I would have stopped by earlier if I knew I’d be hanging out with John O’Sullivan whose recent foreign travels have unfortunately kept him from these parts.
Why did the moderators stand uncomfortably at a too-low desk? And, why did Lance Armstrong get a question when he has already spent what felt like hours questioning the candidates?
It was interesting that Dennis Kucinich tried to make his sighting of a UFO seem less strange by reminding us that Jimmy Carter has also spotted one. It didn’t work. Kucinich called for the impeachment of President Bush three times (!) and no one seemed to notice.
I thought Hillary Clinton was the most impressive candidate on the stage and Chris Dodd was the most interesting. She got annoyed but it didn’t show. . . much. The points she lost on likeability were probably made up by her competency rating. Had John Edwards been in camera range when Clinton said “change is just a word unless you have the strength and experience [to get things done],” surely we would have seen him shrinking. She is clearly skittish about immigration and her attempt to have it both ways on drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens failed, but all in all it was obvious why she leads this field. Sen. Dodd gives concrete answers, takes controversial positions, and was the only one willing to mention the “electability problem” in Her presence.
How can someone as annoying as Bill Richardson was tonight be a successful diplomat?
Finally, I had a reaction to Sen. Obama that I have never had before. I had noticed that he is full of himself, but tonight I thought he was boring.