DEBATE REVIEW

It’s quiet in the blogosphere today, but I’m stuck inside due to the latest petit mal du neige to strike southeastern Wisconsin. So I thought I’d be a good blogger and offer up my thoughts on last night’s Democratic debate in New Hampshire:

• Howard Dean’s kinder, gentler self obviously played well to the Granite State audience for the first half of the debate. However, his two-and-a-half minute tirade towards the tail end, in which he promised to “rip the soft, pasty, girly-underpantsy guts out of this administration and fling it into the next county like it was nuclear waste, or a Wal*Mart, or a rusty 1984 Chevy Cavalier” was a really poor response to the question “What would you do for a Klondike bar?”–especially since that was from a commercial and not, technically speaking, part of the debate.
• John Edwards was OK, but I kept waiting for him to put audience members in touch with their dead relatives. If he keeps disappointing people like this, he’s going to have a hard time winning the nomination.
• John Kerry seems alright, maybe even presidential, but it would help if he had some military experience to fall back on. And if he sounded less like Mayor Quimby. The only electable Simpsons character is, of course, Troy McClure.
• Al Sharpton–you can’t fool me. That wasn’t Al Sharpton. That was Slappy White in a Mary Tyler Moore wig. Seriously, if this presidency thing doesn’t work out (and it won’t), Sharpton should find a home on the Kings of Comedy tour. It’s better to be the subject than the object, don’t you think?
• Joe Lieberman was there, which I thought was interesting, since he’s not even running. It was a nice touch to see him attacking the other candidates, since it proved that at least one of the candidates knows what he’s running for right now (his life). However, his affirmation of support for the Iraq war, the S&L bailout, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, and the Articles of Confederation may harm him among the coveted cadre of voters who have never heard of anything that happened before 8:30 yesterday morning. And let’s face it, those are the folks who decide elections, not us political wonks.
• Dennis Kucinich made an interesting decision to illustrate all of his points with clips from anime films. Obviously, at this point, he’s the candidate most in touch with his constituency. However, he’s going to have a hard time convincing mainstream voters that he doesn’t have a thing for sailor suits and/or tentacles.
• “General” Wesley Clark obviously has some focus to his campaign right now, but I’m pretty sure our current president was not, in fact, the Zodiac killer. Nor was he responsible for the XFL, Gigli, or the tragic failure of 7Up Gold. However, he’s sure to win support among those who would like to believe those things.

Anyway, those were my impressions.