Posted on 10/12/2004 9:44:57 PM PDT by SoDak
Tonight's debate
Tonight marked the third debate held between John Thune and Senator Daschle. The debate tonight was reminiscent of the Dakotafest debate in August, where Daschle was thrown a severe beating. Thune has tremendous command of the facts, and the facts are against Daschle in this race, which is why he's trying to condition people not to listen to the facts by labeling them a "negative attack" or blinding them with his vaunted "clout."
Thune began with a very important quote from Senator Grassley of Iowa published last week saying that Daschle's leadership position in the Senate has become a "curse instead of a blessing" and that "Daschle puts politics and party ambitions in first place. And by doing that, he is sacrificing the interests of farmers and rural America."
Whenever Thune scored points tonight on such issues as the energy bill, judicial nominations, gay marriage, and flag burning, Daschle would respond by simply saying that Thune "is not telling the truth, and he knows it" and not expanding beyond that. Each time Daschle said Thune was not telling the truth, Thune simply responded by saying "don't listen to what he says, look at what he does." To my mind this response completely deflated Daschle every time. I think Thune's response encourages people to look at what Daschle does, and of course if people turn to the internet they'll no doubt land on the blogs. If they do, they'll know Daschle is the one with the truth deficit, and more importantly, discover that Daschle knows he's not telling the truth on issue after issue, from abortion to ethanol.
AP reporter Dennis Gale gets credit for asking the most interesting question of the night. Gale asked Daschle directly whether there was a promise to return Wind Cave National Park in the Black Hills was given in exchange for independent candidate Tim Giago to get out of the race last spring. Daschle denied there was such an exchange.
The best exchange of the night was when Thune pointed out that when he left Congress in 2002, country of origin labeling (COOL) was the law of the land, and that under Daschle's watch, COOL was delayed. A visibly irritated Daschle began complaining about the Republicans being in control of all branches of government and that it was unfair to blame him for the delay of COOL. "Well, you're the leader, you've got all this clout, you can stop judicial nominations. Why can't you stop the delay of country of origin labeling?" Thune replied. It was spectacular.
Daschle is clinging to drought relief and the misleading perception of his "clout" (he's using his clout to advance the interests of the Democratic Party, not South Dakota) and hoping his maneuvers, reversals, and double-crosses will continue to be ignored by the Argus Leader. In sum, Daschle was thrown another beating tonight.
Do you think anyone would notice if the President uses that line a few times tomorrow night?
Wouldn't happen to be any archived video of this debate anywhere you know of, would there?
I'll call and check with the office tomorrow and see if something is online and linkable, or if CSPAN is picking it up at all.
I want to see Daschle out.
Daschle enjoys sticking it to others and bends the truth, if not outright lies, to hurt people while he grins and thinks its funny. I hope that Daschle gets his butt handed to him on Nov. 2.
Thanks again for the post.
Would you please let me know if any footage is available? I'm reading (http://www.daschlevthune.com) and it looks like Thune got in some great blows! I'd love to see it!
Sorry, I left out the "s."
http://www.daschlevsthune.com
I hope some or all of you either went to tonights rally, or watched the debate, or both. Pinging SD freepers who may not have done either one.
Jon Lauck's site (Daschle vs. Thune)is a good one too, and he's part of the Dakota Alliance. Also, you can find him published on National Review Online sometimes. If there's linkable footage, I'll post that link on this thread. Like Laura Ingraham said tonight at the rally, SD Republicans have to realize this is war.
Thank you. I'll check back.
Running debate on C-Span now. Thune looks strong and his intelligent attack is going to send Daschle packing.
According to our friend Blue Thunder, it's on CSPAN.
Thanks.
Looks like it will be re-run @ 11:03pm tonight on C-span. I caught the last 30 minutes of it.
cool. thanks!
SDP and DvT are saying today's Daschle/Thune debate will be on C-Span tonight (Friday) at 10:00 Central Time. Does that sound right to you? They also say it's Thune's best performance, but I'll judge for myself. :-)
It's actually C-Span 2, followed by the Murray/Nethercutt debate. (Jeez, they make it hard for a political junkie to have a social life on a Friday night!)
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