Presidential mini-debate
Highlights from the mini-debate with bloggers as moderators.
I’ll be live blogging and I don’t type that quickly so these will be paraphrases in many cases.
DOMESTIC PORTION
First question:
McJoan (a blogger): You said your model Supreme Court justice would be Byron “Whizzer” White, who was against Roe v. Wade. What do you say now?
Richardson: I screwed up on that. I loved JFK and figured if JFK had appointed him…..
(continued) I would ask all my nominees if they considered certain cases (such as Roe v. Wade) settled law.
Second question”
McJoan: What circumstances would be extreme enough for you to consider a Bush nominee for Supreme Court?
Dodd: The Bush admin has trampled the constitution I would be reluctant to let any Bush Supreme Court nominee be given a full hearing on the floor.
Third question:
McJoan: You said you had scars from your attempt to reform health care in 1993 and 1994.
Clinton: I’m proud of my efforts in 93 and 94…I am for universal health care…we need a political strategy to get a new plan in…I made a lot of tactical mistakes in 93 and 94 but my time in Congress has taught me lessons that will help me get it passed as president…it’s my highest priority.
Fourth question:
Matt Bai (NYT reporter): If elected, would balancing the budget be a high priority for you? What if it meant cutting programs that you supported.
Obama: First, we need to stop building (the Bush amin’s) hole…that means not spending billions on Iraq, not renewing the Bush tax cuts, instituting pay-go. Those three have to get on track right away. We also need to invest in the American people while we’re doing this. I’m not gonna neglect early eduction or health care. We can’t shortchange these investments. The biggest financial problems are Medicare and Medicaid. Universal health care, done proplerly, would create savings in these areas.
Fifth question:
Bai: You said the size of the deficit while bad would be acceptable short term if it allowed us to institute things like universal health care? How do you stop the spending once it gets going?
Edwards: The deficit is 5% of GDP now, in the early 90s, it was only 2% (I think he means in 93 and 94 before things…)…we need to stand up to pharma and others to control spending.
Sixth question:
Bai: How about you, Bill Richardson?
Richardson: I balanced five budgets as goveronor. I want a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget and a line item veto amendment (!). (LOTS OF BOOING)
Seventh question:
Some blogger: What would you do to fight media consolidation?
Dodd: I’d have the gov’t look into Murdoch’s buying the WSJ. We need to stand up to people like Bill O’Reilly. Thank the Lord for Daily Kos which fights against media consolidation.
Eighth question:
Same blogger: Senator Clinton, is regulation the way to do on media issues?
Clinton: I’m not sure if it’s about more but we need to enforce the laws we have…we need to have more competition…we need to do more to keep the internet free.
Matt Bai: Congressman Kucinich, is there an agency you’d get rid of as prez?
Kucinich: Programs involving the nuclear power industry. I also want to say this in terms of this debate: it’s important for people to know there’s a candidate who belives in universal, single payer, not for profit health care. We all say we’re for universal health care…we pay 31 cents on a dollar to private companies out of every federal dollar spent on health care. The reason health care is making profits is that no one fights this…I want a not-for-profit system.
Lost track of question number.
Blogger: What will you do restore our liberties?
Edwards: Day one I close Gitmo. No torture, no secret prisons, no spying, this is not America, this is not who we are. We need a transparent government….we need to stop taking money from lobbyists (STANDING OVATION FROM AUDIENCE).
Next question:
McJoan: A question about Gravel’s crazy tax ideas. (ed. note: I’ll skip this one.)
Related posts:
It is difficult to live blog with exile. He is across the room but I’ll be in the comments. Optimus is here and I’ll upload some pictures I’ve asked him to take. Thanks Optimus.
Richardson - just got booed with this comment that we need a line item veto. I booed too. why? We need to move away from a unitary presidency Dem or Republican and line item veto strengthens the Presidency. No thanks. Bill
Damn - Edwards is on fire. He just listed the things he would do to move away from a unitarian Presidency. Close gitmo, stop wiretapping and I missed the rest. Drown out by the applause.
Has the US foreign Policy contributed to the rise in global terrorism? Keeping answers on time is difficult for everyone but Richardson keeps going on on and on. Obama is flexing his I never supported the Iraq war muscles now. Somehow he missed the question. Now that he has been refocused he says our previous foreign policy hasn’t been the best.
I was watching on Ustream. When Edwards got into full populist mode (big corporations bad, ordinary people have the power, etc), the amount of applause and so on broke the video stream because it overloaded. It was really annoying, but really cool in hindsight.
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