Verbosities

GOP Debate Talk Clock | Chris Dodd for President

Via the widget above, isn't it interesting that in a debate lasting 120 minutes that we have less than 80 total minutes of the candidates actually speaking? And poor Tommy Thompson - the guy drew the short straw, only getting 5.4% of the 79.5 minutes of total candidate airtime, compared to Giuliani's 15.7%.

Is it good and healthy for our election cycle that our media is setting the expectation that we should have a small pack of front-runners now, so far ahead of the true primary season? Obviously, they're front-runners for a reason, but guys like Huckabee (8.5% - charismatic, should be drawing more support from the Religious Right), Gilmore (7.5% - seemingly solid conservative credentials compared to Romney and Giuliani), Thompson (5.4% - less than telegenic, but seems principled and conservative) and Hunter (9.1% - whose understanding of foreign policy and our current military efforts outpaces Giuliani and Romney by a country mile) aren't necessarily getting the airtime on these debates to showcase these obvious strengths.

That being said, Huckabee and Hunter did well last night in their attempts to do just that. Huckabee's time as a pastor gives him a huge advantage when discussing his faith, and his 90 seconds onstage demolishing Blitzer's attempt to corner him on the evolution denial was absolutely brilliant in its honesty. He's still a nut for whom I'd never vote, but those 90 seconds represented the single most pure and refreshing moment out of the last two debates, period. Hunter's discussion of the NIE last night was a great wedge moment for him, as the comparison between those who had the ability to read up and make a "principled" decision (with which we can, in hindsight, disagree on) with those who chose to simply read the Cliff's Notes presented a sharp contrast - to me, at least. At minimum, anyone who was paying attention who came in believing that Giuliani "owns" the terrorism question should have serious second thoughts about cedeing that ground to him in whole. Hunter (again, someone for whom I'd never vote) most certainly has military/national security credentials, and is someone who should be a stronger presence in the GOP conversation around these issues.

That's not the way it works, unfortunately, as the media attempts to whittle down the field a full year before the party conventions. It'd be helpful to all involved if some of these voices from the background (on both sides of the race - Dodd gets more and more interesting on the Dem side too) were given more time to articulate who they are and what their strengths are before they're ushered off, stage right - or left, depending on which doomed candidacy we're talking about.

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