Posted on 10/16/2010 11:32:31 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Any fair account of last night's debate between Sharron Angle and Harry Reid concludes that the GOP challenger won easily, because she provided reassurance to Nevada voters that she is a mainstream conservative even as the format showcased Harry Reid's halting, often confused and non-responsive answers to direct questions.
Reid needed Angle to stumble. She didn't. He did. I suspect the donations are flowing again to www.SharronAngle.com. I did watch with amazement the CNN hatchet job on Angle on Anderson Cooper's program when I got back to my hotel after a townhall meeting I conducted with Mike Gallagher in Scottsdale
The segment opened with a trumped-up slam on Angle for expressing concern over informal Sharia law systems taking root in some small parts of the country. --it is a widespread issue in Great Britain and is likely to arise here in the future, but Cooper attached great significance to Angle's inability to point to any specific community in which such informal quasi-judicial proceedings have occurred. Then, have denounced Angle, Cooper turned to a panel that included of all people Elliot Spitzer in another attempt to persuade CNN's rapidly declining audience that Spitzer has news judgment or credibility. Spitzer said nothing memorable or even remotely interesting and David Gergen, looking pained to be appearing with Spitzer, noted that Angle probably helped herself. --about as grudging an admission of the obvious as possible. Cooper played less than a minute of the actual debate, and perhaps as little as 30 seconds in what was obviously an attempt to save the audience the startling vision of the third most powerful person in D.C. displaying an unnerving incapacity to use complete sentences or speak in paragraphs. CNN seems in a death spiral right now, locked into a nightly ratings death march through Parker Spitzer and then Larry King, only to arrive at an increasingly partisan Anderson Cooper. Cooper has a reputation for fair journalism and decent reporting. If the "brains" that brought us Spitzer-as-trusted-voice also manage to wreck Cooper's reputation, we really will have to begin to wonder if CNN's collapse was an inside job accomplished with malice aforethought and not just wild incompetence.
I happened to be watching CNN yesterday morning (unavoidable - VA waiting room) and was almost chortling aloud at the way the reporters and talking-heads were twisting themselves into bizarre shapes, trying to spin this as a “draw”, instead of Ms. Angle handing Mr. Reid’s a$$ to him - on a dirty platter....
I saw a little of the debate. What I observed was a sullen sourpuss trying to make points against a candidate who was energetic and smiling.
Doubt it matters very much what was said. Reid’s demeanor will go down in debate history along with Nixon-Kennedy.
P.S. Sharron Angle is now leading at Intrade, 55-47.
Well, I wish that Rossi had as much charisma as Angle. He came off as limp as a slab of 3 day old bacon. I knew that is what was going to happen.
The small bit I saw of this debate showed Reid as a confused, lying, bitter old man. The best part was his non-response to Angle’s question “How’d you get so rich in government service?” Naturally, Harry couldn’t say the mafia pays its stooges well, so he ignored the question and claimed he was a “very successful lawyer”, omitting the fact that he was almost never in private practice.
Man up Harry. Oh you can't? Bye Bye.
I've been thinking about this Spitzer-as-CNN-pundit story more and more recently. To my way of thinking, it's a new low of remarkable depth of the "main-stream media." It shows a level of contempt for their audience that's really noteworthy.
For some reason it seems to be the case that Eliot Spitzer, who by rights should be uncomfortable about being seen putting out his garbage cans every week, has been determined to be one of the annointed, a member of the elite, one of our betters who gets a cable show on which to impart to us his pearls of life experience. He could, I suppose, give us some legitimate insights into how to bully the boards of directors of huge corporations, or how to keep a straight face when one is denouncing "corporate malfeasance" whilst recently enjoyed a session with a 22-year-old hooker, who was at the time just about five years older than his eldest daughter Elyssa.
Those would be subjects he could tell us about without insulting our intelligence.
A normal man, in normal times, would have reacted to the suggestion that he place his disgusting fizz before the public on a television show with something like "not no but hell no." But, as I needent point out, Spitzer is not a "normal man" (and I don't mean that in a nice way) and these are... well I guess, if the times are not "normal," they are, at least, the "new normal."
“Cooper has a reputation for fair journalism and decent reporting.”
HUH?? Where...in the Whitey House??”
His stupid comment that you don’t get colon cancer if you get a colonoscopy was what floored me. What a maroon.
Cooper has a reputation for being a RAT lapdog, and that’s it.
If they do the colonoscopy and they go up there and they snip....
I was listening to the debate on headphones and was laughing out loud and had to tell everyone in the house. I could not believe he actually said that!
So true unfortunately. Never mind the fact that he’s got at least 40 I.Q. points on the pathetic Murray, he just doesn’t seem to want the job enough or give voters a reason to vote for him.
Didn’t he forget to mention Joy Begat on CNN?? Pretty low average IQ in that lineup.
I saw some of the WA debate also. I thought Rossi came off as a lot smarter than Murray, but who doesn't.
She started off well, but I was kinda disappointed. She wouldn’t back up her statements about Reid giving Social Security to illegals. That was really blatant, too, and very politician-ey.
Reid looked like he knew the axe was about to fall. Like a nervous guy.
Angle seemed to suffer from the same problem as most of the other socalled conservatives running in this cycle: They don’t have a clear, principled commitment to the free market. Miller in Alaska does, and he may hem or haw over trying to be true to those ideas while running with the national media trying to paint him as wanting to starve old people and children, at least its obvious that he has thot about these things.
Maybe she was just nervous, and maybe if she wins, she will surprise me, but I expect still at this point, the GOP and most of this current crew are really just more of the same when they get into power. Would love to eat those words, tho.
Murray has always been pathetic, but she has toed the party line and they will do what it takes to coach her to make her seem knowledgeable.
He may be smarter, but he needs to be more aggressive and confident. Being smarter doesn’t necessarily translate into winning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.