DebateScoop.org: Santorum v. Casey

Santorum v. Casey

By taylor hahn 10/13/2006 12:15:09 PM EST

Last night, santorum and casey had their second televised debate.

While the debate was amusing to watch, i had a hard time understanding how it could possibly help voters in decided who they would endorse. time constraints were a joke and the canidates spent the vast majority of their time yelling at each other, making personal attacks, and failing to answer the few important questions that were proposed.

i'm also not completly sure why anyone should care that santorum lives outside of Pa. - he does that because he has to be at work all the time and if he didn't live close to his office, he would spend a lot more of our money traveling. as long as he's representing us, that's all that matters. Casey, though he made fewer attacks, seemed to know very little specific information. when asked what who the former president of Iran was, he couldn't answer. when he was asked how many days he spent in the office, he just smiled like he knew some great and powerful secret.

the debate was by no means a victory for either canidate, but i would argue that santorum won simply because he made casey look like a fool and repeatedly pointed out his lack of knowledge on various issues. santorum might not be the best guy, but at least he knows his stuff.

< Santorum Casey Debate | Two Ehrlich-O'Malley Debates on Same Day Pose Unusual Problems >

Santorum v. Casey | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)

Trivial Pursuit... PA-Sen Edition (none / 0)

You raise an interesting point regarding Santorum's attempt to get Casey to play his "name that leader" trivia game. This is the same sort of question that candidate George W. Bush was asked by a reporter in the fall of 1999 as he was preparing his presidential run. His reply at the time was "General. I can't name the general."

It is also the same sort of thing which has happened in the Webb-Allen debate on Monday night (see: Morello's discussion of the island trivia surfacing in a VA-Sen race).

When format permits adversaries to ask each other questions, we are, unfortunately, likely to get more trivial pursuit and less substantive cross examination. When you say that Casey did not know who the former president of Iran was you seem to validate this sort of strategy. Does it really matter to voters in PA who the leaders of Iran is or was?

by Tim ODonnell on 10/13/2006 04:10:41 PM EST

Santorum v. Casey | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)