Dem Debate Winner: Kucinich!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
By Michael C. Russell
Dartmouth became the center of attention for the nation on Wednesday September 26, 2007 when it played host to one of the six official Democratic Party primary debates. Held in Spaulding Auditorium, where seventy or so “members of the community” had won tickets by lottery, MSNBC and NECN (New England Cable News) shared control of the debate, moderated by Tim Russert, and provided the various trappings necessary to make the stage appropriately patriotic.
From early on in the day, supporters of different candidates vied for attention in a cordoned-off area on the Green; a plot close enough to MSNBC’s Hardball tent to be caught by the occasional camera pan before and after commercial breaks. Democrats of the Upper Valley came in force to support their candidates, as did the requisite SEIU core of “health-care voters” that always manages to find its way into such events. Throughout campus, but concentrated most heavily in the Hopkins Center, were several law enforcement ranging from the Hanover Police Department, to the Secret Service, and back to S&S, which was provided with a couple Segways by MSNBC to improve their mobility around campus (rumor has it one was actually stolen and never made it back to MSNBC).
While the debate began at 9pm EST, dignitaries of the Democratic Party and the College spent the forty-five preceding minutes thanking those who helped put together the debate. Recognizable amongst those who made speeches were: President Jim Wright, who reminded the audience that Dartmouth’s debate marked the forty-seventh anniversary of the televised debate and boldly noted how telegenics changed politics; Howard Dean, who said little of note; Professor Andrew Samwick of the Rockefeller Center, who organized a great deal of the event. Brendan Hart, a marine veteran and current sophomore at the College, led the crowd in the pledge of allegiance. Finally, just before the debate began, Tim Russert arrived to lay-out the rules for the debate and warm up the crowd, cheering both “Go Big Green!” and (correctly) predicting that they would thwart Penn on that coming Saturday.
Following Russert’s remarks an unseen announcer introduced the candidates as they arrived and waved from the stage to the crowd. Shortly after, the debate began with few formalities on the part of either Russert or the candidates.
Right from the start it became obvious that Russert would run the show his way and brought the combative atmosphere of a show like his own “Meet the Press” to the debate. Russert had no problem challenging candidates on answers, pressing for clarification and generally attempting to keep the debate from devolving into the forty-five second stump speeches that they usually do.
First on the agenda, of course, was Iraq. Russert started off with Obama, asking him what he would do if he were elected president and then asking if he would pledge to have all troops home by 2013, the end of his first term. Here Obama, who “has been against the war from the start,” hedged his bets and said that he would “drastically reduce troop levels,” although this depended on conditions on the ground. Edwards and Clinton proposed to do essentially the same, and expressed the hope that they could make good on the campaign promise, but with little conviction that they could come through on it. Biden promised to follow through on his campaign for a federalized Iraq and appeared to be the only (sane) candidate who actually had an alternative to hoping they didn’t have to follow Bush’s policies. Kucinich promised all troops out by April 2009 if made president, thinking that if he believes in Iraqi unity enough, it’ll happen without any troop presence. Richardson, by far the greatest disappointment as a candidate, in a further lurch left argued that he would bring all troops out within a year and said that peace could be maintained by an “all-Muslim peacekeeping force,” which only needs his diplomatic charm to come and hold together. Mike Gravel provided comic relief, lots of it.
Following this and more qualified nonsense about Iran came one of the more bizarre episodes of the night, when the NECN correspondent asked the candidates whether they would continue to allow sanctuary cities, cities that serve as havens for illegal immigrants, to continue violating federal law. With the exception of Biden, all of the other candidates for the highest office in the land acknowledged that they support municipalities violating the law of the federal government of the United States. Yet, the revelation that all but one of the candidates value politics over their constitutional duty to uphold the law, hardly seemed brazen at all.
Next up was health care, during which each leading candidate promised the same dressed up form of socialized medicine, though they came with different names. Credit has to be given to Hillary for having the courage to campaign on the issue that made her a political pariah for her husband’s administration just over a decade ago.
However, the health care debate did lead to the most awkward moment of the night when Russert asked Biden if Clinton had too much political baggage to effectively push legislation and Biden responded: “there’s a lot of very good things… that President Clinton did, but there’s also a lot of the old stuff that comes back.” This was followed by a pause, then: “When I say old stuff, I’m referring to policy,” during which everyone in the auditorium began to exchange looks, clearly recognizing the awkwardness he had created, Biden emphatically adds, “policy.” To this, the crowd could respond with giggles and hasty glances to each other as memories of blue dresses and interns, and not Hillarycare, came to mind.
Returning from the commercial break, Russert started in on some pointed questions to each of the candidates, which were revealing at different levels. Edwards reminded Americans that even though he stood firmly against socialized healthcare in 2004, he really did have a change of heart, and he’s not half as sleazy as he comes off. Then Obama humorously claimed to have risked his political career by being anti-war when he ran for Senate in 2004 against a wife-beater in the primary, and then later against the grossly unpopular carpet-bagger Alan Keyes. The worst bruising, however, was reserved for Mike Gravel who, for his second question of the night, was asked how he could be trusted to run the country after having both bankrupted himself and a company of his at two different times. In typical Gravel fashion he made it a point of pride for trying and “stickin’ it to the man” by leaving the big-bad credit card companies with his debt; a hero and example for a sub-prime world. Kucinich found himself challenged as well on the grounds of insolvency for having put the city of Cleveland into bankruptcy while he was mayor because of some ill-advised crusade for public ownership of utilities. Richardson received a thrashing on several issues ranging from poverty and education in New Mexico to security breaches in Los Alamos while he was Secretary of Energy.
Before the next commercial break, the NECN correspondent asked each of the candidates if they would be comfortable with a story about a prince marrying another prince read to their children in the second grade. Edwards, who went first, went through the increasingly agitating process of explaining how, despite the fact that he is against gay marriage, everyone else in his family proudly and publicly disagrees with him on it. Of all the politicking on the stage, Edwards’s defense of his stance against gay marriage was some of the worst and most transparent. Trying to appeal to both right and left voters by essentially saying he believes its wrong, but don’t worry, he won’t do anything about it. Both Obama and Clinton then made vague claims about ending hate in America, but at least made clear they had a position on second graders being taught about homosexuality.
One of the few areas of true disagreement amongst the candidates came on the solvency of Social Security. Asked what they would do to make the system solvent once more, and given the options of either raising the age at which benefits kick in or raising the cap on taxable income, each candidate found his, or her, own way to avoid the question. Clinton promised not to consider anything until she could ensure fiscal responsibility in the federal government, and would give no indication otherwise of how she would fix insolvency. Obama would remove the cap entirely and create solvency that way, while Dodd, the Senator from Connecticut, said you only needed to move the cap up a little to create solvency. To this Richardson promised a stronger economy that, if fiscally responsible, could restore solvency to the problem. No candidate considered changing benefits, nor was any consideration given to partial privatization.
A high point in the night came when the NECN correspondent asked the candidates if the drinking age should be lowered from 21, but was interrupted by loud cheering and applause from the crowd. While no candidate, besides Gravel, indicated support, Biden deserves special notice for arguing against a lower drinking age because of the risks of fetal alcohol syndrome. Though arguments can be made against keeping 18-21 year olds from drinking, fetal alcohol syndrome doesn’t seem like a good one.
As for the candidates, the true winner of the debate had to be Dennis Kucinich. Through the addition of Mike Gravel, Kucinich has come across more and more sane in each debate, no longer appearing to be the fringe element of his party. What it says about a party where a “strength through peace” candidate can occupy the middle, I’m not sure, but it’s certainly a little distressing. Other than that, the three front runners of Clinton, Obama, and Edwards all proved to hold nearly identical beliefs on most important subjects, while the minor candidates attempted to play off this in a way to assert themselves. Obama’s behavior during commercial breaks proved the most surprising of the night however, for he approached the crowd in a near imperial manner and came across off-putting. Even Clinton flashed smiles and exchanged hand shakes with more tender than Obama, something few would have expected.
For Dartmouth, the debate can be seen as an almost unqualified success, and regardless of any politics most would agree it went off without a hitch. One reservation would have to be when S&S asked two Dartmouth students, at separate times, standing prominently over the shoulder of Chris Matthews during a live edition of Hardball in Indian t-shirts, sending the image across the country, that they had to leave so that they could not be seen. Few would have expected anything less, but it’s still sad to see the College censuring its students and preventing them from the rare opportunity to be seen on national television. n
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