Current Events Watch

Yesterday the Republicans, today the Democrats. Their final respective debates before the Iowa caucuses to be held on January 3, and a combined three hours of my life frittered away. Must see TV? Hardly. Mind-numbing it was. The Republicans were in fact so boring that I actually dozed off for a few minutes. I did enjoy today’s Democratic powwow a bit more, but that’s probably simply due to my left-leaning proclivity. Not that there was much pow or wow, really. Both debates were pretty tame. And lame.

I was pissed off, too, that both my diminutive Dem Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel were barred from the debate … because neither have a campaign office in the Hawkeye state. Well, that’s not quite true. Kucinich does, but he made the mistake of renting non-commercial space. Live and learn, I suppose. The devil is in the details.

On the other hand, hello??? That weird little Republican black dude Alan Keyes got his chance to rant yesterday (he apparently doesn’t understand the concept of questions and answers) and, as far as I have been able to determine, has neither qualifying commercial nor non-commercial office space in Iowa. I’d be surprised if he has a campaign office anywhere, for that matter. Maybe they allowed him to appear simply for the sake of comedy relief.

Having already been subjected to a marathon of debates thus far in this presidential campaign season, I suppose there isn’t really much that we haven’t already heard from any of the candidates, so it’s little wonder that the last two days of monotonous discourse were so snooze-inducing. Still, I watched.

Based solely on performance, I’d say that the red team champ from yesterday’s episode would have to be (pains me to even say it, but …) Huckabee. Certainly not a fan of the Huck by any stretch of the imagination, but as I said, I am simply making an objective assessment based on performance alone. Ken-Doll Romney (who in the real world is ever that perfectly coiffed?) did well, also, by the same criterion. Of course, the loser isn’t even debatable, so to speak. This is one team that would clearly be better off if it simply lost its Keyes.

As for the blue team, I would say that the winner this afternoon was probably Obama. Again, purely performance-based. I enjoyed Biden, too, and thought he did well. Clinton seemed to pick up steam only toward the end of the show, so she lost some points there. With Obama on her tail (there’s a mental image that ought not be), her strategy seems to be shifting a bit and she somehow came across as less confident than usual. I think the consolation prize would have to go to Richardson. Nothing against the guy, it’s just that his public performances are consistently subpar.

Of course, a one-off stellar performance or a one-time bomb probably won’t really matter much to the folks in Iowa when next month rolls around. All of the candidates have been ass-kissing their ways across the state for some time now, fluffing their fans before the voters head off to the polls. At the end of the day, specifically the third one in January, it will ultimately come down to which contender kissed the most. I think it’s still too early in the game to think that the results are all that relevant, but apparently the pundits put a lot of stock into these opening ceremonies, so I guess I’ll concede to those in the know.

To all of the candidates, get some sleep (try watching the most recent debates, that’ll help), and prepare to pucker up. There’s still plenty of requisite ass-kissing on the agenda. Next stop, New Hampshire.

2008 election, presidential debate, kucinich, gravel, huckabee, romney, clinton, obama, iowa caucus, democratic debate, republican debate, iowa debates, elections