Redstate

If that's all Edwards has as a tactic, Cheney should mop up with him.

That's a good line.

Edwards wants to make this all about Osama.  That might be good, but considering most polls showing Iraq was a part of the terror war, that might not work.

not playing defense this time. A little offense is effective

"Your rhetoric, Senator, would be more credible if you had a record to back it up."

Cheney's hitting all the points that Bush failed to.

It's Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, and Cheney's knockin' his block off.

the "can't stand up to Howard Dean" had to hurt

There are a couple of things I'm liking about this:

-First, Edwards is already showing himself to have all of the weaknesses of a trial lawyer whose brain works too quickly for him to stay on one idea for longer than 10 seconds.  By comparison to Cheney, he's too earnest, too scattered, and just plain unsure of his footing in this venue.

-Cheney is no looker, but there's something rather funky going on with Edwards' hair.  If you watch the C-SPAN split screen, his tweaked at it a couple of times.  I like that.

-Gravitas?  Nope.

-The feeling I get is that Ifill fully intends to ask tougher questions of the VP than Edwards, but even her easier questions seem to find the Senator ill-prepared.  Did he think she was going to be asking flat out: "Mr. Cheney, are you the dark insidious force behind email spam?"

to the changing stance based on polling.

Throughout the first debate, I kept waiting for the President to knock one out of the park... as Kerry left himself so, so vulnerable for attack on issue after issue.  But in almost every instance, the President didn't do it.

Cheney doesn't have that problem.  Geez, he's heartless.

Much better than Lehrer.

But, only so far.

focusing on the same soundbytes over and over--I'm reminded of Cochran's famous line.

I thought the same thing, Augustine.  He is positively bouncing in his chair to spout out...something...

Cheney will mop the floor with him.

Better than a hard mallet to the head?

I wish they'd had the balls to use Dan Rather.  Heh heh.

limit for the duration of debate open threads??

Edwards is showing his inexperience through the art of the dodge.

It's so Clintonesque.

Cheney's gestures are much more varied.

Cheney is coming cross as serious.  I think that helps the Bush team.  His explanations for one question give more detail than the entire 90 minutes of the Presidential debate.

I don't think Edwards can get traction with it.  He's making good points, but Cheney can crush Edwards.

Oh, oh.  Here it comes.

<nt>

Slam Yassar Arafat, Cheney.  Slam him with this crap "peace process" question.

a question referencing Halliburton is clearly incendiary. Lets see if we see a question concerning OB's in Edwards state.

Hmm.  Looks like they're down -- overloaded by a referral from the VP!

Edwards says they will be strong on terror, but then miss defines it as a war against OBL only.

The Edwards attendance slam was fantastic!

"The first time I met you was when I walked on the stage tonight."

Finally some real hard-hitting! Loved the "first time I ever met you..." comment from Cheney! Is it my imagination, or is Edwards getting a lot more speaking time?

Slime deserves slime. I thought he would bring up his trial lawyer days.

Wow, that's rough.

And now Edwards is bringing up Head Start?

It's a slaughter. (Or so I perceive.)

"His record speaks for itself, and frankly, it's not very distinguished."

Edwards has taken.  He has also rebutted several times where he was not allowed. But in general has been able to get the last word in.  Usually off topic, but still the last work.

This feels like the scene from Carrie (ironic?) where she unleashed on the prom king. It's a slaughter.  Good for Cheney.

And Cheney was loaded for hair, er, I mean bear.

factcheck.ORG

bankroll everything in the country....

Not to be nitpicky, but I love the movie. Carrie was treated nicely by the prom king, who was knocked out by the bucket of pig blood dropped by John Travolta and his mean girfriend.

John Edwards is John Travolta. It ended badly for him in the movie.

No fan of the question, but I think it is a good substantive area.  Edwards cannot really defend it.

Does he really not understand "Full Faith and Credit.?"

That was fairly classy being willing not to take the bait and go forward.

I'm actually quite pleased with her.

It is a good area for Edwards to shine.  I'm not a huge proponent of tort reform.

now he let's Edwards frame his career as a honorable anti-big business one

I agree with you that it seems Edwards is being allowed more time.  Cheney really zinged him with the "first time I have met you is tonight" comment.  That one has instant headline written all over it.

Here comes the personal story gimmick----no mention of tort reform from Edwards--now Cheney has a real opportunity here...

Edwards sounded really defensive on that response...

That was a nice little catch by Cheney on the tax loopholes that John Edwards took advantage of.  Edwards reply was not very strong.  

Didn't she say she wanted to focus on AIDS in America?

That is a very pointed question.

i'm not watching the debate...i was too distraught over the 1st one.

so all i'm getting is your reports.  i do hope cheney is doing as well as you all are saying.

i'll flip on fox & cnn (polar ends) and see their take on it in 15 minutes or so.

thanks to all...keep the commentary coming!

How can he say this when his fearless leader voted against it??? I'll bet the folks in the audience are choking back some seious coughs!!!

I too was disappointed the other night.  I hope that those preparing GWB are taking notes.

I think Cheney did that well.

It would have been very, very easy for Cheney to say the right thing on marriage: supporting the President without conflicting with his own divergent view of the matter.  Particularly on a day when an activist judge in Louisiana struck down the marriage definition passed by 78% of voters, this was a disappointing response that left the President hanging out to dry.

Edwards practically drew a map for him on this.  After Edwards clumsy response, Cheney could just have said:

"I appreciate the Senator's kind words about my family.  And I agree with him - I think that in principle the states should decide what marriage is, and I would like for that to be the ideal case.  But the President understands that our hand has been forced over the past year by activist judges, whose decisions will ultimately force the states to do what they don't want to do - to recognize other states' definitions of marriage with "full faith and credit."  I believe the President wants a Constitutional Amendment because he understands that such a process represents the only way to ensure that the states can have a voice in the matter before it is too late, and I support the President."

Is that really a strong point for Kerry. Wow, he talked tough, so he must therefore be a tough guy. If that is all they have to show that Kerry is going to be tough, they are really grasping for straws.

Edwards gets called on breaking the rule, does it again, and loses the debate.

is not helping him right now.  John Edwards is blowing this answer.  He is not answering the question.  

He just gave the high ground away.  Bad Move.

Will she call him on it?

Interesting move by Ifill, asking the candidates to talk about their qualifications without mentioning their running mates.  Was it intentionally designed to underline Edwards' reliance on Kerry?

Say, "It's not the flip that matters, it's the flop."

too bad we don't have anyone saying that the federal govt has no business being involved in public education

He really likes to change the debate question.  It's getting rather silly.

nice example of capitalism at work

What do health care and prescription drugs have to do with uniting the country?  Edwards must have had a talking point left over on his checklist, so he decided to throw it in even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the question.

Amen to that! As a public school teacher, I can only dream of getting the feds out of my classroom---too many legislators acting as 'experts'.

Didn't he say earlier that they were going to be fiscally responsible, and drive down the deficit, but he now is promising health care on level with Congress'.  Sounds good, but it makes you wonder.

Edwards always shines in the closings at trial.  I expect him too here.

Posting to the wrong thing.

Doh.

Too bad. I've been drinking. Could have made for lots of snark.

that many of America's poor are not watching.  They would have had their hearts warmed by that embrace of the Middle Class.

Sounds just like a commercial for a lawyer.

I will be in you corner.

I wasn't too impressed with the closing.

once opened, you will never have anyone run on a cut govt funding platform. It is really discouraging. The immigration/open border issue is another I am really discouraged about. No candidate is for doing much about it.

"I've been President of the Senate for four years and this is the first time I've ever seen John Edwards in person."

I wish he had mention the Halliburton employees that have lost their lives trying to help secure freedom in Iraq.

Do they count as part of the 90%, Johnnie?

Lets go get a hoagie. (overheard)

Cheney kicked major rear end.

foxnews is saying cheney definitely won the 1st half (on national security) and edwards probably won the last half (on domestic issues).

given most people may have tuned out by then, i'll take that!

That Edwards did better the second half does not mean he won the second half.  He lost totally and completely.

he may have had some better talking points in the second half, but how can we provide universal health coverage and cut the deficit (a promise from the first half) at the same time?

While Sen. Edwards seem to think that Soldiers in Iraq are paying more in taxes than the highest earners in America, he is wrong.  Soldiers serving in Iraq and war zones around the world pay ZERO taxes.  There is no soldier serving in Iraq or Afghanistan paying federal taxes.  Edwards doesn't know anything about defense issues, inclduing taxes as they relate to war.

So they can feign balance, and then hammer Bush on Friday.

PBS had good balance afterwards, with a Dem woman I didn't know, and Peter Robinson, former Reagan speechwriter. (Tear down this wall.)

Brian Williams on NBC is flacking for Edwards right now.

Edwards won BIG. That's the result of all the online polls at Fox, MSNBC, etc. I guess Republicans only have dialup accounts. Too slow.

Both thought Edwards didn't do so well.

Can we just leave the debating to Cheney?

Mary Beth Cahill=Iraqi Minister of Information

on both CNN and FOX she claimed that Cheney was just grumpy and mean.  She claimed that he was not able to answer questions, ant claimed victory for John Edwards.....priceless spin

more to do with the lists that the have sent out to solicit comments to sites and radio stations.

John and Ken, on KFI in Los Angeles called a guy who had sent them an email, and he stated he had never heard their show, but had sent it in response to a list of stations that had been sent to him.

The flash polls were way off last Thursday as well.

Chenney clearly looked more knowledgable and impressive in this debate than Edwards.  I'm surprised at how poorly Edwards performed.

But I think Edwards is likeable enough that people will not judge him as harshly for his mistakes.

I truly wished Bush was as aggressive as Chenney was tonight.

Chenney showed the utter hypocracy and inconsistency of the Kerry position on Iraq.  It is laughable when Edwards claims that their opinions on Iraq are consistent.  He loses credibility when he says that.

In the NYC area, PBS is grilling the democratic spinmeister about Edwards performance.

And I was for tort reform then. Go fig.

I'm still a dirty lawyer, though.

Watched the debate with two other independents and one Republican and we all agreed Edwards' unwillingness to answer the question asked was disrespectful to the moderator and the audience.

Quote of the night: "This guy's slime factor is through the roof. Why doesn't he answer the [deleted] question that is asked?"

Of course I wasn't lonely.

Wow. Off the deep end is Sully.

P.S. An entire post written without the letter "G". I lack a key.

And she wants us to send her boss up against the Mad Mullahs in Iran, the Nut Burger of North Korea and Al Qaeda?

I can hear it now ...

John Kerry files a protest with the UN Secruity Council:

"The Mullahs are being mean to me!!!!!"

When I want a lawyer I'll call Edwards.  But since I don't need a lawyer right now, but the country DOES need an effective Vice-President prepared and capable to be President...I'll take Cheney!  PERIOD.

McCurr on Nightline. Something about a prayer breakfast in 2001.

McCurry was full of it.

Kos's front page has a picture of Cheney and Edwards together at a national prayer breakfast.

Addressing the National Prayer Breakast, Cheney said: "Thank you. Thank you very much. Congressman Watts, Senator Edwards, friends from across America and distinguished visitors to our country from all over the world, Lynne and I honored to be with you all this morning." [FDCH Political Transcripts, Cheney Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, 2/1/01]

picture.......

I guess I missed the part where the opinion of a pompous RINO liberal matters outside of the U.S. Senate and the vast lonely wasteland of National Public Radio.  Sullivan is so biased at this point, he actually believes that he is a good balanced representation of mainstream Republican values.  That is, in hating Bush and Cheney and endorsing Kerry... clearly, middle of the road Republican traits.  Ah.

The deadly cycle continues: Andrew Sullivan huffily quits the Republican Party every three months, and the Roman Catholic Church every six.