Lobbyists, Boos and the Presidential Forum
05 August 2007 1:11 am by Taylor Marsh
Lobbyists, Boos and the Presidential Forum
reporting from YearlyKos
TM served as a volunteer on the advisory committee to the convention’s leadership forum.
YearlyKos: Presidential Forum
– full hour-plus audio –
(Hard to get audio any better while on the road)
Moderator: Matt Bai; with Dr. Jeffrey Feldman and Joan McCarter
He just can’t get no respect. Mike Gravel evidently got his car towed. At the
end of the day, during the closing evening festivities, Sam Seder said two or
three times that a Cadillac was going to get towed. From what I’ve heard it
was Gravel’s.
Needless to say, it was an eventful day filled with extreme highs, including
the Hot Topics panel I was on with Christy Hardin Smith, who narrated, Digby,
James Rucker and Jonathan Singer. I had a blast and it was a terrific lead into the presidential forum. I got to talk about many things, including what I
said in my most recent post on Iraq. It got applause, but also some hisses.
Tough. It’s the truth.
After the Hot Topics panel, I got to speak with Markos briefly, which is when I learned
that “YearlyKos” will be retired, with a new title for next year,
with the name “Kos,” daily or otherwise, nowhere in sight. I’ll tell you all about the Hot Topics panel on my show on Monday,
which will be a lot of fun. The foreign policy questions were good, including one on China, which I’d brought up on one of the calls we had. Very happy it was included, because dealing with China will be a big hurdle in the future.
The presidential forum was eventful, including Joan McCarter accidentally referring to “President Clinton” before one of her questions. Chris
Cilizza outlines the forum, as does Dave
Johnson, who was taking it in a few seats down from me, typing like mad.
I sat with Digby and Christy taking it all in and getting you all a tape of it. It’s the best quality, not bad at all through most of it, I can offer on the road.
Richardson wants a balanced budget and got booed for it. This came after talking
about how silly his pick for Supreme Court justice favorite was when he chose
Byron “Whizzer” White. He’s simply tone deaf. I walked by some of
the candidates breakout rooms to see what was doing on, including Richardson’s.
Small crowd. People sitting in chairs, with Richardson walking back and forth
talking to them, sort of like a teacher-student set up. With such a small crowd he really should have done something more intimate.
Gravel and Kucinich melted away today, in my opinion. Didn’t get to their breakout
rooms.
Dodd had good lines on O’Reilly and media consolidation. I’d brought this topic up in the earlier panel, saying media consolidation is one of the biggest worries we have today. But it was his passion that is really coming
through. His breakout room was small, like Richardson’s, with Dodd behind a
podium on a stage platform. Too formal for the crowd, if you ask me.
Obama looked and sounded very comfortable today. He kept hitting Iraq over
and over and over again. He had a great answer on the China question, talking about how it’s hard to confront China when they’re “our banker.” Amen to that. At some point, however, he seemed to go oddly silent.
He also got stuck on one question about whether we were at all responsible for
9/11. His answer was circular. Questions didn’t come his way and he certainly
didn’t raise his hands like the others. One thing I found very odd is that when
a question on our relationship with Pakistan came up, Obama was left out of
the responses. Considering his recent speech that was just odd. (So is this.) But he didn’t
try to jump in either. I didn’t quite understand it. I got to his breakout room
late, but it was the biggest crowd and with more media than the others, though
I didn’t see Clinton’s because of my Hot Topics panel. Obama was on a small
platform that was roped off. That’s because they were letting anyone in, not
just people that had the right color arm band, which was given to you at the
top during registration. You picked the candidate you wanted to see and hear
in breakouts. I talked to the Obama camp to see if it was Secret
Service who planned the set up. That’s what happened. Because the Obama people
allowed anyone into the room who wanted to go in they took extra precautions. One last thing, it was Obama’s birthday, so during the breakout they sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
Clinton was good and didn’t back down on anything, even in the exchange on
lobbyists, which got intense. She’s unapologetic about it, which you can hear
in the clip or video. This line was mocked later in the evening and is going
to come back at her: “A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it
or not, represent real Americans.” However, considering she also said
she wants public financing of campaigns and will work for that to happen, I
don’t know if it will gain traction with a wider audience. As an aside, she
had a bright blue turquoise jacket on that was wonderful. You get so used to
the guys in their dark jackets that Clinton’s colors really stand out. She made
many good points, especially when she said that the world doesn’t have anti-American
feelings, but rather it’s about being anti-Bush. When she got booed a couple
of times, she came back with a retort that she expected it, but then went right
on. On health care, she talked about her scars and the need to not only have
a plan, but a political strategy to get it done. Clinton on “the global
war on terror” said we were definitely in a war on terror-ists, but that
terrorism was a tactic. She also mentioned Adelman, Cheney and why she took them on, which is a great subject for her. There was also Iraq.
“We must withdraw in a careful and responsible way. … We can’t
just wake up and say we will move 160,000 troops. That is dangerous.”
– Hillary Clinton
I wrote about this yesterday, as well as talked
about in Hot Topics, long before Clinton said the above. In fact, Eric Massa took
the time to come up to me and personally thank me for my statements on Iraq. Believe me, he was not the only one. After listening to a lot of military, foreign policy and diplomacy types, I’m
sure it’s the correct analysis. Redeployment is going to take months, even years
to complete. The point is to begin as soon as possible. It will unfold from
that point. But we must begin to talk openly, as Sestak and others have started to do, including Wesley Clark.
Last, but not least…
Edwards was on fire today. After some good performances, some challenges too,
Edwards has found his message. Announcing his campaign from New Orleans was
a heartfelt move. But emotion gets people out and few people are going to vote
for a candidate that talks about things that are depressing. Edwards finally
shifted to a rhetorical message that is lending much more excitement to his
campaign. It is a simple message of change. Not only talking about and connecting
his work fighting for people, but also against the big corporations that he
railed against as a lawyer. That’s really the most striking shift in the Edwards
campaign I’ve seen lately: message. Again, his platform on poverty hasn’t changed,
but it’s tightened and shifted to a specific use of the word change a lot more
often, which still focuses on the poor without having the actual message be
the poor. He hit more than once that he doesn’t take lobbyist money, and Obama
doesn’t either, then challenged others. In the breakout, of which I heard only
a few moments, he hit it again. But then back he went to his theme of change
and how he’s been fighting the big companies his whole life and can manifest
the change required. As always, the crowd is around Edwards in a circle, with
him in the middle. When the group was asked if they’d have a blogger in their
White House, Edwards said yes and that he’d hire Elizabeth to do it. Edwards
got huge applause. He turned in a powerhouse performance.
It was an amazing forum, which made everyone very proud I’m sure. Clinton standing
her ground, thanking the audience and bloggers, even saying that if we’d existed
in 1993 her health care would have turned out differently. Obama striking again
and again on Iraq. Edwards finding his voice, as well as fighting words that worked. Dodd’s passion. Richardson just doesn’t hit it, frankly, but maybe as vice president or another cabinet position.
I still believe it’s time to break the candidates down into smaller groups. Take
the averages of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina polls, for instance.
Then take the top four candidates in one debate, with the rest in a second
debate. Do this every time a forum or panel comes up. We need to hear more from
these candidates. Ninety seconds, even with a re-direct just isn’t enough.
This race just keeps getting tighter.
