I just finished perusing the transcript of Eric Massa’s session with the folks at FireDogLake and, honestly, I thought it was terrific. I liked Massa’s honest, from-the-hip answers to the questions he was posed and, even more than that, I saw that “live blogging”, or whatever you call this interview medium, is a great way for people to connect with their candidates. Since the interviewee is not on the clock the way he or she is in a conventional interview, it lacks the gotcha quality that town hall meetings and the like can have — the candidate can’t be asked “Quick! Who are the four largest employers in Ontario county?”.

Although I haven’t met Randy Kuhl, from what I have heard he is uncomfortable in a one-on-one setting. Maybe this would be a good way for him to give connect with voters as well. It would be nice to see him try “live blogging” out, too, so that the public could get a better idea of some of his positions in a setting in which he is comfortable.

Massa spent a lot of time talking about health care and about Iraq, which seem to be his signature issues as a candidate. What impressed me most was his answer about what should be done in Iraq:

Separate the warring factions; create 3 semiautonomous viable states; let them choose a government of their own making. We will never, ever, be successful in creating a democracy at the end of a bayonet.

This makes a lot of sense to me. It worked in Yugoslavia (which was in much, much worse shape at the time of the Dayton peace accords than Iraq is in now). Why isn’t the Bush administration discussing this idea?

I also liked that he stressed the idea of national health care as a priority. The truth is, of course, that the federal government can provide all Americans with affordable health care, but that doing so will require a serious expenditure. The war/occupaiton in Iraq also required a serious expenditure and has yielded little if anything of value. So I think that’s a good way of thinking of things.

Anyway, sorry if post this is a bit informal. The live blogging session generated far too many questions and answers for me to dissect here, so read it yourself.