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Five things you should know about the California Democratic Debate
BY ADAM REILLY
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John Edwards never drew blood. Throughout the evening, Edwards worked to highlight differences between him and John Kerry. But Kerry was adept at either minimizing the the differences Edwards identified or suggesting that they don’t really matter. When Edwards opened by emphasizing his working-class background, for example, Kerry responded by noting that he served with "kids out of the barrios of Los Angeles…and from the South side of Chicago and South Boston and a lot of other places, because they couldn’t get out of the draft." It’s easy to mock Kerry’s emphasis of his Vietnam experience. But his point here -- that he’s known people from radically differenent socioeconomic backgrounds and worked with them in close proximity – was an effective rebuttal to Edwards’ argument. Edwards also tried, as he has before, to paint himself as a Washington outsider and Kerry as an insider, but this remains a bogus line of reasoning. The bottom line is that Edwards is a senator too, just a less experienced one than Kerry. When Edward railed against "Washington lobbyists," meanwhile, Kerry acknowledged that these lobbyists have given approximately one percent of his lifetime fundraising totals but gently pointed out that Edwards receives approximately 50 percent of his money from trial lawyers. Again, point to Kerry. Edwards did a bit better on trade, where he rattled off the treaties he’s voted against and Kerry has supported. But Kerry contained any damage by focusing on his support for labor and environmental regulations in all trade agreements. Edwards needed a home run to have a chance on Super Tuesday. He didn’t get it. Kerry got off easy on gay marriage. When the subject of gay marriage came up early in the debate, Kerry suggested that George W. Bush is using the issue -- and his support for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- as a decoy to avoid talking about jobs, the environment, the deficit, or Social Security. "This is a president who always tries to create a cultural war and seek the lowest common denominator of American politics," Kerry stated. He’s right, of course. But what about Kerry’s recently announced support for a Massachusetts constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages? It seemed, at one point, like moderator Larry King was on the verge of forcing Kerry to confront his simultaneous opposition to a federal amendment and support for a state amendment -- but in the end, King danced around the issue. When Kerry was pressed, it was only on his decision to vote against the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. No one asked the simple question: If it’s wrong to ban gay marriages nationally, why is it okay to do so in your home state? John Edwards embarrassed himself on the death penalty. Asked to explain his support of the death penalty, Edwards gave an extremely compelling example: he cited the case of James Byrd, the black man killed in Texas in 1998 by three white men who stripped him, chained him a to a pickup truck, and dragged him behind it until his head was severed. Even the most stalwart death penalty opponents can understand the urge for revenge in cases like this. Edwards also acknowledged that the administration of the death penalty needs to be improved through wider use of DNA testing and better representation for indigent defendants. But when Al Sharpton asked Edwards whether he’d support nationwide suspension of the death penalty until these improvements could be made, Edwards said he wouldn’t, citing the example of Illinois (whose governor, George Ryan, commuted the sentences of the state’s death row inmates when massive systemic flaws in Illinois’ administration of the death penalty became apparent) to argue that individual states can decide if and when they need to take similar steps. This answer ignores the fact that such drastic action requires either A) political leaders who are attuned to the problem and willing to risk their political capital or B) voters who give a damn. When Sharpton suggested this sounded like Edwards -- as with gay marriage -- was falling back on a states’ rights argument here, Edwards unconvincingly replied that he wasn’t. All told, it was an uncharacteristically weak reply by the usually compelling Edwards and one of the worst answers of the night, if not the absolute worst. John Kerry’s rhetorical style is improving, but still needs work. Kerry delivered one of the best lines of the debate in the final segment, when Larry King noted that Bush, in a recent speech, made a thinly veiled reference to Kerry flip-flopping on issues. "I’m not going to listen to President Bush suggest that I might have two positions on any issue when he has a wrong position on every issue," Kerry replied. The crowd loved it. Over the course of the campaign, Kerry’s grown less dependent on his trademark ornate, complex sentences and learned how to deliver punchy, effective lines like these. Occasionally, though, he still drifts back into his old syntax, adding disclaimers that undercut his main point or using terminology that could make average voters’ eyes gloss over. Last night, for example, Kerry said he could connect with Southern voters on "values" issues: "I’ve been a prosecutor; I’ve sent people to jail for the rest of their life. They care about law and order in the South. I’m a gun owner and a hunter, though I’ve never contemplated going hunting with an AK-47." Next time, Senator, forget the part about the AK-47. When the conversation turned to Haiti, meanwhile, Kerry spoke of the Bush administration’s "theological and ideological hatred" for the Aristide government. This might play well at the Kennedy or Fletcher Schools, but most Americans probably want something a bit simpler. The moderators were heinous. Old pro Larry King directed his phlegmy coughs directly into his microphone and joked about how Jews can do two things at once. Janet Clayton of the LA Times, asking Kerry whether he’d consider Edwards as a running mate, asked the following absurd question: "What quality -- and his hair and smile don’t count --what quality does Senator Edwards possess?" Clayton’s colleague Ron Brownstein repeatedly interrupted the candidates to challenge them or ask follow-ups before they’d finished speaking. And that’s only a partial list. By the time the Democratic nominee squares off against Bush, let’s hope the designated moderators realize they’re not the stars of the show.
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