crisis since the Great Depression. One might think that a substantive discussion might have been in order.
Boy were we wrong.
The format was inspired...if you wanted to insult the intelligence of anyone with more than a sixth grade education. The format -- thirty second answers, no followups.
So we were treated to such dazzling displays as former Harris County Republican Chair Gary Polland asking Democratic contender Rick Noriega what he would do to reform social security which is a serious question. Noriega responded that incumbent Senator Cornyn supported privatizing social security and what a disaster that would be in this market...at which point he ran out of time.
Cornyn responded with some inside baseball reference to a vote he had cast and then, since he was out of time, referred viewers to his website.
That was the discussion about social security.
As anyone who has watched the two presidential and one vice-presidential debate knows, the answers are typically well-rehearsed talking points. But the style and interaction between the personalities can be revealing. Plus, there are actually viewers who are just tuning into the campaign that might find a discussion informative.
John Cornyn has been plagued with low approval numbers for much of the last year. Noriega has not had the funding to make much of an impression on the voters. Nothing happened to change that for either candidate last night.
Call it a win for the incumbent since we found out nothing new about him or his challenger.
Everything about the format in the thirty minutes I put up with reeked of contempt for voters trying to sort out a serious choice.
I thought moderate Democrats went extinct around the time I when I was in Rice in the early 1970s.
A relative of mine who went to Rice in the early 1960s said:
The Republicans are like what the Democrats used to be like
and the Democrats have become the socialist party.
Quote:October 10, 2008 1:35 PM
HK: TEXAS SENATE DEBATE--WHY BOTHER?
Last night's debate seemed more intended to conceal than to reveal
After twenty minutes of last night's three way Texas Senate debate, this political junkie turned off the tube.
It takes a lot to inspire me to skip a political engagement that takes place only every six years, but this one was insulting.
The country is in two wars and facing the most wrenching financial crisis since the Great Depression. One might think that a substantive discussion might have been in order.
Boy were we wrong.
The format was inspired...if you wanted to insult the intelligence of anyone with more than a sixth grade education. The format -- thirty second answers, no followups.
So we were treated to such dazzling displays as former Harris County Republican Chair Gary Polland asking Democratic contender Rick Noriega what he would do to reform social security which is a serious question. Noriega responded that incumbent Senator Cornyn supported privatizing social security and what a disaster that would be in this market...at which point he ran out of time.
Cornyn responded with some inside baseball reference to a vote he had cast and then, since he was out of time, referred viewers to his website.
That was the discussion about social security.
As anyone who has watched the two presidential and one vice-presidential debate knows, the answers are typically well-rehearsed talking points. But the style and interaction between the personalities can be revealing. Plus, there are actually viewers who are just tuning into the campaign that might find a discussion informative.
John Cornyn has been plagued with low approval numbers for much of the last year. Noriega has not had the funding to make much of an impression on the voters. Nothing happened to change that for either candidate last night.
Call it a win for the incumbent since we found out nothing new about him or his challenger.
Everything about the format in the thirty minutes I put up with reeked of contempt for voters trying to sort out a serious choice.
After the bailout and McCain saying he wants to buy up all the mortgages around, there seems to be plenty of born again socialists among the Republicans!
I'm a pretty hard-core Republican with strong libertarian tendencies, and I must admit that after watching last night's debate I would consider Noriega over Cornyn in a two-man race. Noriega attacked Cornyn from the right on a lot of issues, including deficit spending, No Banker Left Behind, and property rights. In any case, I absolutely, positively will never vote for John Cornyn again after his vote for Wall Street welfare.
As for Yvonne Schick, I'll likely vote for her. I thought last night's question about her religion (Scientology) was a way for the questioner to get in a cheap shot, similar to the way some people run around calling Obama by his middle name to stoke racial tensions.
75Owl Wrote:I thought moderate Democrats went extinct around the time I when I was in Rice in the early 1970s.
A relative of mine who went to Rice in the early 1960s said:
The Republicans are like what the Democrats used to be like
and the Democrats have become the socialist party.
The "purge" of any conservative/moderate influence in the Texas Democrat party stated in 1972 and was pretty much complete by 1974. Francis "Sissy" Farenthold, the evil Billie Carr, Gene Jones and Bob Gammage (a/k/a Bob Garbage) pretty made every conservative Democrat in Texas persona non grata in the Party.
It was more than difference in opinion, it was vile personal attacks on anyone that supported Preston Smith, George Wallace, John Connally, etc. in the past.
When Reagan announced for the Presidency in 1975 the conservavies/moderatres left to the Republicans in droves.
On the other hand, one of my best friends voted for Wallace and later managed to find his way to the Republican party without ever being personally attacked by any of the evil overlords of Texas liberalism.
75Owl Wrote:I thought moderate Democrats went extinct around the time I when I was in Rice in the early 1970s.
A relative of mine who went to Rice in the early 1960s said:
The Republicans are like what the Democrats used to be like
and the Democrats have become the socialist party.
I don't think you realize how far right the whole spectrum has shifted since the 1960's. When I was an undergrad there were serious discussions in Democratic circles of a "right to decent housing" and of the government as employer of last resort. Think of the reaction if anyone proposed either of those things now.
75Owl Wrote:I thought moderate Democrats went extinct around the time I when I was in Rice in the early 1970s.
The problem is that moderates of both parties (a) don't make for good TV, the wingnuts do that; and (b) have trouble getting out of contested primaries in years where the country (or, more importantly, the district in question) is steady financially and socially.
The end result is (1) the public bemoaning the XXXX party as being wholly owned by the socialists, fascists, bedroom police, baby killers, pro-lifers, tax and spenders, spend and spenders, etc., because those are the representatives of the party they see in the media (2) moderates having problems getting into general election candidacies during the times when moderation by leaders is most needed and (3) the general election voter having few good choices anywhere on the ballot in November.
Old Sammy Wrote:I don't think you realize how far right the whole spectrum has shifted since the 1960's. When I was an undergrad there were serious discussions in Democratic circles of a "right to decent housing" and of the government as employer of last resort. Think of the reaction if anyone proposed either of those things now.
Change that to the right to own the house you bought regardless the wisdom of it and the government as employer of last resort for banks and it sounds rather contemporary.
But if you look at what JFK was saying it would seem pretty coservative now. LBJ got us on the path to the Great Society entitlements when he received what he considered was a mandate in the 1964 election. What surprises is how people think Obama is a great speaker when LBJ was doing a lot better job selling the Great Society.
The demand for decent housing is not quite as important now because there are many fewer people now living in shacks without inside plumbing, A/C, etc. because of the basice improvement in living standards since then. There was not that much unemployment in the 1960s so there was not that much need for an employer of the last resort.
Old Sammy Wrote:
75Owl Wrote:I thought moderate Democrats went extinct around the time I when I was in Rice in the early 1970s.
A relative of mine who went to Rice in the early 1960s said:
The Republicans are like what the Democrats used to be like
and the Democrats have become the socialist party.
I don't think you realize how far right the whole spectrum has shifted since the 1960's. When I was an undergrad there were serious discussions in Democratic circles of a "right to decent housing" and of the government as employer of last resort. Think of the reaction if anyone proposed either of those things now.
![[Image: RE_Favorite%20cropped.jpg]](http://yvonneforsenate.com/images/RE_Favorite%20cropped.jpg)
But I'd say it's a pretty effective, if long, ad.)
