A couple quick items about the Presidential race and Maryland’s part in it to start this evening. I may scope out the rebroadcast of the GOP debate just to hiss at Chris Matthews. Who puts a debate on at 4:00 in the afternoon anyway?
Over the weekend, I pledged to keep tabs on Barack Obama’s upcoming Maryland visit. It’s not like I expect him to say anything other than his faux-populist big government solutions to all of America’s myriad problems; no, the reason I find it interesting is the split that it puts in Maryland’s highest offices because our Attorney General Doug Gansler is listed as a co-host for the Obama stop while Governor O’Malley endorsed Hillary way back in May. And while my memory is that a big deal was made days ahead of Hillary doing a fundraiser in Annapolis a few months back, I’ve heard nothing from Maryland’s or DC’s major news outlets regarding the Obama stop in Largo.
The other interesting note comes from the Maryland for Fred Thompson blog as blogger Ted Pibil participated in a conference call with Thompson campaign manager Bill Lacy. As would be expected, Lacy was upbeat about Thompson’s camapign and having done a similar conference call myself with Duncan Hunter, I would expect nothing less.
I’m still a little p.o.’ed about Thompson skipping the Maryland debate, but in a conversation I had recently with a political strategist I’ve come to know from a local campaign he postulated that Thompson had everything to lose by participating in a debate with the so-called “second tier” candidates. If he dominated the field, well, it was just a bunch of the also-rans in the polls that he beat. On the other hand, if he were outshone the Thompson campaign would have to deal with spinning a number of excuses for his poor performance.
Thompson is already getting a reputation as not too great of a speaker on the campaign stump. There’s at least one national story circulating just today about Dan Bartlett, onetime aide for President Bush, who’s quoted that Thompson “peaked in the spring before he became an official candidate and has little chance now to become the nominee,” and that Fred was the biggest dud thus far compared to expectations. However, a close reading of the story by AP writer Jennifer Loven shows that Bartlett made these comments in a speech back on September 13, shortly after Thompson entered the race. Interesting how that timing works, huh?
What I think I’ll do is post this now and add accordingly after I’ve watched some of the debate. The monoblogue world headquarters is situated where I can’t see my TV so I’ll shut down for now and come back with quick reaction to what was said this afternoon.
Debate notes, 12:30 a.m.
No, the debate didn’t last that long, I was waiting for a storm to clear since my lights flickered a couple times. Anyway, did it seem to those few of you who watched (after all, the debate was on MSNBC) that Rudy, Mitt, and Fred got the most face time? Much like a TV show cast, you had three lead stars, the comic relief (Ron Paul) and the people who get a couple lines in the background (Huckabee and McCain to an extent, but Brownback, Hunter, and Tancredo really got the shaft.)
And they had their share of annoying questions – are topics like CEO profits and the “shrinking American dream” really questions or editorial comments? Quit playing the class envy card already.
So how did I rate the participants? In order, I’d say Giuliani and Tancredo did the best, Hunter did well, and Fred Thompson scored well with his points but for an actor he really stammered through a couple questions. Romney was sort of a mixed bag for me, while Huckabee and Brownback went back to pandering again on a couple questions. I wasn’t impressed with John McCain and frankly Ron Paul was irritating.
That’s how I looked at it, but I’m sure several comments are forthcoming with a lot of differing opinions.
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