the debate

Last night was the first of four debates in the Iowa race for Governor. In my opinion, Culver “won”. However, David Yepsen’s opinion differs, slightly.

I was surprised, actually. My amazement was not due to the fact that I think Nussle would make a better governor. On the contrary, Culver is my man. I was taken by surprise because Nussle has been in the spotlight of Congress for 16 years. Washington tends to give politicians that “polish” that can fool so many. And debate is probably not one of Culver’s strengths. It was expected by most that Nussle would “mop up the floor with him [Culver]”. That was certainly not the case.

My daughter and I decided not to cram into the actual event at Kirkwood. We went to the Dem. Headquarters, instead. I was glad. MediaCom set up a cable feed for the evening, and someone donated a projector. So, what looks like it could be a big screen TV in this picture, is really – the wall. We would’ve had to be quiet at Kirkwood. We could cheer and boo at Headquarters. And we did…along with other Culver supporters.


The first question was about negative campaigning. Nussle didn’t even answer it. In fact, Nussle didn’t answer a lot of questions. Culver answered all questions in his allotted time, with Nussle frequently blabbing about unrelated material (some of which were just LIES) and had to be ‘cut off’ by the moderator on several occasions. Culver was much more confident than I have seen him in the past, and I liked it. He called Nussle on several…uhh….he informed Nussle that he was misrepresenting the facts, several times. Bruce Aune, the moderator, even said (after the first question) “I’m going to give each of you 30 more seconds to answer the question since the congressman didn’t answer the question at all.” (very loose quote – but he nailed him).

Patty Judge also made an appearance at Headquarters after the debate.


Hollyanne is using this event as an “artifact” for a cultural event…so we took a couple of pictures of her…for proof.




Unrelated: It’s October 3, and there is a little girl in her backyard (adjacent to my backyard) running through the sprinkler in her swimsuit. WTF?? It hit 90 degrees today, I think.

Also unrelated: Zoot has a some good stuff over at his place, if you are interested.