Greg Sargent interviewed Stephanopoulos today and unsurprisingly Stephanopoulos defended himself. On the subject of the substanceless first fifty-two minutes, he said the following.
“We decided to focus at the top on the issues that had been at the center of the debate since the last debate. Everything we brought up in that front section had not come up since the last debate. And they all focused on the same theme — which candidate would be a stronger Democratic candidate in November.”
“This is the core question for the campaigns, and a lot of Democratic voters right now. That’s why we decided to lead with it.”
Asked why we should presume that electability, rather than issues, was the dominant concern of many Dems right now, Stephanopoulos argued that it was a frequent topic of discussion on the campaign trail.
“People also take into account…how candidates handle controversy,” he said. “That’s what campaigns are about, as well.”
In a way, his answer shows just how deeply he bought into the Clinton campaign’s argument. She is only arguing about electability at this point, even as she goes through the motions on the campaign trail giving her usual speeches. Obama studiously avoids all talk of delegates, The Math, and Clinton’s electability. But if ABC News wanted to focus on electability they should have been fair and balanced and asked Clinton how she could possibly win a national election after alienating the entire black community by destroying Obama’s reputation through right-wing attacks and wresting away the nomination despite having less pledged delegates.
I don’t disagree that electability is an important consideration in the Democratic campaign. ABC News would have been justified if they had asked a question on the topic to each candidate. But they didn’t limit themselves to one question. They spent a full fifty minutes on the topic, and they did not adequately question Clinton’s vulnerabilities (high negatives, trustworthiness, and no clear path to the nomination). One question about Tuzla is insufficient balance to four electability questions for Barack.
To my mind, it would have been justifiable for ABC News to lay out the series of unlikely things that would have to take place for Clinton to win the nomination, point out the inevitable and easily foreseeable carnage to the Democratic coalition that would result from those things, and ask her point blank, “Why, besides vanity, are you still in the race?”
Of course, that would have caused a huge outcry. Having decided to host a debate, ABC News should have found out what matters to Pennsylvanians and focused on that. I am sure the local ABC affiliate would have done a much better job specifically because they are tuned in to the electorate. Pennsylvanians are interested in which candidate is more electable and that could have been one question that they asked. But the loudest applause lines I hear at Obama rallies are about ending the war in Iraq, providing universal health care, and reducing the cost of higher education. Health Care and education didn’t even come up last night.
There really is no defense for the debate moderation last night. But given the national response, ABC News already knows that.
Here’s another perspective on the essential problem: the debate’s selection of questions treated Clinton’s candidacy as legitimate, despite her miniscule chances of securing the nomination, and Obama’s as illegitimate. Fortunately, Obama isn’t taking it lying down and is performing his usual masterful reversals. I think there’s still hope that this could utterly backfire on Clinton.
Not only was Clinton’s candidacy treated as legitimate, as BooMan said it was entirely framed around electability rather than any other serious issues.
Look, Clinton gets credit for doing what she had to do, make this a debate on “Can Obama win with all this baggage on him?”
Never mind that the media itself is responsible for the stupidity in question. “This is what America’s worried about, Obama’s pastor and his terror connections.”
No, it’s what the Right wants to get out there. It’s propaganda, Clinton embraced it and looked like the frontrunner while Obama spent the entire time getting dog piled.
The Double G’s new book couldn’t have been timed any better.
clueless George. But his reputation has taken a huge hit among his peers. And that gotta hurt. Mavens wannabees.
BooMan, get with it. There’s a flag pin crisis.
These are the same guys who didn’t have the spine, the stones to challenge George Bush and Dick Cheney on anything for 8 whole years.
How dare he mouth a denial?
Dreadful.
So why don’t we see nationally televised primary debate panels populated mostly or entirely by people who reside in the state in which the primary is being held? Regular working people from the particular state asking questions which are on the minds of state voters. They could be reporters, columnists from state papers, unelected public servants and maybe just a few regular working stiffs thrown in to round it out.
Instead, we are insufferably assaulted with inane and irrelevant questions from elite multi-millionaire television personalities who have no concern or intention of asking questions which are relevant to real Americans.
Maybe future candidates should take a hard look at whether or not to participate in some of these mainstream media events which serve simply to showcase the absolute disconnection that our national media has with real issues. This year it was Fox News that got ignored and shit on by the Democratic Party. Maybe next time it should be all the major networks, unless they agree to seat panelists who more reflect the mainstream of Americans.
We can only hope that we are not accosted with another of these disasters any time in the future.
Obama’s responds.
Matt Yglesias alerts us to check out the video at 2:20 – see why Obama is goooood. Win or lose, nothing will stop this man.
Dirt off my shoulders
That’s right, Barack.
Brush your shoulders and keep it moving. Neither Clinton, her lying husband nor her cowed employees (Stay-on-top-of-this) can stop you.
Hillary knows it’s over and she’s on a mission to get McCain elected.
otherwise if she thought she had a chance of becoming the nominee she wouldn’t be praising McCain so much.
Today she praised McCain on global warming
Hillary is now working with Lieberman.
Actually, I fell sorry for Hillary. Everyone, knows she cannot win, but instead of quitting with honor Hillary has praise for John McCain.
She has become the perfect example of misery loves company; She’s full of misery and the Democratic party is her company.
Would Stephanopoulos ask McCain about calling his wife a cunt? I bet not.
we voters need to know what the candidates plan on doing about ending the occupation of Iraq
the TV “news” people wanna talk about Obama’s church
we citizens need to know what the candidates plan on doing about health care
the TV “news” people wanna talk about Monica Lewinski
we need to know what the candidates plan on doing about restoring workplace safety regulations gutted by the GOP
the TV “news” people wanna talk about childhood friends
we need to know what the candidates plan on doing about a downward moving economy
the TV “news” people who make an average of 7 million a year wanna talk about how the only candidate not to grow up in a wealthy family is elitist
we need to know what the candidates plan on doing about our crumbling infrastructure
the TV “news” people wanna talk about flag pins
(it is true Obama rarely wears one. same is true of McCain and Hillary…they never get asked about it, he does)
we need to know what the candidates plan on doing about the damaged relationships with our allies caused by the Bush administration
the TV “news” people wanna talk about Obama’s lack of bowling skills
After reading this piece over at TPM, which puts alot into context about ‘yesterday’s news’ of the “screw ’em” comment by HRC, I found this woman’s personal account of actually being in the room with Hillary & Bill & Al at the Camp David meeting intriguing for the snippet that Hillary was the most coldly calculating.
Coldly calculating is how HRS’s been running her campaign, but as this woman points out, the Bill she saw was empathetic – and it brought him success. So even though that is a DUH comment, it is the fact that her campaign is now full throttle empathyLESS that she is deaf, dumb & blind to making any headway with the voters and is falling off the rails.
Oh, and speaking of rails, isn’t it great that Obama’s gonna do a semi-whistle stop train ride around PA to do his campaigning?
Links are nice
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/17/what_she_said/
Got a link for this? I’d love to read about it.
Atrios noted that he got an email from campaign, lool for ‘trains’
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
I idly wonder if Obama or Clinton would serve the interests of the MSM press better? Who is more chummy?
I might not be justified in being that cynical but it is my belief that Hillary has more fingers in the press’ collective corporate pie.