Chris Bell totally pwned some n00bs at the gubernatorial debate
If y'all didn't see the gubernatorial debate on October 6th, you should go watch it on www.wfaa.com. It really is a good example of what candidates are serious about this race and which are not. Now, I've debated in college, and I've judged both high school and college debate, and I know how to be unbiased about deciding who "wins" a debate. Although I'm strongly biased towards Chris Bell, I'll try to keep this post, for the most part, unbiased-- except of course where I talk about how scary Rick Perry is.
From an honest, unbiased standpoint, I think it's quite obvious which candidates were prepared for the debate. Rick Perry and Chris Bell were the only two candidates who came out looking like they were actually involved in the race. Kinky Friedman just kept saying the same jokes he memorized to say at SMU and at UT (and probably other colleges), and while I'm sure every candidate memorizes certain answers and phrases to say, there wasn't an audience for Kinky to make laugh and he didn't really answer most of the questions. The question he was able to ask to another candidate wasn't even something that was very important and was directed at the wrong person. While I'm a fan of more debate, if you only get one question, the strategic choice is not to ask Chris Bell what he thinks about Rick Perry refuses to debate more than once. Standing at a podium way too large for him (and too large for Strayhorn and too small for Bell and Perry) in between Bell and Perry, Kinky appeared to be small and clown-like in stature-- wearing a cowboy hat, duster, Texas Ranger pin, waving his cigar around, and swaying back and forth like most people who don't have training in public speaking do.
The only candidate who performed worse than Kinky was Carole Keeton-Strayhorn. Strayhorn repeated the same thing when answering every question-- she's going to put Texas and Texans first. I was waiting for Kinky or Bell to joke and say they were going to put Floridians first instead. She couldn't answer who the new president of Mexico is when asked, and disputed challenges of things she's done and said when the journalists on the panel had the quotes and facts in front of them. Her facial expression when confronted with a quote from the Houston Chronicle years ago was classic, and will probably appear on a YTMND sometime soon, along with Kinky Friedman's arm pumping and gun shooting movement towards Rick Perry.
Rick Perry, towering over his hobbit-sized podium, appeared to be some sort of giant, uncomfortable, very annoyed and bored monster. While well-coifed and looking nice in his grey suit, Rick Perry was absolutely terrifying. He suggested that not only should the death penalty, in it's current and horribly imperfect state, continue to be used for murders, but that it should be used for child molesters as well. It's not enough that Texas leads the nation in executions-- we're getting our ass kicked by China, so we better find some more people to execute. This is on top of his idea that 18 coal-burning energy plants will be good for the environment. I'm definitely excited about dying from the Black Lung. Coal plants did so well for England in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. While they'll lower energy costs, they'll raise health costs by more than Texans are saving in energy.
The only person with any common sense, the only person able to correctly answer a question given to them by the panel, was Chris Bell. Chris Bell has a great energy plan, a great education plan, a great health care plan, and a great border security plan. He had witty remarks and brought up the Magic Words in the opening moments of the debate-- reminding Texans of Tom Delay's ethics violations, refering to his "three Republican opponents," and commenting that it's not practical to think we could deport 11 million illegal immigrants when we couldn't even evacuate New Orleans. Chris Bell is smart, witty, has great plans for Texas, and he knows when the Battle of the Alamo happened. He was able to answer the questions and didn't frighten the hell out of me like Rick Perry did.
From an honest, unbiased standpoint, I think it's quite obvious which candidates were prepared for the debate. Rick Perry and Chris Bell were the only two candidates who came out looking like they were actually involved in the race. Kinky Friedman just kept saying the same jokes he memorized to say at SMU and at UT (and probably other colleges), and while I'm sure every candidate memorizes certain answers and phrases to say, there wasn't an audience for Kinky to make laugh and he didn't really answer most of the questions. The question he was able to ask to another candidate wasn't even something that was very important and was directed at the wrong person. While I'm a fan of more debate, if you only get one question, the strategic choice is not to ask Chris Bell what he thinks about Rick Perry refuses to debate more than once. Standing at a podium way too large for him (and too large for Strayhorn and too small for Bell and Perry) in between Bell and Perry, Kinky appeared to be small and clown-like in stature-- wearing a cowboy hat, duster, Texas Ranger pin, waving his cigar around, and swaying back and forth like most people who don't have training in public speaking do.
The only candidate who performed worse than Kinky was Carole Keeton-Strayhorn. Strayhorn repeated the same thing when answering every question-- she's going to put Texas and Texans first. I was waiting for Kinky or Bell to joke and say they were going to put Floridians first instead. She couldn't answer who the new president of Mexico is when asked, and disputed challenges of things she's done and said when the journalists on the panel had the quotes and facts in front of them. Her facial expression when confronted with a quote from the Houston Chronicle years ago was classic, and will probably appear on a YTMND sometime soon, along with Kinky Friedman's arm pumping and gun shooting movement towards Rick Perry.
Rick Perry, towering over his hobbit-sized podium, appeared to be some sort of giant, uncomfortable, very annoyed and bored monster. While well-coifed and looking nice in his grey suit, Rick Perry was absolutely terrifying. He suggested that not only should the death penalty, in it's current and horribly imperfect state, continue to be used for murders, but that it should be used for child molesters as well. It's not enough that Texas leads the nation in executions-- we're getting our ass kicked by China, so we better find some more people to execute. This is on top of his idea that 18 coal-burning energy plants will be good for the environment. I'm definitely excited about dying from the Black Lung. Coal plants did so well for England in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. While they'll lower energy costs, they'll raise health costs by more than Texans are saving in energy.
The only person with any common sense, the only person able to correctly answer a question given to them by the panel, was Chris Bell. Chris Bell has a great energy plan, a great education plan, a great health care plan, and a great border security plan. He had witty remarks and brought up the Magic Words in the opening moments of the debate-- reminding Texans of Tom Delay's ethics violations, refering to his "three Republican opponents," and commenting that it's not practical to think we could deport 11 million illegal immigrants when we couldn't even evacuate New Orleans. Chris Bell is smart, witty, has great plans for Texas, and he knows when the Battle of the Alamo happened. He was able to answer the questions and didn't frighten the hell out of me like Rick Perry did.
posted by Katy @ 10:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home