But too many sob stories came out of the Dems. I was hoping for a different level of debate.
I agree on the stories but it is precisely what I expected. So I wasn't surprised by that. I was actually surprised that Obama was actually able to hold something of a substantive debate in the midst of far too many campaign speeches. His exchanges with Tom Coburn and Paul Ryan were quite good. And his ability to counteract bad portraits of the Dem bill was quite impressive.
Generally, though, it seemed to me that the Rs did have ideas, did have legitimate concerns, and seemed as a group to have given more thought to the nuts and bolts of things. It could be, though, that some of their assumptions need to be fact-checked.
To some degree I agree about the Dems but that was because their ideas were in the bill and Obama was making the case, very well, for those. Having said that, however, Tom Harkin, Dick Durbin, Kent Conrad, all had interesting things to say.
As for the Reps, I'm back to what I've already said. Coburn had some interesting things. Ryan is definitely a political comer, bright and articulate and Alexander gave a powerful opening. But as for the rest, I didn't see any ideas. |
