Debating Politics

I tuned in for the Republican debate last night and noted some curious things -

It's odd to me the most prominent thing in the Reagan Library is an airplane. I understand wanting to include the airplane, but maybe they should have called the facility the Reagan Memorial and Museum.

Though there were four candidates at the debate, the media only gave attention to two of them. Perhaps Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee should consider hiring Britney Spears or Paris Hilton to their campaign staff in order to get some media attention. (Maybe the TV news folk could gather all the celebrities for the candidates and we could have a Battle of the Stars team competition to determine who gets the nominations.)

I continue to hear and read a lot of complaints that GOP Senator John McCain is not a Republican. But Republican voters seem to think he's jes' fine. Does that mean the real complaint is that a majority of Republican voters aren't really Republicans?

For more debate thoughts, Volunteer Voters has a selection from Tennessee bloggers. And a fresh new GOP in Tennessee poll says McCain has the edge to win.

Also much unhappiness yesterday, via this collection at TennViews, that John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race. From what I've read, Edwards would have done quite well in Tennessee, though I doubt he could have done better than tie for second place.

I've been trying to get a handle on various issues which the candidates are stumping about as we get closer to the massive primaries next Tuesday and will be blogging often about it and sharing links with you.

The Super Tuesday effect is hitting the media as well, as the recent Pew study notes:

"The presidential campaign continued to dominate national news coverage last week, and the public remained highly engaged in the ongoing contest. Nearly 40% of the national newshole was devoted to the campaign, and 36% of the public listed the campaign as the single news story they were following more closely than any other.

Democratic frontrunners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the most prominent figures in the news last week. When asked to name the person they had heard the most about in the news lately, 24% of the public named Obama and 23% named Clinton. In a week when he proposed a major economic stimulus plan, just 5% of Americans named George Bush as the person they had heard the most about. About twice as many (11%) named Hollywood actor Heath Ledger, who died last week."