April 27, 2007
Hotline After Dark: The Post-Debate Dissection
The first debate of the WH cycle was last night and MSNBC had full out coverage. CNN also touched on it but there was not a lot on FNC.
Of the '08ers only the top three -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards -- did not do interviews afterwards, sending campaign surrogates instead. Elizabeth Edwards was on "Hardball" pre-debate and "LKL" post-debate but Edwards may wish he had done some TV himself as he did not get a lot coverage in the post-debate analysis. In fact, at one point in the evening, after showing a clip of Edwards from the debate, MSNBC's Olbermann noted: "It's perhaps the first reference to the Edwards performance tonight in our coverage since the debate ended about an hour and 45 minutes ago."
Here are some more post-debate highlights:
MSNBC's Matthews: "It was civilized and therefore not that exciting" (4/26).
CNN's Crowley: "No blood spilled in this first of umpteen presidential debates. You had to listen hard for the low-impact jabs" ("AC 360," 4/26).
Dem strategist James Carville: "I don't think much happened. I don't think much change" ("LKL," CNN, 4/26).
Joe Biden, on his "yes" answer: "Well, look, I mean, how do you answer that question? The fact of the matter is, the American people are going to make a judgment, not the press, whether or not I talk too much or too little. And so I think it was the appropriate answer" (MSNBC, 4/26).
Bill Richardson: "I'm not a blow-dried candidate. I don't have a bunch of consultants. I speak from the heart. I also think I'm the most experienced candidate with the most foreign policy experience. I'm a governor. I've actually done all of the things they talked about in the debate" (MSNBC, 4/26).
More Richardson: "It seemed, at the beginning, that the top tier candidates, at least in the polls, were getting most of the questions. And I was a little frustrated because I wanted to answer so many" ("LKL," CNN, 4/26).
Dennis Kucinich: ""I was able to establish that you can't say you're a peace candidate and keep voting to fund a war" (MSNBC, 4/26).
Elizabeth Edwards, on Edwards: "I was very pleased tonight because he was able to express, albeit in those little, short one-minute answers, his ideas on health care, on the energy crisis, on global warming, on the war in Iraq."
On the $400 haircut: "We're pretty distressed that that bill didn't come to our house instead of the campaign" ("LKL," CNN, 4/26). [EMILY GOODIN]
Posted at 09:04 AM
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