Sometimes good news come from unexpected sources. So it was this morning, when I learned that Channel 7′s Andy Hiller, whom nobody would confuse with a lefty sympathizer, declared Elizabeth Warren the unequivocal winner of last night’s debate. Here’s part of his review:
On balance, I thought it was not Scott Brown’s best debate, and I thought Elizabeth Warren has never been better….
Warren won this debate on her own. She was very well-prepared, and even her delivery improved. There was no preaching or repeating. She made her points, and moved on. She was confident and conversational. You could see her in The Senate.
The biggest difference between Warren and Brown is that one is a Democrat, and the other is a Republican. I thought Warren did a much better job of defending her party, while Scott Brown danced around his Republican roots.
That last point is an excellent one. Brown tried his best to distance himself from Mitt Romney, and even hilariously declared that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell “has a lot of work to do to earn my vote,” as though McConnell is going to alter his way of doing business in order to “earn” Brown’s support for minority leader. Please. If Brown is reelected, of course he will back McConnell. That’s part of why you shouldn’t vote for Brown.
As has been noted elsewhere, another hilariously bad moment from Brown came in response to being asked about his ideal Supreme Court Justice. After spending a few seconds apparently trying to remember what the Supreme Court was, Brown then blurted out Scalia. Realizing he had just screwed up, he then moved on to name three more Justices (Kennedy, Roberts, and Sotomayor), who basically have nothing to do with each other. What a joke. Here’s the video of that bit:
Tblade captures perfectly what was going on there:
Homer Simpson moment
Don’t say Scalia. Don’t say Scalia. Don’t say Scalia. “Justice Scalia.” Dammit…I just said Scalia! Stupid brain.
Brilliant. Finally, I must add a few more reviews of how awful David Gregory’s performance was. Dan Kennedy wonders whether last night was the “worst debate ever,” decrying Gregory’s “ego-driven, substance-free performance” and noting that he “turned what should have been a substantive discussion about real issues into a fiasco. All in all, a miserable performance.” And Wonkette offers a distinctly NSFW (though quite entertaining) blow-by-blow account, concluding with “f—in travesty y’all. Travesty.” That about sums it up. Here’s hoping the next two are a distinct improvement. Anyone know who is moderating?
Discuss
39 Comments . Leave a comment below.We had 5 minutes to go until the very first mention of Afghanistan. 5 minutes!
And the Scalia remark came at the tail end. So of course any sensible moderator might take the opportunity to ask something along the lines of “You’ve mentioned half of the Supreme Court as your model Justice. Given that the Senate has the power to confirm nominees to the Court, what are your criteria by which you will support or oppose a nominee to the Supreme Court?” But of course we can’t have that conversation because there’s only five minutes left.
We did not talk about: healthcare, the environment, veterans issues, housing, LGBT issues (aside from brief mentions of DADT), Medicare, any real substance on women’s health… you name it.
Brown claims (falsely) that he supports Republican bills 50% of the time and Democratic bills 50% of the time. But if that’s true — if that’s really true — here’s my bottom line: I don’t know much about how I’ll be represented in the next 6 years if he’s re-elected. There are going to be a lot of issues we aren’t even thinking about right now that come up in the next six years. Think about where we were in 2006 vs 2012. And I have no idea what his thought process is when he’s deciding on an important bill other than that he hates taxes. I have no idea whether he’ll happen to share my values on an issue (like he did with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) or not (DREAM Act). He says he wants to create jobs, but I have no idea how he’ll actually do that because all he talks about is the tax code. And most importantly, I have no idea what kind of Supreme Court nominee he likes — other than that his first instinct is to like Scalia, until he’s booed in which case I guess he likes them all. And you can guarantee that in six years we’ll have a few nominees to the Supreme Court. This debate focused for 20 minutes on things that will not impact a single person in Massachusetts in the next 6 years. After November 6th, nobody will care about Kings and Queens. Nobody will care about Cherokee stuff. Nobody will care about a years-old asbestos case. But for years, we will care about the Supreme Court. That question deserved more than just a lightning-round “boxers or briefs” style discussion. That debate wasn’t for us — the people of Massachusetts. That debate was for a bunch of Washington insiders writing up the next political ad, news story or poll. UGH.
why didn’t you post this part of Hiller’s comment.
So almost no one here thinks this debate was “good” so why should we trust Hiller’s judgement? Also last debate he said Brown won, so did you agree with him then? No. Why agree now? BTW if it was “close” then it’s close to a tie.
Do you believe this line? Written as is it says there’s no difference between the two. Do you believe that? No. If you think it’s up to interpretation (meaning he thinks one has Democrat beliefs and the other Republican) then he’s a crappy newsperson (because they’re not supposed to be ambiguous) and we shouldn’t listen to him. He’s all over the place with this lousy analysis, and I don’t think his opinions were shared by everyone.
Total cherry picking in this post and I’m not sure why I should care about what Hiller says.
by your second point. Hiller is saying that, in fact, Warren is a Democrat, and she is good at explaining why, whereas Brown is a Republican (as his record clearly demonstrates), yet he seems to be terrified of admitting it. Afertig’s comment above does an excellent job of explaining why that’s a bad thing for Massachusetts.
As for your sour-grapes-y first point, Hiller declared Warren the winner, and I reprinted the bits explaining why. Pretty straightforward, I’d think. If you want to write a different post, I believe you know how to click the “Write a Post” link at the top of the page.
One way to win an argument is to bring up independent/objective analysis to support your point. You use Hiller here because you agree with him, yet if Hiller said something different (as he did last debate) you would disagree. So my point is that mentioning him as something special is pointless. I also point out that this analysis is confused and I don’t think it makes a good reference point. Of course you posted it so I realize you feel differently.
No reason to for me to post here. I could say “the sky is blue” and link it to a camera shot and there would be numerous disputes to that statement.
or taken at night.
They used the guy because he usually isn’t exactly in their camp. But he didn’t say Brown won by blowout, so he must be part of the liberal media conspiracy.
it was a tie. Hiller said “close”. Many here say win, as does this post.
I think the media often just sucks, which is why it’s pointless to quote random media types.
… and, like most highly specialized fetishes, it is rather offputting to the rest of us.
If Newt Gingrich had something nice to say about Obama it would be noteworthy and lead to much conversation. The above referenced statement regarding Hillers view of the debate is also noteworthy and requiring comment. David has done so. This blog is in the tank for Democrats. I should think that this is blatantly obvious by now: and one of the reasons it is in the tank for Democrats is because of the egregious nature of political commentary, exemplified by the likes of Hiller; and the notion that a man so far gone down the path of a spun-reality wouldn’t be able to avoid calling Elizabeth Warrens great debate a great debate is worthy of a shout out; it might even give one hope, if only a glimmer.
You, however, have only sniped and made inchoate shrugs towards some meme you’ve fulminated.
and you’re right. There’s no room for any debate here.
useful. It is a unit of cultural transmission. It implies there are a lot of memes out there. It puts phrases like “check the box” in perspective without arguing about their efficacy.
http://www.redmassgroup.com/showComment.do?commentId=105156
y me?
If Elizabeth Warren had fumbled the Bobby Valentine question as badly as Scott Brown did, everyone would be dancing on her grave today.
when Elizabeth Warren at first attempted to stay out of the ridiculous and off topic Valentine question, Gregory pressed — no, demanded — she give an answer. Brown got a pass.
that when Brown called her “professor” and said he was not a student in her class, she’d pick up on it and say that if she were in Scott’s class, he’d likely be swearing at her.
I think he was trying to bait her into “if you were a student in my class…” retort, which would have come across as schoolmarmish.
I was quite impressed that she did not rise to the bait; his comment made him look like a dick, and why come to his aid?
This exchange was one of the things that make me say she did quite well on demeanor alone.
… I immediately thought of “John” from the first chapter of Michael Berube’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?. I suspect that there were many adult conservatives who were ‘John’ in college that were feeling a sort of ‘revenge solidarity’ with Brown at that point. Not that it matters – such people weren’t going to vote for Warren anyway.
(The chapter is a pretty quick read for those interested)
That John seems like caricature. To the extent your supposition is accurate, I would suppose that this person is not a potential Warren voter, and so what was his point?
I just meant that I think he was trying to goad her into “lecture” mode, which would have been to his advantage.
… was ‘his point’ – I don’t think it was his purpose to connect that way. I think it was a gut reaction that may have been born of the same kinds of troubles that many conservatives have with the ‘academic zeitgiest’. If not, I think it still connects on that level with people such as ‘John’. The persecution complex that conservatives feel with regard to media and academia is all too real, if unjustified. ‘John’, isn’t a carricature.
It’s not a big point, which is why I started my comment with “For some reason,…”. I just thought this weird interplay between conservative victimhood and academia may have been a factor in the comment, if not a strategy.
When she pressed him on his support for a conscience exemption to a requirement that hospitals make emergency contraception available, he countered with — “I’m not a defendant — I’m not in your courtroom.”
Guess he and Eric have been together a while.
This is where I thought the “cherokee” thing could have been put to good use, but wasn’t. That is, to highlight the bizzare eccentricities of academic liberalism, and saddle EW with them. That would have required a little bit of finesse, which is something that the woofing Brown campaign has conspicuously lacked thus far.
Most of the characters in that piece strike me as caricature.
The angelic Plantonic ideal of a teacher, patiently explaining to the unwilling troglodyte the error of his ways, and thoughtfully examining himself before deciding that he is absolutely right after all.
The self-entitled conservative, rudely talking out of turn to say outrageous and indefensible things, and allowed to do so by the perfect teacher, who complains afterward that Mr. troglodyte didn’t know how much teacher had to accommodate him.
The “good” students, who complain that they prefer to think of things to say that troglodyte won’t respond to rather than risk being challenged. They don’t go so far as to say that they feel “de-valued” but they might well have.
One can almost sense that John is aware that basic building blocks of what an educated person should know about the civilization in which they live– so Eurocentric, that– had been replaced in the curriculum by meandering and pointless “deconstruction” and multicultural tokenism, and feels the loss.
The guy probably signed up for the wrong class, which seems like an elective seminar. But he also sure seems like he is from central casting, set at center stage in a “See How Difficult it is for Me to Teach Conservatives and other Mentally Challenged” apologia.
… there certainly exists a personality type who will hijack the class. Its hardly surprising that other students might have a problem with this. He mentioned that this doesn’t just happen with people like ‘John’, he’s just hilighting ‘John’s’ case. ‘John’s’ experience is salient toward the whole conversation about how modern conservatism views academia. As such, I’d hardly call highlighting the case of ‘John’ a negative.
I get that you think this is a carricature, but I’ve got to tell you, this really does happen in real life.
… bad by being defensive and evasive while Warren was cordial and responsive. I know a lot of people bemoan Gregory for bringing up the heritage and character thing again, but the net was a bonus for Warren because by pressing Brown on the issue he couldn’t come away looking good.
I haven’t heard this repeated though, so I guess I’m in the minority.
Overall his performance was poor for a number of reasons. Ultimately, the reason is overall management of the debate. He deferred to Brown too often and shut down Warren among other complaints. BUT, he did insist on answers, which made trouble for Brown. Warren, I thought, never really needed to have an answer extracted because she answered them. Of course the exception is the Red Sox question, which Gregory insisted from Warren, but allowed Brown to defer.
I’m unhappy that Scott Brown was given five extra minutes of airtime. On the other hand, it appears to me that he used that time to paint himself into several corners.
I agree with you about the “heritage” foolishness. I just rewatched that segment, and I come away with the impression that Elizabeth Warren answered it forthrightly and succinctly — and that Scott Brown came off looking churlish and boorish for continue to press it.
… because it was the ‘first impression’ of night, which can color the way people see the rest of the debate.
To your point about the beginning, he was cold and awkward from the photo op before showtime. Elizabeth was smiling, attempting engage him, waving as pols and chums in the audience and otherwise usurping the role of nice guy from him. He was rigid, looked at and scribbled on his papers like Jon Stewart’s show opening routine, and remained aloof.
Likewise, at the end, her “sweetie” as she calls hubby Bruce Mann bounded up the few stairs for a kiss. She was so human start to finish.
Dan Payne thought Brown won because she didn’t sufficiently rebut his claims to independence and bipartisanship.
He thought her answer on asbestos, etc. was neither tight nor clear. I thought it was good myself.
Except for a couple of clear right-wing folks (giveaway – “Fauxcahontas”) the commenters over there didn’t agree.
Not didn’t agree with me. Sorry for lack of clarity
It is hilarious to compare Andy Hiller’s assessment – “it was not Scott Brown’s best debate, and I thought Elizabeth Warren has never been better” – with, say, Todd Domke’s: “Brown was at his best — surprisingly good. Warren did worse than in the first debate.” The two assessments could hardly be more opposite. So, obviously, the pundits don’t actually know anything more than you or I do. They just say it with authority, and in places where more people are likely to be watching. A pretty good commentary on the state of political commentary in this country.
we in the pajama corps probably have some IQ points up on the talking head population…on average.
When we become Villagers I am totally going to shut down my blog.
is hard to answer, and quite frankly, it’s unimportant. The real question is, which candidate, if any, benefited from the debate? In that regard, I think both benefited. Brown was more relaxed and less petulant than last time. He also sounded like he knew more about what he was talking about. It’s hard for me to look at him as a neutral party, however, because I know the case against him too well and really have come to dislike him. Warren, however, came across as cool, intelligent, and amusing, though she still needs to work on her defense of some debate issues.
My guess: anyone leaning toward Warren would likely to continue leaning toward her. Anyone leaning toward Brown would continue leaning toward him. I have colleagues that are leaning Brown’s way and they haven’t even watched the debate. Brown has produced enough stuff to be criticized and Warren has produced enough to be likeable. It will take a poll to see if this debate moved the needle.
Yes, I think that’s right. One way in which candidates might “benefit” is to be seen as the winner, which tends to give momentum. But a more tangible benefit may accrue to Warren out of this debate, which (as I’ve said elsewhere) is Brown’s Scalia moment. If she ends up getting some solid mileage out of that, then she will in retrospect have clearly been the big beneficiary of this debate, regardless of any pundit’s goofy point-scoring system.
that truly undecided voters have been fence-sitting for a number of reasons, and one of them is “is Warren credible?” I think she wins a lot of Obama voters once she proves this. I think she pretty much has.
It appears that a lot of Brown support is soft, and he runs a real risk of losing some of them, based on what I’ve seen out there on the road. The ones he’s locked up? Well, they were never ours to begin with.
Appeal to the Dems and Dem leaners, and you win in this state.
I object to the stuff like Dan Payne’s been saying: Warren Lost Because She Didn’t Win.
As I said, Brown has produced enough material to be criticized. As you said, the Scalia gaffe is a case in point. Scalia is exactly what we don’t want to see in a Supreme Court Justice: a conservative ideologue intelligent enough to wrap his opinions in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Constitution. It fits right into Brown’s fake independence.
… for most of the debate. Add that to defensive and evasive for the first half and I don’t see him coming away with a net gain.
This basically sums up the first minute and a half of ‘The Hiller Report.”
This debate was close. Both candidates did well. Scott Brown has awful, and Elizabeth Warren’s never been better.
It feels, oh, I don’t know…. a little disjointed… almost like they just didn’t feel like they could come right out and say Liz clearly won, burying that part after the first half minute.
She is new at campaigning, and has been improving as she goes. And no one other than you said Brown was awful; he just said he wasn’t at his best.
The only way a debate isn’t close is if one of the candidates implodes, Admiral Stockdale syle. Otherwise, they’re close.
I thought she came out ahead on demeanor. That’s all that could reasonably be expected, and all she really needed anyway.
I signed even though it doesn’t mention the absurd time difference.
http://signon.org/sign/remove-partisan-david?source=mo&id=53617-627288-LbsK9jx
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