Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The Debate

Well, I caught most of the Blackwell / Strickland debate and for the most part it was pretty dry. Blackwell is clearly the better public speaker, but that really doesn't matter when you don't really have anything to say. All Blackwell really said was lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes, and paint Strickland as a tax and spender, tax and spender, tax and spender. He didn't seem to have any new ideas on economic recovery.

Strickland did much better than I thought he would and clearly offered a better message than Blackwell, despite his weaker public speaking skills. To be honest, as long as Strickland doesn't make any major gaffes in these debates, they have to be considered wins for him considering his sizable lead.

One thing did amuse me in the debate though. The last question asked of both men was what do they think about Iraq. I've never understood why people ask foreign policy questions of candidates who are running for an office that has absolutely nothing to do with those policies. What can the governor of Ohio do about Iraq? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Strickland probably did win a few points for saying he voted against the war, and idiotically Blackwell seemed to embrace it. Why would you embrace an unpopular issue when it has nothing to do with being governor?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Blackwell is certainly a good public speaker - he should be since that's basically been his profession for some time now. But Ted's no slouch in this area either. Ted's public speaking has evolved over the years to a very high level. He is a master of knowing his audiance and adjusting accordingly. Neither is Ted a rookie to the debate format. I remeber the Hollister campaign where they planned to debate in all 14 counties in his congressional district. I too thought the Iraq question to be odd. But when you think about it - a large part of our troop committment for this war has been shifted to National Guard Reserves which certainly is a State issue. I would have liked for Ted to tie this angle to this question.