Semi-live blogging
Okay, I typed up my responses while I was at the debate party, got home, and Mrs. Wilson added her annotations, which I’ve helpfully italicized.
7:30: Wow. Big room. Foofy Chandelier. I’m Amishing with pen and paper because my laptop cord won’t reach to the wall and I’ve got a dead battery.
7:33: Steve Gigl and I moved the table we’re sitting at closer to the wall so our laptop cords can reach. Steve’s laptop has wireless; I’ll be Amishing with Notepad and will upload this later.
7:35: My laptop started booting.
7:37: Still booting.
7:39: Finally done booting!
7:49: Patrick Campion from the Patriot is giving a pre-debate fire-us-all-up speech.
7:50: I totally forgot my knitting, what a bummer. (Mrs. Wilson remembered hers; her intention is to start knitting, and whenever Kerry says something that she doesn’t buy, to knit in a new direction.)
7:52: The Northern Alliance gets a partial standing ovation from the crowd.
7:54: There are too many people here for the room they have us in, so they opened up the one wall to double the capacity. But the automatic wall closing thing is broken. Uh oh.
7:55: John Hinderaker gets up to speak… wow, he’s really short compared to Mitch Berg.
7:56: They got the doors fixed.
7:59: The guy from fundpolice.com is giving a pitch. The fundpolice guys are partially sponsoring this.
8:00: People are getting antsy with the fundpolice guy.
8:01: If he keeps going on, he’s going to be dismembered by a bunch of raving, pro-Bush, “hate radio” fans.
8:02: Random boos when the moderator announces that he’s from CBS.
8:03: Haha, whenever they show Bush, the crowd cheers, and when they show Kerry, everyone boos. It’s funny because everyone is slightly off when the camera pans from one guy to the other.
8:04: “Will our children live in a world as safe and secure as the one we grew up in?” Um… I thought this was a domestic policy debate. (So did Mrs. Wilson.)
8:05: Split screen update: Bush keeps looking down and off to the side. He looks like he’s trying to not smirk or not do anything interesting with his face.
8:06: The crowd boos when Kerry mentions making alliances with the “entire world”.
8:06: Bush: “We can be safe [...] if we spread freedom and liberty throughout the world.”
8:07: It’s hard to figure out what Bush is saying sometimes because the crowd claps so loud you can’t hear him.
8:08: Bush said something when I was talking to Steve; the crowd erupted but we both missed it.
8:09: Flu vaccine question. Awesome, Bush makes an appeal to the debate listeners to not get a flu shot if you’re healthy. “I haven’t gotten a flu shot, and I don’t intend to.” Bush implies that we’re low on vaccine because too many lawsuits provide disincentives for companies to make vaccines. True, but the vaccines we have are safer. Are we better off? Who knows?
8:12: Kerry outlines the problems with our health care system, but, as predicted, doesn’t have a real plan to deal with the problems other than to throw ourselves off the European cliff. (Mrs. Wilson thought it was a bit of a stretch to jump from the shortage of flu vaccine to the total failure of our health care system.)
8:12: Everyone cheers when Kerry says “I have a plan…” and takes a sip of their drinks.
8:15: Kerry bitches about how exports went down under Bush for the first time in a really long time. But exports going down is a good thing! Mercantilism has been discredited for nearly 150 years, get over it.
8:16: Bush is over-extending on Kerry’s voting record I think. But he gets huge cheers here at the Hilton when he says that “Pay-go means you pay, and he goes and spends it”. Kerry doesn’t get a response to rebut Bush’s assertions about his votes. I bet factcheck.org has some stuff on that tomorrow.
8:18: Bush has some nerve talking about education when he was responsible for the execrable No Child Left Behind Act.
8:21: Kerry is ripping Bush on education and jobs, the crowd here at the Hilton is pretty quiet. Bush gets no chance to rebut.
8:22: I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Kerry on outsourcing. But I think he makes it seem too easy to move companies overseas. I don’t think a company would move overseas solely because of taxes.
8:23: Kerry just said he wants to lower corporate tax rates!!!
8:24: Bush says that we have more money in our pockets because of his tax cuts. Well, we’d better enjoy it, because we’re going to have to pay that money to the government eventually. We’re running a deficit, that’s what a deficit means! Control spending! Arrrgh… mrmf… *sound of me eating my hat*
8:26: Bush: “There’s a main stream in American politics, and you’re on the far left bank!”
8:28: Yikes, Kerry got some serious boos when he mentioned Cheney’s daughter. Seems like everyone here is pissed because he’s using Cheney’s daughter to make points. (Mrs. Wilson included.) I feel sorry for her (Cheney’s daughter); it seems like first Edwards and now Kerry are trying to make political hay out of her. Leave the poor woman alone.
8:30: Wow, the moderator is really asking some good, tough questions.
8:31: The AM1280 crowd erupts into laughter when Kerry says he’s a Catholic.
8:31: He got lots of heckles and “Where’s your works!” when he said that faith without works is dead. (Kerry says he respects others’ religious views. Mrs. Wilson questions his respect of his own beliefs, and says that he should “grow some balls.”)
8:34: There’s a systematic problem with the healthcare. “The user of healthcare is not the purchaser of healthcare.” Bush nails the healthcare problem exactly with that. I disagree with his third point, that one of the biggest costs is lack of information technology. IT and computers can increase costs just as much as they reduce them; I think that the health care industry is better at determining when it would be appropriate to transition to computer based systems, if necessary. And moving generic drugs to the market faster will only result in less drugs in the long run. As for health care savings plans, I’m lukewarm. It is a flawed plan though, at least that’s something. As long as the savings plans really do move catastrophic coverage back to the insurance companies and put the saving incentives back on the consumers of health care then I’m for it. I want more details before I even give it a reserved yes. But kudos to Bush for not just spinning his wheels.
8:36: Sorry Kerry, government can’t reduce the costs of anything. Never. It never works, ever, and it never will. The government can cut prices by forcing prices to be lower, but that does NOTHING to reduce costs. (Mrs. Wilson laughs as Mr. Wilson refocuses attention of the moderator’s question: “Where’s the money coming from?” “Where’s the money coming from?”)
8:41: Bush gets a super-cheer when he implies that the major media is perhaps not a reliable commentator on political issues.
8:42: Bush says “Government run health will lead to poor health”, and he points out how crappy health care is in government-run socialist systems around the globe.
8:45: WRT social security, Bush says that we’ll honor our commitments to senior citizens, but, essentially, we’re going to have to soak everyone else to fix it. Fine with me, we have to fix it at some point.
8:46: Steve gets a Summit Pale Ale. Summit, summit!
8:48: I was talking to Mitch Berg and missed Kerry’s explanation on how he’s going to fix Social Security without cutting benefits. But I have two words that will help fix Social Security: “means testing”. Why the heck people with zillions of dollars can get Social Security completely boggles my mind. (Mrs. Wilson hears Kerry say that Bush’s tax cut could have been used to save Social Security until 2075. She starts knitting in another direction again.)
8:50: Kerry keeps blaming GWB for all kinds of woes. Look, the president has more power at this point than at any other point in our country’s history, and he still has very little power when it comes to domestic issues. Congress has way more power when it comes to this stuff, the presidential administration has more media power, I suppose, but the media doesn’t actually write and pass the laws. (Good thing, too.) The president can’t even stop Congress from doing something it really wants to.
8:52: Immigration: Hmm. I like the temporary worker card idea on first hear but maybe there’s something wrong with it that I don’t understand yet. GWB doesn’t believe in amnesty. (But he does mention unmanned aerial vehicles again, and gets a huge smile from Mrs. Wilson.)
8:55: I’m having fun heckling Kerry (as in, yelling things out loud, not just typing on my laptop), but I’m kind of sad that I can’t really heckle Bush when he screws up.
8:57: Raising the minimum wage: no way. Look, I can’t find a job at McDonalds here in Minneapolis where I can make less than $6.50 an hour, and most of them pay at least $7.00 an hour.
8:58: Kerry proves that he completely misunderstands how to read men vs. women income statistics. (Mrs. Wilson agrees.)
9:03: Kerry looked really frustrated when Bush said that “only a liberal senator from Massechusetts would call a 49 percent increase in education funding ‘not enough’.” Kerry counters with saying that percentages don’t really matter (after using them throughout the debate), what matters is that Bush cut after-school programs, and now 5000 kids no longer get free after-school babysitting. Kerry sounds whiny.
9:06: More boos when Kerry mentions allying with the world.
9:08: Bush is owning Kerry on the “global test”.
9:09: Bush said that he was for the assault weapons ban, boo. But he says that the best way to reduce gun problems is to procecute people who commit crimes with guns. Good comeback. (Mrs. Wilson says that the best way to reduce gun problems is for the law abiding gun owners to shoot the bad guys.)
9:11: Re: terrorists buying guns at gun shows: I’d like to see any arab looking guy with an accent go to a gun show and try to buy a gun without getting a background check.
9:15: Question to Bush: How does your faith play a role in your public policy decisions? Bush turns it around slightly and he talks about his “very personal” faith. This is the first time I’ve seen either candidate answer a question from a truely personal standpoint; up until now it was all spit, polish, and talking points. You can tell that he really believes what he’s saying, and I’m guessing that he wants to open up even more but is restraining himself. His reply to the original quesion is basically that when he makes decisions he stands on principle, and his principles derive from who he is as a person. (Mrs. Wilson: Bush has the guts to say what Kerry can’t.)
9:17: What’s the deal with Kerry’s squint? His face is totally not matching what he’s saying here.
9:18: Kerry says that there is a seperate but equal school system, one for people who have, and one for people who have not. Which school system did your daughters go to, Mr. Kerry?
9:23: Bush scores major points when he points out that Kerry keeps bringing up working with John McCain, but McCain is voting for him.
9:25: Did Kerry just say that (that both he and Bush “married up”)? OMG! Pause… and huge outbreak of confused laughing and boos here at the Hilton. I predict Mark Steyn will have a load of fun with this. (Mrs. Wilson thinks Kerry made his biggest mistake of the evening in talking about his mom before he talked about his wife. Should have talked about Theresa first, in keeping with the question, and then have made a strong finish with his mom. Putting his mom first reflects badly on Mrs. Ketchup.)
9:30: Bush finishes his closing arguments, and it’s a standing-O, with people raising Bush-Cheney lawn signs, and chants of “Four more years” coming from the audience.
Overall thoughts: Bush owned. Kerry got a couple of really good jabs in, but nothing stuck. I’m glad that Bush is acknowledging the state of America’s health care system, and I want to hear more about his health care plan, although I’m reasonably confident that once his plan makes it through Congress it’ll be an unholy, conflicting mess. The moderator had some surprisingly tough questions; I was expecting to yawn through most of the debate.
Anyway, we’re home now, and I just have to say, those hate radio guys sure know how to throw a party. Peggy and I had a great time (despite having to walk seven blocks to get to the Hilton because of stupid public transportation bus-line layouts.) And of course, it was fun sitting next to Steve, we were in the back, typing away like mad, joking about being the blogging peanut gallery. You should check out his liveblogging coverage of the debates; he got all of the observations I missed. Also, I talked with a few guys from the Northern Alliance, and caught up with Pink Monkey Bird and Tom Swift of Pair ‘O Dice (who characterized the debate as “Alfred E. Newman vs. Lurch”, an apt observation.) Other livebloggers at the debate party: Captain Ed, Chumley Wonderbar, Mitch Berg (he’s got a lot of little posts, so just scroll down), and King Banaian (ditto on the small posts, but don’t miss this one on health price inflation).
And, with that, I’m going to bed.