Pete and Ben Debate
By: Mr. Wilson on
August 11, 2006
- Pete sounds like John Kerry on speed. Like Kerry, he is artificial, he is over-rehearsed, and he has a hard time sticking to the topic at hand because he keeps trying to recite the lines from the flash cards he practiced with. The only difference between Pete and John Kerry is that Pete talks much faster.
- Pete likes cheesy personal anecdotes. "Y'know, I was talking to a woman in Kimball, Nebraska..."
- Both of them talked too much, attempting to bury their answers beneath a bunch of rhetoric.
- Ben got sloppy with his language a few times. His stem cell answer was a disaster because he kept appearing to change his mind, but what he was really doing was using the same language to refer to two different concepts. That could come back to bite him.
- Ben managed to point out that, like Pete, he is filthy rich, and he sounded just as condescending toward us "normal" people. That was a similarity his campaign didn't want to point out.
- Pete went off on a bizarre rant about No Child Left Behind in the middle of a question about college expenses. That was bad enough, but then he came back to it on the rebuttal, making the gaffe even worse.
- Did anybody catch that Noble (?) Valley, Wyoming reference Ben tried to throw in Pete's face? What was that all about? It was something about drilling for oil in Wyoming rather than Alaska. Pete followed with something along the lines of "I don't think I'm familiar with that," to which Ben replied, "I think you do..." Then the moderator cut them off.
- Ben got in at least a half dozen really solid zings at Pete's expense. Pete didn't really get any in. He was too uptight to be that spontaneous.
- Both Ben’s experience and Petey’s inexperience showed, although this is not too surprising.
- A little surprised that Petey’s stance seems to be actually left of Ben’s on immigration.
- Noteworthy that Ben named the Chuckster in response to the Iraq question. Obviously trying to garner favor among the Bush Republicans.
- Surprised that Petey didnt seem to mention "Nebraska values" once.
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I hear the Wyoming land is owned by daddy ricketts who has argued publicly against oil exploration in the region where he owns land.
Ahh. I don’t know if that’s fact or speculation, but it makes a lot of sense in the context of what was said (and how it was said) before the moderator stepped in.
From the Fremont Tribune:
<i>He then turned to Ricketts and said:
Share your thoughts with the community.
Commenting is no longer permitted on this post.