Final Thoughts On The Democratic Debate

After a night to digest everything learned during the Democratic debate last night, I have come to the following thoughts and conclusions:

1.) The only guy up there who I thought might be electable in a general election was Lieberman. He had some ideas that we're all too great, but he at least has dignity, intellectual thought, and consistancy. I believe the assertation that he would provide the greatest challenge to Bush is accurate.

2.) I saw a number of people who referred to Kucinich as being the Democratic representative from Space. While seemingly accurate (he would scare Lenin and Marx as being too far to the left), I don't think that it's a good idea to continue to refer to him in this way. Reason being that as soon as the Martians get done downloading porn on the Mars Rover links, if they ever find out that we're trying to blame Kucinich on them, the may make Orson Wells' War Of The Worlds look like kiddie play.

3.) Edwards has a ways to go before he is truly a viable candidate. He's simply too green to be running yet. You can't fumble that many attempts and expect to win. I also get concerned about his stance on the Second Amendment. I like that he admitted that the Second does guarantee the right to own a gun, I did not however like his assertation that somehow there was a caveat in the wording that allows only certain types of guns to be owned. I still have yet to see the word "but" in the language of the Second Amendment.

4.) Last night was the first time I saw Clark speak. I now understand why some people have described him as the candidate for the folks who didn't want to vote for Dean because they hated moderate Republicans. When your best endorsement to date is Michael Moore I think that that just about seals the fate of your campaign.

5.) I was really disappointed with Al Sharpton. Usually he's a pretty sharp and not too terribly unreasonable. Last night he seemed out of it and also seemed to be pandering to the audience. I felt like he was out to prove that he could be every bit as lefty as the rest of the guys up there. Only one good one-liner. Disappointing.

6.) Kerry and Dean both did a pretty good job of not really saying much of anything. I did find Kerry's two new divisions proposal to be very odd, though. I agree we need two more divisions (more than that really). but temporary? I was under the understanding that the Reserves and the National Guard were in place specifically to address temporary needs of the standing military. The over-reliance on them simply proves that we need more soldiers on a permanent basis.

I think that raising two divisions in the standing Army now, only to disband them in a few years is a major mistake. It essentially means that as those units are being disbanded, the Army will be trying to create forced attrition. It also means that they'll be turning away highly qualified potential volunteers for a temporary lack of need. As a result, they'll end up with a hole in the seniority ranks, something that many businesses are struggling with now. Success is predicated on an availability of qualified personnel at any given time. A hole in the seniority ranks threatens that availability.

7.) Dean really didn't say much, but I noticed that when he was standing up there, he seemed to be leaning back a little, with a forced wooden smile on his face quite a bit. Looked almost to be a ventriliquist's dummy at times. I don't think he hurt his cause any last night, but I also don't think he helped it any - and it was in dire need of a boost. He'll stick around for a while, but I think last night sealed the fate of his campaign.

So now I'm down really to only paying attention to two candidates: Lieberman and Kerry. I've expressed my distaste for Kerry many times in the past and Lieberman is just a little too socialist for my tastes, but we'll watch and see. Tracking the campaign just became a lot easier for me.