Quick post today...very busy morning.
Who watched the debate? What a snooze. He came off as non-committal, clueless and arrogant, and she came off as snippy and whiny. John McCain won that debate by a landslide. Seriously, they spent the first 16 minutes arguing over whose health care plan had the most or fewest mandates. Never mind that both plans suck and are 95% identical...they nitpicked over the other 5%. And that was their FIRST impression.
And she complained about getting the first question all the time? Is she kidding? But I want to take her to task for one thing in particular...her plan to create 5 million jobs in 10 years. Let's do some math here.
The "civilian labor force" is about 140 million workers. Unemployment is currently about 5%, or about 7 million people. The population (and the workforce) grows at about .8% per year. Therefore, the workforce will grow by about 12 million over the next ten years. She wants to create five million jobs.
Which means she would like unemployment to double. I really like the idea of "setting low expectations", but that is a little bit extreme. As a reference, the economy has created about 7.8 million new jobs in the last five years. So, in her own words, she is aiming to grow jobs by 1/3 of the "failed economic policies of the Bush administration".
But I digress...they both missed chances and avoided giving straight answers to questions. The last question was an open invitation to highlight the shortcomings of the other, and they both answered totally different questions.
Having no time limits hurts them. I think politicians love to hear themselves talk, and if you give them the chance, they will just continue talking until they run out of air. There were three or four times that I felt like they started a good answer, and then rambled on for like five minutes about other subjects entirely.
Really a bad show from both of them. Given the current state of the campaigns, that favors him.
Project Runway tonight!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Politics on Wednesday
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3 comments:
I'm with you on the no time limit thing. I do think Barack is a great public speaker, but even he falters when left the his own devices and allowed to talk, and talk, and talk. Besides, I find letting them ramble on dilutes their message, and muddles up their answers. As for Clinton and Obama, I'm frustrated that they continue to rip apart each other on policy issues where they are almost identical in their stance. I understand that they need to create 'differences' between them, but listening to them talk lately has just given me a brainache.
i saw highlights of this last night. i wasn't overly impressed with either. is it just my biased opinion or does hilary seem really desperate at the moment? it's as if she thinks she's definitely lost. i didn't think that had happened, has it?
I didn't watch it... it just doesn't concern me at this point. (Especially since I won't be voting for anyone at the podium.)
Excellent call on the unemployment. If I'd heard that, I would have run the numbers just like you did to see what washed out... or didn't. ;)
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