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Widener University School of Law or Faber College?
Editor's note: We asked all our finalists to watch and then assess the debate between
At any moment during this morning's curious debate between Delaware U.S. Senate candidates Christine O'Donnell and Chris Coons at Widener University School of Law I was hoping John Belushi's Animal House character, Bluto, would walk into the auditorium with a chainsaw and carve up a dead horse.
After all, Christine O'Donnell admits that she had, "Three senior years," at Fairleigh Dickinson College reminding me of Bluto's, famous proclamation, "Seven years of college down the drain!"
At least O'Donnell's got a sense of humor. And she has to. Because it is clear that O'Donnell is not only fighting Coons, but also the entire media panel who all seemed to want to get their "gotcha moment" with her.
For example, O'Donnell was asked nearly every question first, giving Coons time to both develop his response and to nitpick at O'Donnell. Even a member of the audience called out the panel and the moderator on this tactic about midway through the debate.
This approach was most evident when one reporter asked Ms. O'Donnell to provide her positions on the 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, without reference. I'm sorry, but how many of us, right now, could recite even the basic idea of each of those amendments?
Time's up. Wikipedia tells us that the 14th deals with citizenship rights, the 16th gives theCongress the power to tax, and the 17th deems that U.S. Senators shall be elected by a popular vote (they were once elected by state legislators). O'Donnell got one and had to ask for the other two, while Coons was furiously scribbling on his notepad.
But the main distinction between the two, I found, was that Coons is a rich, well-oiled machine who slides his way around tough questions. He's well schooled on the party talking points and I saw the way he spoke over and about O'Donnell as borderline chauvinistic. Further, Coons is a self-described Marxist, and I found him duplicitous when saying he wanted to get more capital to small businesses yet supported ending the Bush tax cuts for the self-employed that make over $250,000. What small business can survive on less than that in revenues? He also made the bold proclamation that, "We have not succeeded in Afghanistan." I'm sure all the troops appreciate your support, Chris.
I found O'Donnell more passionate and actually more accurate on economic issues and defense, despite a sometimes-awkward delivery. She advocated getting more capital into the hands of small businesses with tax credits and sustaining the tax cuts, railing against Coons for wanting to raise taxes. She also handed Coons his jockstrap on defense issues as he waffled on when the U.S. should commit troops in harm's way and for his criticism of progress in Afghanistan. O'Donnell was lucid when she said that she would recommend the use of force in response to threats against U.S. vital interests. That's actually right.
Give me a passionate, caring person of the people who pays her own health insurance over a rich, career bureaucrat any day. When pressured by O'Donnell, Coons often bailed to the panel or moderator. I found him, in fact, like a ducking staff officer instead of a commander. O'Donnell, for all her quirkiness, seems to be more of a firebrand leader. She has to try harder, be better, and, in the end I found her, as one of the chat session participants said, "...a better man than him."
And I guess that's the standard for her. Because she's a conservative woman, O'Donnell gets trick constitutional questions to answer first. Coons, on the other hand, gets to answer first, "Is HIV bad?"
And the one actual tough question Coons got, he completely avoided with a long, droning answer, with no media follow up, that had me thinking the fix is in, as I looked for my Animal House DVD.
Read more entries from this challenge round. Check out what the judges think. And come back Friday to vote.
By
Anthony Tata
|
October 19, 2010; 10:06 AM ET
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Blogging Challenge
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Posted by: waltersobchak2 | October 20, 2010 12:50 PM
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"Give me a passionate, caring person of the people?" Seriously, O'Donnell caring? About herself for sure, but surly not for most Americans, with whom she disagrees. Of the people? Not many of us dabbled in witchcraft. GP start with the facts, not their narrow political beliefs. No GP here.
Posted by: chucky-el | October 20, 2010 10:23 AM
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O'Donnell should know that Fat Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life.
Nonetheless "It wasn't over when the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor."
Posted by: DDOG | October 20, 2010 8:43 AM
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@Waltersobchek: Thank you for calling the author out on revenue vs. income. Saves me the effort.
@ArmyBrat: Ditto with regards to the Marxist reference.
@the author: You forgot to mention that at the end of “Animal House” Bluto becomes a U.S. Senator. So much for the fix being on.
Posted by: MsJS | October 19, 2010 3:19 PM
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I admire this post for taking a contrarian view. All the other bloggers stood pat with the "O'Donnell's an idiot, isn't it a shame that we have to deal with this?" approach. Nice to see a blogger go out on a limb. On the other hand, referring to Coons as a Marxist is over the top - yes, he referred to himself as a "bearded Marxist" many years ago but it's clear from context that it was hyperbole even then.
O'Donnell's not going to win, so this was a harmless exercise for the contestants. It would be much more interesting to see them try an analysis of the Reid-Angle debate.
Posted by: ArmyBrat1 | October 19, 2010 1:45 PM
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One word: ideologue. Your right wing, I get it. Now work on being open enough to admit when your candidate flubs. I've never seen a debate where one side made no mistakes. Your rosy eyed appraisal of O'Donnel is something I could've read from a tea party brochure and shows a stunning lack of analysis.
Posted by: CorduroyBard | October 19, 2010 1:10 PM
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Coons is a self described Marxist? I'm guessing you used wikipedia this AM to research Coons and came up with that little gem. Its amazing (and unfortunate) what a guy can find on the web and run with.
Posted by: rcupps | October 19, 2010 1:10 PM
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i'm confused, your blog never mentions the most glaring problem with odonnell in this debate: she didn't know the first adm. calls for a seperation of church and state.
you say:
Give me a passionate, caring person of the people who pays her own health insurance over a rich, career bureaucrat any day.'
In that case give me a candidate who knows that our consititution allows for a seperation of church and state.
Posted by: historykc | October 19, 2010 12:49 PM
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General Tata,
Are you proposing Bluto for Senate? That might be absurd (though admittedly, not that much more absurd than O’Donnell for Senate), but at least it might constitute an original thought.
Otherwise, what you’ve got here is no more than an assortment of the usual Republican talking points:
People who oppose particular foreign policies are unpatriotic or “don’t support the troops”. Do you honestly believe that, General?
Democrats are Marxists bent of crushing American capitalism. Seriously? Capitalism seemed to do pretty well under President Clinton.
Rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans means snuffing out small business. Really? Nevermind that the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation found that only 3 percent of taxpayers with ANY NET POSITIVE BUSINESS INCOME AT ALL will be affected by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. (http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3691) That means 97% of small businesses will be unaffected.
What’s worse is that in the service of that last discredited claim, you make the even more dishonest move of trying to substitute revenues for income. The small business owner that would be affected by the end of the Bush tax cuts would have to make more than $250,000 in personal income from her business. That’s profit after accounting for payroll, rent, inventory, depreciation and all other operating costs. Come on. You and I both know the difference between revenue and income. General, I find you distinctly duplicitous on this point.
Give me a thoughtful, honest analyst who thinks through the issues over a partisan hack mindlessly (or worse, cynically) spreading disinformation any day. For good, intellectually honest right-leaning punditry, check out William Cunion.
Posted by: waltersobchak2 | October 19, 2010 12:00 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
You know what I realized? Perhaps I was too swift to accuse General Tata of dishonesty when he confused revenues with income.
I'll be more charitable. After all, the author has spent his career in public service. I certainly would not want to disparage that service in the least.
However, I could see how someone who always simply spent the whole of their bureaucratically-allocated budget in any given fiscal year without making any attempt to carry over money to the next might confuse revenues with income. After all, income is what's left over after all the costs have been subtracted out. At the pentagon, (or for that matter, the DC Public Schools), all the incentives are to spend every penny you get, lest policymakers think that you can get by with less next year.