Congressional candidates Gill, Davis occupy same stage but different realities. IL-13

Democrat David Gill and Republican Rodney Davis shared the same stage for their debate tonight, but they're clearly not living in the same reality. Let's review a few issues.

Debt and Taxes

Rodney Davis started the debate by saying his top issue is cutting the national debt. His plan for doing so is to cut taxes. Seriously. He wants to reduce revenue to bring down the debt. He doesn't believe in that arithmetic thing Bill Clinton was talking about. 

Later in the debate a student question raised the obvious. Are spending cuts alone, without a tax increase, enough to deal with the debt, and what specifically would you cut from the budget?

Davis again repeated the magical debt-reducing tax cut theory that worked so well for George W. Bush. He didn't name any specific spending cuts he would support. He told the university audience that his unspecified spending cuts would free up more money to spend on student financial aid for college.

In a single debate, Davis claimed that everyone will get tax cuts, that tax cuts will reduce the deficit, that only things you don't like will be cut from the budget, and all the spending you do like will still be increased. Also, everyone gets a unicorn that farts glitter.

David Gill said he supports ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but does not support any tax increase on the middle class. Unlike Davis, he named something specific he would cut. Gill thinks we should already be out of Afghanistan and that military spending can be cut as we withdrawal. 

Gill's plan of proposing specific cuts in a bloated part of the budget, and expiring the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy could be described as a reality-based strategy to cutting the debt. Counting on trickle-down tax cuts to magically grow the economy, as Davis suggests, is exactly how we got the debts of the Reagan and Bush years.

Energy and Climate Change

The moderators didn't bring up climate change, but David Gill did twice. First, he brought up the droughts that hit farmers hard this year and spoke about the need to keep things from getting even worse due to climate change. He later said he takes a science-based approach to the issue, and that it's a real problem we need to deal with. 

Gill says that if we're going to subsidize energy sources that it should be clean tech development rather than subsidies going to oil and dirty energy. He brought up the dirty industry dollars going to the Davis campaign several times, including donations from Exxon, Exelon, and the Koch brothers.

Davis debated both Gill and his own flip-flopping positions on energy. First, he said he opposed federal support to clean energy projects like Solyndra. When asked directly about the clean energy tax credit for wind, he said he supported it, even though he opposed them just last week. Later, he went back to attacking federal spending for clean energy yet again.

Davis flip-flopped three times in under an hour, and never said a word about climate change. He doesn't appear to believe in either science or arithmetic.

Health Care Choice

Rodney Davis repeatedly used the fear tactic of telling people that universal health care will result in the government dictating their choice of doctors and health care decisions. He believes a "market-based" insurance system will give people the freedom to choose their own doctors and health care options. It gets truly bizarre when Davis supports this argument by pointing to his own experience while being on a government, taxpayer-funded health care plan provided by his federal government job.

In contrast, Gill argues that, with his plan, government wouldn't get in the way of personal health care decisions. It's not a problem now with government plans like Medicare. He pointed out that it's the private insurance companies who restrict people to a primary care physician and limit health care decisions, not the government.

I've had health care decisions limited by my insurance company. They told me what doctors I could see and I had to wait for care until it was approved by insurance industry bureaucrats. That's the real world in my personal experience. Limiting patient choice is the core business model of the private HMO insurance system. That's the "market-based" system Davis would push us all into, where insurance companies increase their profits by denying people health care options. Once again, Davis appears to be living in a world of make believe.

Themes

Both candidates were polite, but they got in a couple of digs. Davis brought up Gill's previous runs for Congress and referred to him as a "career politician wannabe." Davis and the press have collective amnesia about Davis previously running and losing for office twice. He ran for State Representative and mayor of Taylorville.

Gill ended the debate quoting the line, "I'll stop telling the truth about you when you stop telling lies about me." Burn.

Gill's biggest theme of the debate was hammering away at the corporate influence in Washington corrupting democracy and working against the interests of the average person. Several times he spoke about the massive amounts of corporate special interest spending for his opponent. 

Davis kept going back to tax cuts and deregulation as the solution for all that ails, aka, "take two tax cuts and call me in the morning."

The moderators did a good job managing the debate. They simply talked over either candidate when they tried to go over time.

The debate showed two very different candidates with contrasting philosophies. It's refreshing to have an independent-minded Democrat in this race who isn't afraid to stand up for his principles.

Debate Moderator Fail: Does anyone worry about gas prices when their home is destroyed by disaster?

I always felt Candy Crowley focused on the frivolous, like most of CNN, so she exceeded my expectations moderating the Presidential debate. She mostly did an acceptable job, but her decision to focus the energy discussion on gas prices rather than climate change was a massive failure.

Crowley chose the question on gas prices and asked two follow up questions to keep the focus there. It's a way of framing the energy debate that ignores a far more important issue. If a persons' home or workplace is destroyed by a catastrophic flood, hurricane, or wildfire; or if their crop is destroyed by drought, then suddenly gas prices aren't the most important problem. I can only guess about whether Crowley's misguided focus is due to a lack of understanding the enormity of the problem or because of CNN's reliance on massive advertising revenue from the fossil fuel industry. The press is still part of the problem.

It's disappointing that Obama didn't raise climate change himself, but keeping the focus on gas prices is a way to put politicians who want to deal with climate change on the defensive. Obama did the right thing by investing heavily in clean energy and efficiency. But, the smaller stimulus investments in clean coal have largely been a failure and pandering to coal is gaining Obama nothing politically. The coal industry will continue spending millions to fight him, no matter how much he increases coal mining production or throws subsidies at them.

The American energy infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. It's the best large-scale jobs plan anyone has come up with. It's time to stop kidding people about bringing back coal jobs (new mining methods employ half as many people anyway) and make sure more of the new energy economy jobs are created in poor coal mining regions. The alternative is to let our economy be destroyed by climate change disasters. Obama may not be aggressive enough, but Romney's energy policy is simply suicidal.

Added update: Last night, I didn't see Crowley's quote after the debate that's making enviros moan this morning.

"I had that question for all of you climate change people. We just, you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing so you knew you kind of wanted to go with the economy."

So, she thinks climate change is an interest group, not a problem that will impact all of humanity. And, she doesn't think more frequent floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts are an economic issue. Now I remember why I stopped watching CNN.

Joe Biden throws the red meat. I still liked the first debate better.

Joe Biden did a good job calling out Paul Ryan at the debate. Facts matter. Nice. 

Partisans and hosts of talking head shows will no doubt like this debate much better. Ryan used Romney's tactic of throwing out one inaccurate statement after the other. Obama chose not to take the debate and stuck to his points about Romney being a flip-flopper. Reporters did the fact checking later. 

Biden got bogged down in bickering back and forth. It was more entertaining but not exactly Presidential.

Now Mitch McConnell is criticizing Biden for interrupting, being rude, and disrespectful. That's a hint that Romney and Ryan were both trying to get their opponent to become frustrated and take the bait.

Jim Lehrer is vindicated. There's nothing wrong with letting candidates talk at length about important issues. Tonight's moderator Martha Raddatz, ended the night with three horrible questions. The last two were a waste of time considering all the issues that weren't discussed.

What can you offer than nation that no other man can? Did she get confused and think she was hosting ElimiDate? 

The funniest moment of the night came when Ryan responded to a question about negative campaigns making the troops sad by launching into a series of ugly, negative attacks. Ryan either has a great sense of irony or none at all.

Biden did a good job. Ryan came off smarmy and dishonest. For reporters in New York and DC, and others accustomed to thinking that being rude and over-aggressive is a virtue, I'm sure they think Biden did much better than Obama in the last debate.

Live blogging/tweeting Vice-Presidential debate

I love that Ryan responded to a question about ugly, negative campaign ads by launching into a series of ugly, negative attacks. He either has a great sense of irony or none at all.

It's frightening how much Ryan sounds like George W. Bush. Don't work through the UN. Fear-mongering about WMDs and a state sponsor of terror. Ugh.

I think Ryan needs to take a five minute break and come back when he can figure out what his position is on when to leave Afghanistan.

My head is going to explode if Ryan gets away with claiming Republicans in Congress wanted bipartisanship.

The Republican tax agenda has been to push the burden onto the middle class for the past 40 years. Romney is no different.

It's official. Republicans hate green jobs. From Paul Ryan to Rodney Davis.

Oh, it's the old "conservative who displays individual acts of compassion while proposing greedy, ugly policies" routine. I guess it worked for Reagan.

Facts Matter.
Nothing else needs to be said.

After two question from the moderator, Biden has been pushed on the embassy attack more than the press asked Bush about intelligence before the Iraq war.

I'll be at a computer during the VP debate so I might as well tweet and blog for my own amusement. I'll update this post during the debate and tweet here.

I'll be interested to see if Ryan lies as much as Romney did. How often will Biden bring up the Ryan budget and how hard will Ryan run away from it? And of course, I'm hoping Uncle Joe gives us a good laugh.

Local debate watch party news coverage. Romney's lies catching up.

The State Journal-Register sent a reporter to the Liberty Brew & View debate watch party at the Capital City Bar & Grill movie room. They got a few good quotes from the crowd.

Nick Whitfield of Springfield said he believed Romney flip-flopped during the debate about his tax break plan for the wealthiest Americans. “How do you debate a guy that doesn’t stay on the same spot?” he said.

Nich hits on one of the two things Obama did best at the debate. First he hammered away at Romney as a flip-flopper. That's a powerful, ugly label independent voters will remember long after they forget the specific issues discussed.

Second, he let Romney lie. By not responding to each lie, he escaped the "he said, she said" cop-out stories. It will be more difficult for the press to cover Romney's lies as countering claims made by competing candidates. They'll be forced to fact check Romney and plainly admit themselves that he lied frequently.

Climate Progress has a good post on Romney's biggest lie of the night: his whopper that half the companies getting clean energy stimulus funds failed. The fact that he believed anything remotely close to that shows he's out of touch with reality on energy.

Ok, one last thing. Jim Lehrer is getting a lot of criticism but I liked the debate format. Even hosts of talking head soundbite shows complain that debates consist of nothing but pre-packaged soundbites. Lehrer let candidates get into details and talk at length about specific issues. So...isn't that what people who complain about soundbites wanted to see? I like it a heck of a lot better than the 30-second answers in the overcrowded primary debates.

Talking heads focus on debate style over substance. Romney wants to flood your house.

I was pretty shocked after the debate when MSNBC hosts started crying about how badly they think Obama did. After a while I realized that their entire critique is about the performance style of each candidate rather than what either one actually said.

I'm used to Obama's style so I wasn't surprised by how he spoke tonight. He acts as though he has respect for the intelligence of the American public, which is obviously pretty risky. I like his calm, rational approach as a contrast to the foaming at the mouth conservatism that has been popular the last few years.

The national pundits disagree. Chris Matthews was the worst, bemoaning that there was no Robert Kennedy backstage. I'm surprised he could stop daydreaming about the Kennedys long enough to watch the debate. I muted the TV about the time that Matthews was screaming that Obama should watch MSNBC to get debate pointers.

No, Chris, no one should watch MSNBC to get pointers because most of what the cable networks do is crap. This may be news to the talking heads, but many people think that someone who constantly interrupts and talks over others like Romney did tonight (and like you do to your guests) is a rude jackass. Romney's rude behavior and smug smile did not impress me.

Personally, if someone is shoveling a lot of bullshit, I don't care if they do it with a smile. I can still smell bullshit. Not so with the cable news talking heads. They don't talk about substance and facts anymore because dealing in reality means opening yourself up to accusations of liberal bias. And so, they talk about which candidate gave the best "performance" in terms of style while avoiding discussion of any actual issue.

This is why cable news is a waste of time, including most of MSNBC. They rarely deal with substance. They know nothing but style, spin, and people screaming over each other. Rachel Maddow is the only MSNBC host I can handle in daily doses.

Speaking of substance, there was a clear distinction on energy issues. Romney loves coal, unlike his days as Governor when he said he wouldn't support jobs that kill people. He hates clean energy, and he lied about half of the businesses getting green stimulus funds failing. Once again, it's OK with the cable news talking heads if Romney makes things up, as long as he does it aggressively.

Mitt Romney apparently thinks that catastrophic flooding, hurricanes, droughts, and other climate change disasters will be good for the economy. Wow.

Creating green jobs through the stimulus package is the biggest success of Obama's first term. It needs to happen again on a bigger scale in his second term. Creating tons of jobs by rebuilding America's energy infrastructure is the best plan anyone has to revive the economy. I hope Obama will go on the offensive about climate change instead of letting Romney turn green jobs into something negative.

Anyway, the debate watch party I hosted was a good time. I liked watching with friends and meeting some new ones. A reporter showed up so there may be a State Journal-Register article. People are enthusiastic about local campaigns, including David Gill's congressional campaign.

Reactions to the debate were mixed. Some agree with the talking heads that Obama didn't do well, and others thought Romney was terrible. Everyone is looking forward to Joe Biden in the Vice-Presidential debate!

Need sum wood?

I'm in the camp who think the Presidential debates won't have a big impact on the outcome of the election. A good debate got people more excited about Kerry in '04, but Democrats already know Obama. Obama will probably get Democrats fired up. It's an opportunity for Romney, except that it's Mitt Romney. He looks out of place anywhere outside the JC Penny catalog.

Mostly, it's hard to believe a debate can hurt an incumbent too much after the trainwreck performances of George W. Bush. Remember, "need some wood?"

So, I'm mostly watching tonight for the entertainment value. Also, to hang out with a fun crowd at the Liberty Brew & View watch party. I'll most likely tweet during the debate because that's what good political blogger nerds do these days.