Thursday, November 15. 4:15 pm.
They told us we would have to be in our seats by 4, but the place is filled with people milling about, schmoozing with each other like the long-lost vague acquaintances many of them are. The CNN announcer is trying to get people to settle in. (And he encourages us to use the bathrooms, if we haven’t already. It feels a bit like kindergarten.) I’m not sure anyone is really listening.
We were told we couldn’t bring our cellphones or Blackberries, so people’s fingers are twitching. The woman next to me is trying to figure out what time it is; nobody knows without their devices. Eventually we determine that a woman behind us is wearing a watch, which comes as a bit of a shock to everyone. We run on cell time.
I have to take notes with (and please understand my horror here) pen and paper. I brought in a little tablet to write on, the first tablet I could find when I was leaving the house very early this morning to catch the plane from Seattle to Boise to Las Vegas. I had asked to bring in the laptop (and extra battery and cellular broadband card), but they made it clear a day or two ago that it wouldn’t be allowed. So I’ve regressed. It’s a bit disorienting, really – no laptop and no cellphone? The horror!
This is the third formal political debate I’ve been to in my life. The first was my own debate against Dave Reichert last year; the second was the Presidential debate at YearlyKos in August. This one is less stressful than the first one, but I notice I’m a little anxious nonetheless. Memories? Projection? Merely concern about whether it’s going to be entertaining, or whether one or more of the candidates will implode?
Jill Derby, who is the Nevada state party chair, and who is my friend – we were on the campaign trail together last cycle – starts the show. She’s looking at ease and confident, which is impressive considering how much her team must have put into this. And Howard Dean, when he enters, gets a standing ovation. Should he stop there? I mean, really, how can it get better than a standing ovation just for walking in? I’m sitting in the DNC section, here because one of my friends at the DNC thought I might enjoy coming to the debate. He was right, and I am, in fact, grateful. But sitting in the DNC section, I’m surrounded by people applauding for Governor Dean with a certain amount of abandon. I am happy to join in.
Howard Dean starts his remarks with an emphasis on women – talking about the woman speaker of the Nevada Assembly who just spoke, about having a woman Speaker of the House in DC, about the Nevada State Party chair (the aforementioned Jill) being a woman – and then segues into a remark about the diversity of our candidates. There are, he says, "lots of different kinds of Americans, and we embrace all of them." Certainly, considering our field of presidential nominees, I agree.
And finally, leading into the debate, we’re rehearsing clapping. Seriously. A stagehand (who looks and acts a bit like my brother-in-law Peter) has come out to show us our cues to provide applause and our cues to stop. He makes a game of it, and we all laugh; we’re in a pretty good mood. For all of our differences of opinion on who the optimal candidate is, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t an outstanding field of Democratic Presidential candidates. Do we lose track of that sometimes?
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So I had made a vow to myself to apply identical levels of scrutiny to the appearances of all of the candidates. There’s a tendency to talk a lot about how women look, but not about the men, and I’d hate to be unfair.
First thing: Dennis Kucinich is wearing shoes that look much too comfortable. Contrast them to Barack Obama’s, which are stylish and shined. And Bill Richardson is wearing brown cowboy boots with his black suit. What on earth is he thinking? Holy cow. Joe Biden appears to have tassels on his shoes, which just doesn’t do it for me. Hillary is wearing heels which make her just exactly as tall as Dennis Kucinich.
All of the boys are very similarly dressed: black suit, white or very light shirt, tie. Boring ties, in fact. Obama goes a bit out on a limb by making his red with stripes instead of merely solid. Why no ties with, say, American flags or flying donkeys – or better still, a bowtie? Ah well.
I’d talk about Hillary’s appearance, but if past experience is a clue, I’m sure you’ll hear about it for days from the media, along with a detailed discussion of exactly how much cleavage was or was not showing.
Some observations about the candidates:
* Joe Biden is brilliant in making his responses just a bit flip and very funny. I wish he’d figure out that his plan to end the war in Iraq could be a way to capture voters if he just explained it to them.
* Bill Richardson is skillfully running against DC – which he should be, given what the American public thinks of DC right now. I wish he would find a way to speak clearly and simply without making it ambiguous whether his stances are bold or naive.
* Dennis Kucinich is embracing his positions rather than dancing around them. That’s brave.
* Hillary Clinton is the only candidate really listening to the other candidates when they speak – even nodding when she agrees. I wish she would make a bold, clear, shocking statement of principle so that it was easier to make that emotional leap to her.
* Barack Obama is using audience feedback to adjust his tone as he goes after the other candidates; he’s being much bolder about testing limits in the debate than the others. I wish he would spend more time being as inspiring as he’s capable of being, and less time attacking; we could use more inspiration.
* Chris Dodd really seems to be having fun.
* John Edwards is as angry as many of the voters I talk to in my district about what’s going on, and I have little doubt he’d go to the mat for them. I wish he could find a way to make more of his optimism about the American people show through the anger, though.
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I was invited to an afterparty, to which I went. A few of the candidates stopped in; I saw at various points, across the room, Kucinich, Edwards, and Biden. The crowd was punchy. I talked to a young woman working for the Oregon Bus Project (hurrah!) and her father from Colorado, both of whom I liked quite a bit. He was brave enough to wear a bowtie. That pretty much always gets points from me.
There were also a few actors in the crowd; it’s Las Vegas, where many of them apparently spend time. Me, I’m more of a snow-capped mountains and pine forests girl myself, but who am I to judge?
At one point, someone set a napkin down on top of a tea candle on one of the tables, and then walked away. I glanced over and saw flames shooting up from the table. When nobody immediately did anything, I grabbed several partially-full glasses of beverage and doused it. It wouldn’t do to have a bunch of dedicated Democrats go up in flames, after all.
Oh, and whichever candidate you support for President definitely won the debate, hands down.