I only caught the last half hour of the debate between Clinton and Obama tonight. Quite honestly, it was about all I could handle, but I'll throw out my impressions from the bit that I did see.
The thing that struck me most was that it seemed like a much less contentious debate than the Republican one last night. Truly, it seemed like a fireside chat to me, with the moderator, Wolf Blitzer, simply tossing out gentle questions for the two candidates to chuckle about and on which they could slap each other's backs. That really surprised me because of the vicious attacks being thrown back and forth for the past several weeks, but after thinking about it for a while, I think I figured out why.
On almost every single issue discussed, these two held strikingly similar (if not identical) positions. What was there to argue about?
Maybe the arguments happened earlier in the 'debate', but it just seemed so vanilla, and it proves the statement that there really is no difference in platform between them. The only difference is who the voters like and who makes them feel best. Classic identity politics.
I see two problems with this situation. First, the fact that there is no lesser of two 'evils' [I'm not calling Clinton or Obama evil, just using the phrase]. If either Democrat wins the White House, we'll get the same disastrous policies.
Second, and perhaps more importantly at the moment, it allowed both Democrats to focus on their soon-to-be Republican opponents. They're getting a jump on establishing their talking points against the GOP while the Republicans are still debating each other.
I'm guessing these two will be back at each other's throats within the next few days.
Now I need to go take a shower. I feel soiled.
There's my two cents.
No comments:
Post a Comment