I just got through watching the debate between Jon Tester, Conrad Burns and Stan Jones on C-SPAN (local PBS affiliate in Boseman, MT). I didn't see a thread up and thought folks would like to discuss it a bit. Watch, by the time I load this up, it will be competing with six other diaries.
If you didn't catch it, hop over to C-SPAN to watch. They were just broadcast, so I'm not srue they have them on the site yet, but keep checking.
First, the debate format was one question/each candidate had a minite or two to answer. No inter-candidate debating allowed. The format moved quickly and the moderator was very good.
I thought Jon Tester held is own quite nicely. He's at ease with himself and had prepared answers for all of the questions asked. Topics ranged from the war in Iraq, the economy, executive power particularly in conjunction with wiretapping and the Patriot Act and global warming.
Burns was testy and his rote Republican talking points seemed rather stale. It's as if Rove phoned it in to him earlier today.
Actually, the most entertaining parts of any of these three-way debates is watching the Independent candidate swing back and forth. On this score, Stan Jones was a delight to behold. He attacked the incumbant on the war, on taxes (too high!), and on the Patriot Act, declared that our Fourth Amendment Right to Privacy is now dead. And for that, this President should be impeached!
The global warming exchange goes in the annals of TV history right up there with Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday celebration. Sen. Burns started out telling us that the plain truth is that the earth has been warming since the ice age. Mr. Jones (I'm not making this up) said that the earth was actually much warmer 10,000 years ago and that there is nothing we can do about global warming. It's a natural process.
After these two, Mr. Tester turned out to be a voice of reason. He said that he hopes that the process is natural but we need to act as if it isn't. He mentioned that in the past 50 years, the earth has had the fastest temperature rise since the ice age, which would indicate that man has an affect. He mentioned that Burns takes money from big oil and also said some interesting things about ethanol and bio-fuels not being a complete emmissions-free answer and mentioned research into something called carbon sequestration. I don't have time to research this myself, since I kinda want to post this before the election.
Frankly, Tester's doing his homework, pulling that sort of science off the top of his head.
But the icing on this cupcake of a debate came, once again, from Mr. Jones, the gift that keeps giving. He led off the closing remarks, saying that he had to ditch his prepared closing because he felt moved to warn us all about the looming international conspiracy to turn the world into a global communism. He stopped short of naming the Trilateral Commission, which was a shame, because I was fully prepared to drain my drink, should he have mentioned it.
Actually, that was a bad link. I think Mr. Jones would rather I link you here but I warn you that there's annoying pop-ups.
Once the laughter died down, Sen. Burns attempted to rehydrate Rove's freeze-dried talking points and Mr. Tester reminded everyone that they could send a real Montanan to the Senate and not some guy in the back pocket of lobbyists like Jack Abramoff.
What did you think?