Hardball Post-Mortem
244 words.
I didn’t have any new insights after the Webb/Miller Hardball “debate” last night. Not surprisingly, Webb won the charisma battle. Miller looked kind of shifty and nervous again. But once you get past that superficial layer, I still find it hard to get on board the Webb bandwagon. His thoughtfulness seems more like evasiveness to me. You could tell he was chewing on what to say and what not to say. Maybe that’s a brilliant political strategy in this day and age, but it seems pretty lame to me — he should at least try not to be obvious about it. It reminds me of judicial nominees avoiding any discussion of how they might rule.
Miller, on the other hand, had answers ready to go. Good, bad, or indifferent, he put his platform out there for everyone to see. He seemed very aware that Hardball was a rapid-fire format and zoomed through his talking points, while Webb didn’t seem to realize there wouldn’t be time for long expository answers.
Miller stumbled on the war, and Webb stumbled on immigration, so I’d call that a draw. I thought Miller’s concise answer on lobbyists was better than Webb’s meandering answer on his Republican past. Other than that, it’s hard to pick a winner. The bottom line is that I think both of these guys are still long shots in November. With 4 days left until the primary, it’s a choice between the lesser of two evils.
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