One Debate A Month Is Enough: More Town Hall Meetings, Fewer Debates

One Debate A Month Is Enough

Enough said.

Obama is the leader among the candidates. He took the lead on this issue that was bothering all campaigns. Others were only quietly complaining. Who will tie the bell round the cat's neck?

Obama did. Obama tied the bell.

It's called leadership. Either you have it, or you don't.

More Town Hall Meetings, Fewer Debates

TV fancyheads get enough time on the air. Let the people come on in. Locals in many geographical regions should have their time with the candidate.

This election is about the people, not the talk-show hosts.

Got to Move From 30 Seconds To Three Minutes

The 30 second sound bytes don't tell you much. They get candidates into unnecessary fights, unnecessary parsing, unnecessary splitting hair. Instead the citizens should feel like they had enough time to ask what they wanted to ask, noone screened, most certainly not the media bigheads.

Town hall beats YouTube. There just is this thing about getting locals to gather as a crowd and let the questions fall where they may.

I like the C-Span thing. Let the top candidates do their many town meetings, and let all the top TV stations show up. CNN, Fox, whoever wants to show up.

All Candidates Are Not Equal

Mike Gravel is a nice guy, but there is no point in pretending he is in the same league as Barack.

When the TV stations go cover the town hall meetings, they make it more possible for the people everywhere to better know the top candidates.

Town hall meetings are also more jazzy because you never know who will ask what. These are citizens with genuine concerns on their minds. They are more real than those screened to ask questions at debates. Debates necessarily invite drama.

Debates Have Their Place

Once a month is good. Any less could be a problem. More than once a month is a huge problem.

In The News

Obama to cut back on debates, forums Los Angeles Times the unceasing schedule of presidential debates and candidate forums was proving a distraction .... The campaign will say no to new debate requests until mid-December..... he is committed to six more debates in coming months. ..... "We simply cannot continue to hopscotch from forum to forum and run a campaign true to the bottom-up movement for change that propelled Barack into this race .... the Obama has attended since entering the presidential race in February, according to the campaign. He has also taken part in eighth debate19 forums ...... "We have just been through a period of three debates/forums in six days, and the outlook for the future holds more of the same ...... "Hillary is considered to be doing very well with these debates. Edwards seems increasingly angry. Obama sounds inexperienced." ..... In Obama's Iowa swing, he takes questions from the public in town hall-type settings. .... "Here's a guy who, by the way, didn't have much experience in Washington," the Illinois senator said of Lincoln. "Everybody thought he was kind of a yokel from, um, Illinois."
Obama Says Energy Policy A Moral Issue Guardian Unlimited needs a president willing to defy special interests in Washington that dictate energy policy. .... he is voters' best bet to shake up the status quo. .... the only candidate experienced enough to make a change in Washington. ..... ``We've got an energy policy that doesn't just seem like it's written by industry lobbyists,'' he said. ``It was written by energy lobbyists.'' ..... Obama was committee to five remaining debates sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, two Iowa debates in December and one in Florida on Sept. 9. .... Many of Obama's rivals also have complained about the overwhelming number of multicandidate gatherings and could follow suit. .... ``We can free ourselves from the tyranny of oil.''
Understanding Obama Chicago Tribune In the year 2000, he almost didn't attend the Democratic National Convention because he didn't have enough money for the airfare. Four years later he delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic convention in Boston. Next year he may claim the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention in Denver. .... There may be no precedent for a rise like this, though the last two Illinois presidents claim quite stunning ascents: Abraham Lincoln served but a single term in the House and had been defeated in a bruising Senate race before becoming president in 1861, and Ronald Reagan had been an actor before serving two terms in Sacramento as governor of his adopted state of California and moving into the White House in 1981. But by any measure Obama is one part politician, one part phenomenon. ...... the Tribune reporter who covered Obama since the early days of his U.S. Senate campaign, and he has written "Obama," a biography ...... in a small New Hampshire town that had voted decisively for Barry Goldwater in 1964, and, there in the high school gym in a community that is probably 99 percent white, were hundreds upon hundreds of people -- transfixed, inspired, passionate, swept away by this black man who spoke to their heads and won their hearts. ....... there is immense interest in Obama ..... the public knows Clinton better than Obama ..... the notion that Obama has a hidden side that is "imperious, mercurial, self-righteous and sometime prickly." ...... "He is an exceptionally gifted politician who, throughout his life, has been able to make people of wildly divergent vantage points see in him exactly what they want to see." ...... Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not possess that gift, though for a time Bill Clinton did....... "He is an extraordinarily ambitious, competitive man with persuasive charm and a career reach that seems to have no bounds ...... lonely and difficult decisions of statecraft and unimaginable and incomparable tests of leadership, where precedent matters little and creativity and character matter above all. ..... If the senator is elected to the White House, every presidential biography of the man will cite Mendell.
Clinton May Not Be Pressured To Take Obama As Running Mate TransWorldNews The possibility that Senator Obama will become the running mate of Senator Clinton is also something that is unlikely to happen. Growing tension between Clinton and Obama had been observed in the past few weeks after Clinton called Obama's stand on foreign policies as irresponsible and naïve. .... the probability that Clinton and Obama will end up as running mates in the coming election is rather dim. .... if she does not like working with Obama, then she can simply say so and get away with it.
Obama Will Skip Debates. Will Anyone Else? Washington Post Obama has already attended seven debates and 19 forums, including a just-finished run of three forums in six days ... The prospect of fewer debates makes Sunday's, moderated by George Stephanopoulos in Des Moines, that much more important to the campaigns. It also comes at a time when the candidates are all ratcheting up their focus on Iowa heading into Labor Day. ..... Stephanopoulos said today that he hopes his questions will encourage interaction between the candidates, where they "really mix it up and engage," rather than the standard, one-at-a-time format.

Nepal King's kin dupes many Indian students Times of India
Giuliani: I'll Discuss My Family My Way Washington Post Giuliani was asked by a voter in Derry, N.H., why he should expect loyalty from GOP voters when his children aren't backing him ...... "How is it that we have the best higher education in the world and a weaker K-through-12 system?" Giuliani said. "What's the difference? Why does one operate so well and the other not nearly as well? American higher education is based on a quintessential American principle _ choice." ...... stressed his desire to have private forces shape the country's economy in education as well as in health care and Social Security
Hastert Officially Announces Retirement New York Times
First daughter Jenna gets engaged Indianapolis Star
CBS Poll: Edwards Trailing Clinton, Obama CBS News
Obama campaign working to introduce candidate Washington Post How many children does Barack Obama have? In what foreign country did he live as a boy ..... I don't think people know who he is, which surprises me." ...... He's young, he's African-American, he's new. .... "People are frustrated and people are angry."
Edwards Blasts Obama Lobbyist Plan as 'Fantasy' ABC News I think the only way we're going to bring about change is to take them on head-on, and to defeat them ...... I mean, Sen. Clinton has been part of Washington for a very long time. ..... "Obama has done more to curb lobbyists' influence than anyone else in this race and has the furthest reaching plan to fundamentally reform government and shut the revolving door between the White House and K Street ....... 34 New Orleans homes have had their owners face foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group, the hedge fund Edwards worked for in 2005 and 2006 -- and that he still had $16 million invested in. ...... John Kerry, D-Mass., edged him out in the state with the first-in-the-nation caucuses and never looked back en route to the Democratic nomination ..... This week, he's making 31 stops in Iowa cities and towns during a six-day bus tour, putting his tally of Iowa events so far this year well above 100. ..... strongly suggesting that he is the only major candidate who can help down-ballot Democrats in next year's elections.
Obama Focuses On Rural Policy Guardian Unlimited
Obama: He's having 'adventure' of his life running for president WQAD
To Warren Buffett, Obama and Clinton Are Both Presidential New York Times In the Warren Buffett primary, there is nothing but neutrality .... in the Clinton-Obama contest, he has no intention of taking sides until the race is over ...... In recent elections, Mr. Obama said, Democrats have employed a strategy of the “50 plus 1 model,” hoping to eke out a slim victory. He argued that his candidacy could change that. ....... “by drawing in new people in the process and by getting young people excited in this campaign.” ..... the day I’m inaugurated, I think the country looks at itself differently and the world looks at America differently ...... “I’ve got a conviction about him that I don’t get very often," Mr. Buffett told me in 2005. ......“Hillary Clinton is a wonderful candidate and a wonderful woman, but if she runs, she will really hurt our local races out here,” Mr. Achelpohl told me. “She will bring every crazy Republican out of the woodwork.”