Dems in Des Moines, and the Invisible Candidates
Originally published in The Progressive
It's odd to watch a debate live on TV and then read about it the next day in the paper.
It's like hearing about two totally different events.
That's how I felt about the Democrats' debate in Des Moines on Monday.
Watching it, my reaction to the frontrunners was that Howard Dean held his own, Dick Gephardt came off like a hack politician, John Kerry was an obnoxious jerk, and Wesley Clark did well in criticizing Bush on Iraq.
But then I read The New York Times article by Adam Nagourney that said the essential point of the debate was that Howard Dean was under attack.
Of course, he's under attack. He's leading!
Nagourney noted that Kerry demanded over and over again that Dean answer whether he would slow the growth of Medicare. While Kerry came off OK in print, on the screen he seemed to be way out of line.
The Times has run one critical story after another about Dean, but he won't fade. At the debate, he gave thoughtful responses to a range of questions, but you didn't read about those in the paper.
For instance, Dean gave a great response to Tom Brokaw's question about how he would appeal to white Southern males (whom Dean had clumsily referred to, in the last debate, as guys with Confederate flags in their pickup tucks).
Dean cited a comment by Don Payne of the Congressional Black Caucus, who said, "Southern white males were the most underrepresented people in Congress." Dean explained why: "They vote for conservative rightwing Republicans, and then here's what happens: There are 102,000 kids with no health insurance in South Carolina, and most of those kids are white." And the school budgets are being cut, and most of those students are white, he added. "We have to make people understand that what we have in common is the economic problems of this country."
The only candidate other than Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, and Clark who appeared in the Times story was John Edwards, and that was for trying to stay above the fray.
The article missed the rest of what the viewers saw, or at least this viewer.
Dennis Kucinich remained the most vocal and articulate defender of progressive views, even calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
He consistently demanded an end to the occupation of Iraq, and he beseeched the other Democratic candidates to come on board.
"I'm waiting for someone here to say they'll join me with a plan to end the occupation," he said, adding: "It's not just the fact that there are troops losing their lives and innocent civilians are getting killed, it's the fact that we see hundreds of billions, soon, of U.S. tax dollars being wasted, which is destroying our domestic agenda."
And Kucinich laid out what that domestic agenda should be. He listed tuition-free college, universal single-payer health care, universal pre-kindergarten, and child care for all.
Sharpton, for his part, was also good on the war, health care, and gay marriage. And he took the easy high ground and got off a zinger when he said of his fellow candidates, "All of them in their worst night's sleep are better than George Bush wide awake."
But Sharpton gave a curious answer to a question about his defense of Tawana Brawley in her discredited rape case.
"I don't believe I was wrong," he said, adding a little later: "The girl told her story. And we believed her story and represented her story, and still do."
Carol Moseley Braun had a good night. She properly castigated Congress for abdicating its Constitutional obligation to declare war.
But then she said, "We have to bring them [the troops] home with honor." That's exactly what Nixon and Kissinger used to say: "Peace with Honor."
This was Moseley Braun's low point, but she was better when she staunchly opposed the Patriot Act and the secret detentions in Guantanamo.
And her argument for single payer health care was clear and strong, as was Kucinich's.
Moseley Braun continued to be one of the easiest candidates to listen to, and she told the best joke of the night.
"I'm reminded of the true story of my parent's worst nightmare," she said. "The toilet broke and there was water going everywhere. My mother sent my father to the hardware store, and he came back with a lawnmower."
After the laughter, she made the comparison to George Bush, who went after Saddam instead of bin Laden.
Moseley Braun also spoke eloquently about neglected issues like pay equity for women.
But she, Sharpton, and Kucinich were invisible in the Times story.
No wonder they can't gain traction.
-- Matthew Rothschild
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