Let’s you and I play a game.Whoever wins will dramatically influence the course of American life over the next 30 – 50 years. I’ll set the bounds of the game, I’ll referee, and I’ll report the game. Go.
I understand people occasionally wager on the outcome of games. Which side would you bet on in this game? Would you be willing to bet your children and grand-children’s prosperity and freedom on the rube position in this game? Is there any reason you would voluntarily put yourself in the rube position?
CNN
Anderson Cooper
Karen Tumulty
Politico
Google
Charlie Rose
What, Sid Blumenthal was unavailable? Why don’t you just let Plouffe and Axelrod moderate? Maybe you could hose down someone from the Occupation to finger twinkle us what we should be discussing next?
It is important to understand that it is not just bias in the actual questions, or the Chris Wallace DC-gotcha bullshit, the Anderson Cooper religious tittie-twisting that hurts us. What is really hurting us is allowing our opponents to define the overall limits of appropriate topics, the focus of our energy, the relative importance of our many problems. Is Anderson Cooper going to ask any of the candidates how our children are going to survive 25 years from now when these damn bills come due? Think Charlie Rose is going to ask about how to recover from the loss of American prestige overseas because of Obama? Sure, Tumulty will ask about Obama’s Jobs Bill, Jobs Bill, Jobs bill, when every conservative knows there is no Jobs bill, there is a tax bill spliced into Son of Stimulus, and that is damn annoying, but it is the control of our overall discourse willingly given by our candidates to their opponents that is really pissing me off.
For the love of God man stop letting the MBM moderate our debates! I don’t mean to imply that you and your media consultants have your heads up your asses, but really, take a deep breath, take a step back and look at what you are doing. Please don’t tell me that I have to explain to you that there is no line between the Democrat party and the media, they are your opponent, they are all in and of the Left and they despise what you stand for. They may like you personally, they may be warm human beings, but they are not operating by the traditional American idea of political fair play and they want to take you down.
I am not advocating you run from the press. There is plenty of time for them, but we also need a debate where conservatives ask questions that we would like to actually have answered. They are not designed to make you look bad, start a bitch-slapping session, limit the debate to Democrat approved areas of discussion, or make some pinko talking head look good at his next WestHo GaGaPalooza. They would be designed to see who understands what is wrong now, what needs to be done, and how to do it.
2012 can be about mountains of debt left to our children, the corrosive effects of the entitlement society, and a bold vision for reducing massively over-grown government, removing the throttle on prosperity for all. But not if the questions are about Republicans blocking Obama’s Jobs bill and how funky those Mormons are.
I vote for Dr. Arnn motionview. Think he’s got a shot?
yes yes yes all you hear about at Team R debates is about the dirty illegal immigrants and they never ask about climate change fraud or federalism or the deficit or the space program
I don’t mean to imply that you and your media consultants have your heads up your asses, but really, take a deep breath
…which will be considerably easier (and better-smelling) if they could somehow be convinced to take their heads out of their asses.
Seriously. The way they act, you’d think there’s gold buried in those things.
Brit Hume.
OMG. bunk
I vote for Goldstein, Levin, Steyn with Breitbart as producer.
Hume
Reason
PW
Steyn
AEI
All of the people mentioned are better than any we’ve had so far.
Great post, mv.
I nominate newrouter.
Thanks bh. When this issue first came up in reference to a Politico / Reagan Library debate I commented here that it was a candidate media IQ test, and any candidate who accepted those terms of debate didn’t understand the current media environment well enough to be our candidate. Gulp.
Hey, Jeff, it’s the logical extension of the open primaries the GOP loves so well.
The United States faces a very real existential crisis. The federal government borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends. All else is really immaterial. Niggling about how the other 60 cents is raised — 9-9-9 v. Fair Tax v. Flat Tax, etc. — is largely immaterial to that one key issue. Yet the Media and the candidates have focused on revenue collection to the exclusion of the much more pressing issue of government spending.
Yes, I blame the Media, but I also blame the candidates who’ve followed them down the rabbit hole. It’s understandable, nobody wants to talk about the deep cuts and/or vast tax increases that must be made to balance the budget — nobody votes for Cassandra — so they’re furiously debating how they would raise that 60 cents, or even make it 62. Not a one of them has the guts to stand up and point out the problem and propose a solution, so they’re happy to debate the many foibles of Mormonism, whether Ron Paul was born in the US or on another planet somewhere, and whether Michele Bachmann should just submit to her husband and get it over with.
It’s a mutual avoidance society and the candidates are as complicit in it as the Media. But the 800-pound deficit spending gorrilla will not be ignored for long. I’ve a feeling the subject of debate will get back around to it next month when the Stupor Committee is due to report.
I wouldn’t go that far Swen, at least with regard to the simplified tax plans proposed. Those are aimed at getting the economy going, moving back into full growth, and as such, generating necessary revenue. But their focus is primarily on achieving economic growth (jobs jobs jobs), not on getting more revenue — even while we all understand greater revenue is an obvious result of economic growth and jobs jobs jobs.
Addressing the spending side, whether through something like the Mack Penny plan or through passage to signature of an austerity budget akin the the Ryan Path to Prosperity, both sides of the equation will have to be undertaken. Nor do I think the candidates are ultimately trying to hide the ball. They talk about the issue. People were praising Huntsman just weeks ago for introducing a comprehensive economic recovery plan, detailing budget cuts. Ron Paul just proposed cutting government by $1T a few days ago. Cain talks about cutting government spending (he endorsed Ryan’s budget and particularly, entitlement reforms), though he’s focused on selling his tax plan for now. Romney has introduced an economy wide plan no-one has read. Bachmann ties repealing ObamaCare to reducing the deficit. And so on.