| And now for a more "in-depth" quick overview of the debate, which I was pleased to have attended. (One out of three ain't bad.)
Joe was once again dead center, although apparently position in all debates was determined by lot. He's one lucky guy.
The first thing that struck me was how true to form Lieberman was. Apparently, by mutual consent of the participants, there was to be no opening statement. Joe went first and prefaced his answer to the first question with an extended opening statement in which he said something to the effect that he hoped there would be "no finger pointing" and complaining about each other, but that "we will talk about what we will do for Connecticut."
When he finally got around to addressing the question -- so much later that it drew laughter -- he immediately began finger pointing and comjplaining and did virtually nothing else for the entire evening.
The crowd was very clearly Lamont's. It seems Lieberman had so few takers that they had to give tickets to people whose allegiance they didn't know. Several people sitting near me, who were Lamont supporters, had gotten their tickets from the Lieberman camp.
The result was an imbalance that was clearly obvious in the crowd reaction -- and Lieberman gave them plenty of reason to groan and even hiss. Add to this the disruption (already noted below) by a bunch of nutjobs from the LaRouche cult and I'm afraid the Lieberman campaign will spin the evening as yet another example of those wild-eyed leftists who have taken over the Democratic Party disrupting Joe's freedom of speech.
Still Joe got the able assitance of press questioner Mark Davis, who served as a surrogate attack dog for Joe, needling Lamont and exchanging nods, winks, and smiles with Lieberman when others were speaking.
Schlesinger seems to have made an attempt to rein himself in and be more "senatorial," but he was at his best when his irrepressibility refused to be repressed. He had the best lines of the debate, including spinning Joe's promise to serve only three terms: "He meant he wanted to serve three terms as a Democrat and three terms as a Republican an Independent."
George Stephanopoulos did a pretty mediocre job of moderating and it was fun to watch Schlesinger cut him down to size (if that's the right expression).
The hottest moment came when Lieberman as much as called Lamont a liar and Lamont called him on it. Lieberman's own lies and prevarications were on abundant display and regularly drew boos, hisses, derisive laughter, and even the occasional shout of "Shame!"
The most bathetic moment came when Stephanopoulos held Lieberman to a 90 second statement and Joe whined that he was being unfair (because the LaRouchies had drowned him out earlier). Just pathetic.
The debate ended with Lamont calling for more debates and Schlesinger readily agreeing (or was it vice versa?). Lieberman seemed none too interested. If I was advising the Lamont campaign, I'd suggest they arrange a debate with Schlesinger for Thursday. Let Joe show if he wants.
I urge you to seek out the video when it becomes available. The consensus of everyone I spoke to was that this was the most entertaining debate of the bunch. |
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