Tag: republican presidential primary
Reagan Library Take Two: Preview and Liveblog
Nearly nine months ago I previewed the "GOP Debate Debut in the Shadow of Reagan," as ten candidates were vying to inherit Reagan's mantle.
Tonight, the same scene, the Reagan Library in Simi, California, with Air Force One as the dramatic backdrop, has fewer actors and the script now has one of them, John McCain cast as the front-runner.
McCain reminds voters that he was a "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution" by way of asserting his conservative bona fides.
Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul have one last chance to debate the merits of McCain's claim.
In the comments I will liveblog their efforts and John McCain's debut as the candidate with the right to invoke Reagan's 11th commandment, "Thou shall not speak ill of any Republican."
The debate airs live on CNN the web at 8pm ET, is moderated by Anderson Cooper, and co-sponsored by Politico.com. You can go to politico to submit questions and to vote for questions.
You can prepare yourself for watching the debate by reading David William's excellent compilation of tips for watching.
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: debate, debates, California, CNN, republican presidential primary, elections 2008, preview, liveblog
GOP in Florida January 24 -- Liveblog
Join us in the comments for liveblogging of tonight's GOP presidential primary debate from Boca Raton, Florida, held five days before Tuesday's primary there.
The debate starts at 9 pm ET on MSNBC and can also be viewed at MSNBC's website.
The five remaining candidates (Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Paul, and Romney) will be questioned by moderator Brian Williams, NBC's Tim Russert, and St. Petersburg Times editor, Paul Tash.
In the comments we'll be looking for signs of desperation from Rudy (who had told Russert and the world that Florida was his firewall) and for an escalation in the Romney/McCain competition for front runner status.
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: liveblog, debate, debates, republican presidential primary, elections 2008, Florida, MSNBC
FOX GOP South Carolina Debate Liveblog
GOP hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson square off in their third debate in six days at 9 pm tonight from Myrtle Beach, SC, on FOX News Network (on cable and streamed by FoxNews.com which has a preview.
We'll use the comments on this thread to record live reactions if my internet connection here in Texas keeps working and if the FOX stream works. I'm at a Radisson which features both balky internet access and a cable package that does not include Fox News.
The debate should be closely watched in not only in South Carolina, but also in Michigan where Romney is trying to hang on to his chances after having pulled ads in South Carolina and Florida. McCain is challenging in both places. Fred Thompson is making his last stand in South Carolina and Mike Huckabee leads there and is still rising in many polls of many states.
Rudy Giuliani is polling just ahead of Ron Paul and needs to remain relevant. Ron Paul might get questions tonight about his racist pamphleteering from the 1990's.
With McCain acting like the new front runner, or at least the "establishment" candidate, it will be interesting to see whether or not Thompson, Romney, and Huckabee triple team McCain much as Romney was ganged up on in New Hampshire.
Join me in comments or just live blog it without me should I lose contact . . .
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: liveblog, debate, debates, republican presidential primary, elections 2008, South Carolina
Liveblog of New Hampshire ABC January 5 Debate
Use the comments (register for free if you have not already) to add to this liveblog of commentary on the tonight's debate from Manchester, New Hampshire.
We'll have a separate liveblog posted right after this one for the Democratic candidates debate that follows.
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: liveblog, republican presidential primary, New Hampshire, ABC, January
Worst Debate in DebateScoop History?
Update [2007-12-13 12:56:14 by Ross Smith]: Lest you think we exaggerate, I just found this:
Charles Krauthammer: "That was not just the worst debate of 2007, that was the worst debate in western history, and that includes the ancient Greeks" ("Sprecial Report," FNC, 12/12).
------------------------------------
My last liveblog comment was, "Awful. Just Awful." Steve called the debate "Less Than Earthshaking."
But DebateScoop's criticism was muted compared to that elsewhere. The extremely harsh reactions might be due to the fact that the expectations and stakes were high. These debates are, after all, the last debates before the Iowa caucuses, races in both parties are up for grabs, and the results may well determine who the next President of the United States is.
Whatever the reason, this debate had the worst reviews of any we have seen since DebateScoop was founded in August of 2006.
The first problem was that this event had too little give and take to merit being called a debate. Even the Des Moines Register's David Yepsin did not spare his own colleagues on that score:
"The biggest problem with the debate was that it wasn't really a debate. Candidates got almost no opportunity to grill one another. Often they ran out of time and were cut off just as they started to probe an opponent.
The event would have been more nourishing had the format allowed for more back-and-forth."
Dean Barnett of the Weekly Standard is not as measured as the home town colleague:
I'm sure there are people in Iowa who could capably moderate a presidential debate. Unfortunately, and obviously, Carolyn Washburn is not one of them.
The bulk of the post-debate analysis will probably focus on how maladroit Washburn was at the job. She did the impossible--she moderated the last Iowa debate between the Republican candidates before caucuses and yet saw to it that none of the candidates engaged each other. In other words, the moderator ensured that the debate would be as lively as a 12 part PBS series on "How Grass Grows."
A personal aside to the Des Moines Register--"boring" is not synonymous with "serious."
The problems went beyond Washburn's lack of mad moderating skillz. From the outset, Washburn announced that the candidates would not be discussing either Iraq or immigration. Swell! It's the biggest debate of the season, so let's take the two biggest issues off the table. For what it's worth, Washburn brought all the charm to her assignment of a latter-day Nurse Ratched.
Whether from left, right or center, from blogger or mainstream journalist, the reactions to the format, moderator, questions, and resultant "debate" tended to be closer to Barnett's than to Yepsin's. "Highlights" are in the extended entry.
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: debate, debates, Iowa, Des Moines Register, moderators, republican presidential primary, elections 2008, round up
Liveblog of GOP December 12 Debate in Iowa
Update [2007-12-12 15:27:17 by Ross Smith]: Terrible debate, really, and I blame the moderator. Read through the comments below to get a sense of how it didn't ever unfold.
Join me in the comments for live reactions to todays debate as it unfolds.
(If you are not registered, just do so in upper right of screen. It's free and easy.
Click "Discuss" for more . . .
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: debate, debates, Iowa, republican presidential primary, liveblog
GOP Univison Liveblog
Just click "Discuss" and join me in the comments . . .
Update [2007-12-9 20:35:16 by Ross Smith]: The candidates spoke in English which was translated into Spanish and that was then translated into closed caption English for the monolingaul English speaker like me. The result was humorous at time. Eventually, I just gave in and used humorous summary to communicate the gist of the gist as best I could understand it.
Read the comments below to see this "progression" as the debate went on.
Update [2007-12-9 21:19:18 by Ross Smith]: In the end there was almost no clash at all, with only Ron Paul disagreeing with anyone. Either it was the format and we'll have to wait until Wednesday's debate in Des Moines, or all of these guys thought attacking one another was backfiring.
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: liveblog, univision, debate, debates, republican presidential primary, miami, elections 2008
MTV/MySpace and McCain
I'm watching John McCain on the "MTV/MySpace Presidential Dialogue" live from the Southern New Hampshire University. I'm watching via TV, but the host billed it as the first and only that is live via the web, TV, and mobiles, in English and in Spanish. Viewers can participate in real time via instant messaging, too.
In addition to a host (John Norris), Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post moderates by keeping track of the live questions streaming in and keeping track of the instant feedback online polling as it updates during the debate. He also asks some follow up questions.
Viewers/listeners can vote on how well they think the candidate answered each question. They can pick one of four ratings (two positive and two negative) to each answer and the choices are contextualized to the question!
The questions and answers are as good as or better than any I have seen in any of the debates and forums.
McCain was announced as the first of the Republican candidates to participate. John Edwards and Barack Obama participated earlier.
There is not a schedule at the site listing when other candidates might participate.
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: MTV-MySpace, John McCain, 2008 elections, mashup, republican presidential primary
A YouTube Difference: What We (Probably) Won't Hear
Unless Anderson Cooper or one of the candidates wedges them into the debate as a segue or follow up, we probably will not hear questions about the breaking news of questionable travel expenses using tax money to help Rudy conduct adulterous visits, news that broke just hours ago at Politico.
CNN can discuss little else in the hour leading up to the debate and their reporters say that's the main buzz they are discussing.
But the questions were submitted by citizens who knew none of this. In fact, most of the questions will also pre-date the tiff between Rudy and Romney about Romney's crime record as Massachusetts governor as well as questions about Romney's having ruled out inclusion of Muslims in his cabinet.
These are the kinds of questions journalist questioners would love to raise. But they also do not make for very good debate. What facts and arguments could be brought, really?
And if they are raised, might Huckabee's questionable ethics record also become an issue?
My guess is that tonight's debate will stick to broader themes of experience and policy, the kinds of questions citizens tend to favor. The format has a certain rigidity that does not lend itself to last minute improvisation.
If not, the CNN crew must be hard at work picking out some last minute YouTube questions that would serve as good springboards to the questions the media really wants answered.
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: debate, debates, youtube, questions, formats, GOP, republican presidential primary
Preview of Previews of the GOP YouTube Debate
To get ready for tonight's GOP CNN/YouTube presidential primary debate (8pm EST on CNN and streamed at CNN.com) I read the blogs and the papers so you wouldn't have to. If you want to check my work or read more, I bookmarked everything for you at del.icio.us.
To find the best of the web on tonight's debate just go to del.icio.us and insert the following (no quote marks, no commas) into the search box there: GOP youtube debatescoop. To narrow the search to articles focused on the questions add the word questions. To narrow to pieces previewing and predicting add the word preview.
After the debate you can do the same search but add winners/losers to find items discussing how the debate turned out.
But for now, you can simply click on "read more" to find my synthesis of the news and my own take aways from it. . . .
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: debate, debates, 2008 elections, republican presidential primary, youtube, GOP, questions, formats, roundup
No Thompsons Tonight
There will be no Thompsons among the eight GOP presidential hopefuls as they take the stage for the 90 minute debate from The University of New Hampshire broadcast on FOX News this evening at 9:00 p.m., moderated by Britt Hume.
Tommy Thompson dropped out of the race a little more than a week after the last debate held in Des Moines. Ames straw poll results the week after that debate ratified the judgments of his debate performances.
Fred Thompson just got into the race. Or did he? He set up an "exploratory committee" months ago, his name has been included in polls for months, and his absence was noted as long ago as the first of these debates back in May.
Does participation matter? Will Fred be hurt by not participating? There is a debate about this question.
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: debate, debates, Republican presidential primary, FOX, New Hampshire, elections 2008, participation, moderator, preview
Des Moines GOP Debate: Musings and Reflections
Obfuscation was the winner in ABC's "This Week" Republican primary debate from Des Moines, IA. The top-tier (as well as the rest of the field) stayed largely true to form while John McCain did not meet expectations in jumpstarting his campaign. The host, George Stephanopoulos, despite his stated goal of hosting a "real debate." failed to generate anything like the "mayhem" he was seeking. Perhaps the biggest loser (and/or winner) was the person not onstage (and I don't mean Fred Thompson).
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: debate, debates, GOP, republican presidential primary, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, George Stephanopoulos, This Week
Des Moines GOP Debate Preview: 90-Minutes to Midnight for McCain?
ABC kicks off the first of its two scheduled debates between the major party presidential candidates tomorrow morning with live coverage of the GOP forum from the campus of Drake University in Des Moines, IA beginning at 8:00 am CST (check local listings). The debate will be moderated by "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos and will include questions from David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register.
Although this will be the 4th such exchange between the GOP candidates (still sans Fred Thompson), ABC is hyping it as the "first Presidential Debate of the 2008 cycle." While it might be the first "network" debate (if CNN, MSNBC, and FOX aren't really networks), it is certainly NOT the first debate. To prepare for the Des Moines round, you might want to catch up by checking out some of our coverage of the three previous meetings:
New Hampshire (6-5-07)
South Carolina (5-15-07)
California (5-3-07)
The real spin on tomorrow's debate almost universally focuses on John McCain, whose campaign imploded little more than a month ago. Senior staff resignations and dismissals, flagging fundraising, unpopular positions on Iraq and immigration, and low poll numbers all point to the fact that the one-time frontrunner has his work cut out for him in Des Moines.
Some say this is McCain's last best chance to salvage his campaign with a "Hail Mary" pass. As Dan Balz notes in On the Trail, "[McCain's] performance on the stage in Des Moines this weekend will offer some important insights into his energy level, his determination and into whether having been singed by the immigration debate, he has begun to change his message."
So, if we buy the spin and aren't too wary of reductionism, what will McCain need to do to "win" this round?
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: debate, debates, Des Moines, republican presidential primary, ABC, This Week, George Stephanopoulos, John McCain, Hard Call
