Tonight’s the final U.S. Senate debate. Might be the best one yet. Tune in at Minnesota Public Radio and as always, The UpTake is streaming video live as well is recording video of the debate and will have it posted shortly after.
UPDATE: This debate has been hot so far. The first twelve minutes were about the current lawsuit regarding Norm Coleman. I cannot wait to hear it again.
UPDATE: Overall, my favorite debate yet. The UpTake has video up now.
Ugh Norm, whineny, two-faced and corrupt. I really hope that he is booted tuesday. Al is doing well IMHO, Barkley seems to be getting a very positive response
WHAT? No Brodkorb spin yet?
Norm can re-fashion all he wants - and hide behind the skirts of his wife,
by claiming that people are going after his wife.
A confident man might not use his wife that way.
No one is implicating Norm’s wife in this suit filed in Texas, no matter how he screams.
The accusation seems to be that she is the agency, the medium - but no where in the reportage is anyone saying
SHE willfully committed any crime. The crime is that of the senator’s, if indeed he did receive payments this way.
What is that noise about re-writing a question Norm asks Al, as far as what Al has done for Minnesotans.
This is not a child’s game, Norm. You don’t get to rewrite rules & contest qualifications while the person is responding to your question!!! Its not a grade school riddle.
In a debate that’s only an hour long, with the economy in its worst state in decades, our nations in two wars, more and more americans uninsured, and our education rates sinking - a full quarter of the last debate on a lawsuit? Really?
It’s especially heartbreaking, considering there’s nothing new being said. Coleman makes unsubstantiated allegations about the origins of the suit, Franken speaks haltingly (and repeatedly) about sworn affidavits, and we learn nothing new about the candidates positions on issues. I truly expected better from MPR.
Franken was just awful. Someone should have given him a cup of strong java to perk him up. He was so slow in each of his questions, it seemed like he was trying to run out the clock. Just like the past debate, Angry Al was a real snoozer. And what’s up with him reading his response from a script at the end?
Barkley came out very well - smooth and polished. Well spoken with some good ideas on cutting.
Norm sent some zingers to Franken who kept on snoozing.
MacAlum I feel your pain. But if you or any other citizen with even a modicum of gumption to pay attention over this past year is still in need of more information about the issues–and the candidates stands on them this late in the game, then you probably weren’t going to be helped by anything tonight. Much as I too detest the fact, this election of our Senator might well be decided by Norm Coleman’s ethics or lack thereof and not his poor representation of Minnesotans and the issues we hold dear. If it simply came down to what Norm says he has done and his vision for a second term as Senator, we would not be here tonight looking at such a tight race. Let them hash it out for whatever it’s worth then let the people speak on Tuesday. GO AL! but kudos to Barkley too. He’s a good man and he’s trying to do the right thing.
All 3 debates are slight variations on the same theme.
The second was hardly a debate at all.
Its sad, but I can see it. I know people on both sides of the aisle who don’t feel they NEED to watch all, or ANY of the debates, because they’ve made up their minds. I have to wonder - on what information?
If you are not paying acute attention, what informs your decision? The temperature? A coin flip?
Franken (& Barkley?) got asked what they agreed with McCain on. Weird question given the time constraints.
I didn’t hear Norm get asked about what he agreed with Obama on. What was the point of that question?
Yes. I think you are right that it was not a great round of debates.
This one with 3 candidates needed to be longer.
Norm backed out of the state fair debate, to keep from looking bad with the convention in town.
That didn’t help.
I do think Al did very well. He proves himself likable & comfortable enough to joke just a little.
So he is at ease with himself and has distance to see. With a command of the issues.
Barkley gets on my nerves because he so flip; almost devil-may-care flippant, it diminishes his point.
Normy - well, good riddance if he is unemployed soon.
Bede -
I appreciate your response. While you’re completely right that the candidates have been on the air for months, I don’t count ads expressions of policy. I like to hear candidates articulate their positions on the issues in the 2-3 minute soundbites that are usually allowed in debates, rather than that 30 second commercial segments. That being said, it’s clear that character has become an issue in this campaign, but I don’t think the 15 minute exchange on the lawsuit illuminated anything about anyone’s character. Just a distraction that allows everyone act outraged. I’d rather that time be spent talking about some of the difficult realities that complicate the all-too-facile answers that we hear too often.
Can I just add a very something very OTP. I got polled the other night and one of the questions was, how often was I on the net (very frequently) and the other part to that was whether I have seen any ads for Norm. And I had to say just once and it happened to be on this site.
Huge night for Barkley. Huge.
Think about it: If you are leaning Coleman, but now you just aren’t sure, does that mean you buy-in to Franken’s left-wing agenda? The fact that you may not care for Coleman the candidate doesn’t mean you suddenly adopt of leftist set of beliefs over a weekend.
Meanwhile, perhaps there is another person who knows Obama will be elected and want to do your part to ensure a divided government, the kind that can check and balance and provide accountability. So you were going to vote Coleman because you don’t want 60 Dems. But now you aren’t so sure.
Or maybe this whole spat, combined with two months of negative campaigns from both camps, just has you sick of Franken and Coleman.
In both scenarios, there is Barkley. Not pretty, a few warts, but he is an honest, straightforward man and is sitting there asking for your vote, and he could get it.
Barkley gets at least 22% on Tuesday.
Oh Great & Venerable Bede (wink)
I agree with you.
We have not had a proper assessment of Norm’s shortcomings in office.
He’s busy trying to point out he’s qualified - simply because he’s the incumbent. A stupid reason.
What if we enact term limits? Eventually NO ONE would qualify, because we’d run out of incumbents!
I suppose we could exempt old, deceased senators & dig them up - elect them?
Yikes! Using that reasoning we’d need to “elect” Bush to a 3rd term! Cuz he been there.
I’ll give Coleman one thing - he’s managed to fill all the space, take up the air in the room with his yapping
so that we never go there as well as we should. Isn’t that “politics as usual?”
The first debate, he was busy saying “other people did it too-ooo!”
Aligning himself with whomever he could. Name-dropping. Doesn’t explain him or HIS votes.
And he had trouble meeting anyone’s gaze.
Debate 2 was talking over other people. (The manners one learns in the senate?)
The one good thing in debate 3, this time he didn’t yammer on using quite as many trite phrases
that didn’t MEAN anything.
Do we actually need a law that demands debates without preconditions?
Whose the troll?
Go collect your dollar - someone responded to you!
“Angry Al?” — Are you sure you tuned the correct station???
Why do you presume we did not hear the debate? Your spin only works on people who did NOT listen!
That’s the last meme ever to fly from this debate. Dumb of you.
If anything Franken sounded quite at ease. You don’t freewheel jokes if one is what you claim.
Angry over where this country IS, is another matter. We are expected to pay through the nose
for the excesses of largely out-of-control financial institutions because of deregulation & wilfull lack of oversight
as even foolish old Greenspan admitted. You BETTER hope somebody’s pissed about THAT!
But each to its realm.
My contempt for Norm keeps growing and has motivated my firm support for Al on Tuesday (unless a poll released tomorrow shows Barkley surging to within reach of winning.) But as few voters are tuning into debates or reading blogs for good coverage of current scandal, I predict Coleman will win. From my moderate dem voting family only about half will be voting for Franken. Here’s hoping I’m wrong in my prediction.
Say, Coleman’s teeth whistle. Can’t he take them back to that St. Paul cosmetic dentist for a tuneup?
I’ll go with DTM in that Barkley will get over 20% of the total vote. I would not be surprised to see it hit 25%. Which could lead to our next U.S. senator getting elected with only 40% of the ballots cast. Instant run-off voting anyone?
To all those who are afraid that a vote for the best candidate is a “wasted vote” consider this. The only way your individual vote will make a difference is if the election id decided by one vote. The chances of that happening are not statistically meaningful. So you might as well vote for the person you think would make the best senator.
Vote to reject the campaigns that are trying to buy the election. Don’t let them steal your vote with fear or money. Vote to shed a little light onto what is happening in our government by sending the candidate that doesn’t have to answer to a political party or big donors from outside the state. Vote to elect a candidate that will represent you and not the interests that have supported the Democratic and Republican parties through decades of failure.
KH, I hope you devote a LOT of time to getting IRV instituted statewide. It’s way high on my list of things to do.
MRW, I am completely in favor of IRV, including for interparty primaries.
The elected candidate should be someone who has support of the majority, not someone who can (or, who’s party can) divide and conquer with merely a plurality.
While I strongly support Al Franken, I have been consistently and positively impressed by Dean Barkely. He is a fine candidate and a great guy. If IRV were in effect, and Dean Barkley were to win with my second vote, I’d be happy.
I’m going to be demanding our elected officials support and implement IRV.
Vote for the candidate who has championed IRV. Who has pushed for public financing of elections. Who’s has been shouting about reform and regulations for lobbyists. In my estimation, that’s Al Franken.
I know, I know… Al took a lot of private contributions in this cycle - but he has to get elected. That certainly would not happen if Coleman used the current set of rules and Al played the way he thinks it out to play out in the future. Let’s get Al into office, then maybe he can work on these things he’s been “angry” about all these years. And what a job of work that’s going to be! Even if Coleman were up to the job, he would never make changes like those…Would he?
The place to start is to get independents elected any any level possible. Neither party will ever move to increase their competition.
The “has to get elected” line is the excuse always given for corruption and bad behavior. It would work just as well for Coleman as Franken. Buying in to that logic is to buy-in to and continue to support the current cycle of failure. We have spent decades switching out Republicans for Democrats and then back again. It has failed and simply repeating it again now will do nothing.
Hat, you might be right. But what’s even righter is this. Norm GOT elected. He showed us what his priorities were/are. I don’t think he’s going to make electoral reform happen, while I do think Al will. Dean might try to get changes like that too but he would have to be elected. Public financing would have given Dean a much better shot. Maybe Al is going to go to Washington and forget all his campaign promises and immediately start cracking rape jokes on the Senate floor, try to get pornography enetered into the Congressional Record and evade his taxes. Maybe Dean will caucus with Republicans. Anything can happen. All I’m sayin’ is we have a much better idea of where Coleman will go…
Venerable Bede,
The election hasn’t happened yet. Nobody has won or lost. Vote for the best person to represent our state. Don’t vote based on the statistically insignificant chance that your individual vote will make the difference and put Norm back in office. Don’t fall for the fear tactics that are the core to both parties messages. Take the chance to break the cycle, repeating the same actions over and over will not bring any meaningful change.