When third party candidates whine

I got three e-mails over the weekend from one Merry Williams, who obviously supports Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney's run for the White House. I'll include a short bit from one of them:

"The real drama of the presidential debates is that they're rigged to exclude all candidates except the Democratic and Republican nominees ... Voters have a right to be informed about which candidate best represents them, even if the polls and media say that they aren't 'winnable.'"

Oh, come on. Are you saying we really shouldn't look at polls and a candidate's support base when determining who makes the debate cut? Get serious. Otherwise, we'd have every joker who makes it on a few states' ballots behind a podium, delivering their ill-conceived rant and wasting everyone's time. Look at the Georgia ballot - McKinney didn't even make the cut, and she used to represent this state in Congress. At least Bob Barr got on there. I would argue that he should have been at the debates, but he doesn't have a chance of winning, either.

And that, really, is what it comes down to - who's going to win the election. It's Obama or McCain; no one else is going to be sitting in the Oval Office come Jan. 20.

So why should we capitulate to any number of third party candidates who have no chance of leading the country and will only kill air time if we allow them at a debate? With the two-party system we have, candidates such as McKinney would be better off spending their time volunteering it to a good cause, not a lost one.

Debate? Town hall meeting? Any difference?

So, I watched the second presidential debate Tuesday night. Actually, I was vaguely listening to it while playing cards, but it was streaming in the background of my PC nonetheless.

Here's what I learned: There didn't appear to be any difference in a debate or a town hall meeting. Both candidates still had their stock of prepared answers to any question given them. Both would completely avoid answering a specific question if they didn't want to, wander off into some more familiar country and the moderator would let them. And both used the opportunity to dig into the other and basically try to rally their supporters while getting new ones.

The only thing that seemed to be different was the lack of podiums. Instead, the candidates lounged against hip chairs while waiting for their turn, casually holding their microphones.

Is this the format John McCain was dying for? Did I miss something? I already miss the rough-and-tumble of the vice presidential debate, dontcha know?

And to make the whole thing that much worse, I don't feel like I learned anything. These debates don't help people decide who to vote for. It just provides more fodder for their devotees to fawn over and mishaps for the other guys to use in their blog posts the next day.

Doubleplus ungood

I don't like online political forums. Reason: they're full of partisan parrots that can't, under any reason, have an open-minded debate. I have never found a discussion online about politics that ultimately didn't dissolve into name calling, hate spewing and a general false superior sense of "I'm right, you're wrong."

How can otherwise rational people believe their side is always right and the other guy is permanently wrong? You've seen the foolishness people write. A fair example would be from the comments people wrote here about the new movie with a conservative slant: "An American Carol."

Examples: "Reviwer is obviously a liberal that can't take a joke. I'm sure that he thinks the SNL skits of Palin are funny, but you can't touch his liberal buddies, thats mean. Give me a break."

"Hmmm, Let me guess, RENE RODRIGUEZ is hmmmm, a liberal..."

"I thought it was a great movie, Rene Rodriguiz, gee, sounds Mexican to me. Maybe she just doesn't like being an American, please, be my guest, get your butt back across the border. I felt very patriotic after watching this movie, she can't, at least, not for America."

Comments such as these are just a drop in the ocean of what passes for politics online, but they show how many of us feel. You are a "liberal" or a "conservative." There are no other words that define you, and if I'm one and you're the other, I despise you.

Maybe things are this way because of how our system is built. America's a two-party system; third parties don't get the play like they do in parliamentary governments. The party system of this country is our political language; we don't have words for someone who supports gun rights and also wants gun control. What do you call the guy who supports the war in Iraq and the legalization of all drugs?

Our system isn't yin-yang; it's us versus them, and that's not healthy for any of us. We're not having a robust, worthy conversation about politics in America when we have people who want to ship all the liberals away and others who want to cook the conservatives for dinner. This is a doubleplus bad situation for everyone.

Reporter shield

"When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head to where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out, confront him or her and turn the person around, Times staff writer Eileen Schulte wrote on the paper's Web site. One escort, who would not give her name, told a reporter the press couldn't mingle because negative things had been written in the past, Schulte reported." - Yahoo! News

All this at a Sarah Palin rally? Say it ain't so! I'm actually astonished that the MSM would dare to write anything negative about a political candidate, question their beliefs and policies or generally act like a good reporter should.

But what is negative reporting? Asking questions a candidate can't answer? Pointing out that Barack Obama was 8 years old when the Weather Underground bombings occurred? Or is it negative to note that Obama is currently slapping McCain around at the polls?

The only problem I have with these awful reporters is that seemingly none of them slipped into the audience unnoticed and then asked Palin a question when she wasn't surrounded by handlers or protected by sycophantic supporters. At least Chelsea Clinton held her head high when she weaseled out of answering questions about her father's infidelities. Palin won't even take the tough questions without whining.

Just answer the question!

This has been ticking me off since last Thursday, when Sarah Palin just wouldn't answer certain questions during the debate. If she was trying to convince me that she's ready to step in should something happen to the president, I'm not impressed.

Call me old fashioned, but I thought the point of a debate was to answer questions posed to you by a moderator. You get a shot to speak directly to the American people during your closing statement and every day on the campaign trail, not when you either don't know the answer to a certain question or just want to go off on a tangent.

And to use an excuse that you're not going to do what the MSM or some moderator wants you to do in a debate, so you'll just talk from whatever script you're looking at is more than pathetic - it's insulting to voters. Sure, it would look bad if she were to state on live television that she doesn't have a command of certain issues and wasn't prepared, but at least it'd be the truth.

It seems that instead of the truth, Palin would prefer to discuss only the issues she's comfortable with and slander Barack Obama by trying to connect him with terrorists. If that's the best she can do, then Alaska can keep her.

Say it ain't so, Joe

Yeah, you knew there was going to be a post about the veep debate, and here it is. I caught a little over half of it from the comfort of my casa, and lemme tell ya - I'm not impressed. Thursday's debate was little more than a practice test and the results don't matter.

It'd be one thing if we learned something about the candidates; we didn't. The media made hay about Sarah Palin being in debate boot camp for the two days before the event, and what we got might as well have been straight from the book she studied from. She crammed for a test - both of them did, so why should I care what occurred in what's essentially a two-person play?

All we have to judge the candidates on from Thursday's debate is their characteristics, their speech, mannerisms, their "folksiness." Should we judge how to cast a ballot based on whether someone flubbed an answer? Is public speaking and oratory an essential trait in a good vice president? Come on. All the debate boiled down to was an opportunity for one or both of them to screw up so we could point fingers at them. They both did pretty well, so what do we do now?

Same thing we do every night, Brain - spout opinions online that we stole from talking heads and that we really don't even understand.

"I can see Russia from my house!"

I found what purports to be a web cam from Little Diomede - the Alaskan island from which you really can see Russia. Check it out here. Kind of cute, but not terribly exciting. I spent most of my time watching a building's roof, the cold water and a nearby land mass that very well may be under control by the Reds.

According to a recent CNN story, the island has about 150 people on it and most don't even know who Sarah Palin is. Zooming in from Google maps was a little frightening. Made me think of "The Thing."

Lesson learned: Stay where it's warm and vacation in Vegas.