Sunday, June 25, 2006

TESTER v BURNS-- A REPORT FROM THE NORTHERN FRONT

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If you don't remember DWT Montana correspondant, John Rodwick, please take a look at his May 26 post, "Tester Time-- A Man Who Can Make Big Sky Country Proud in The U.S. Senate". John and his family are up in a log cabin for the summer with no internet access but they do have a TV and this evening he got by a cafe with wi-fi so he could send us a report on the Tester-Burns debate.

My wife, son and I watched the debate this morning between Jon Tester and Conrad Burns and it was great to watch Jon dance circles around Conrad! Conrad's verbal skills and ability to think on his feet are on a par with W's so sometimes the camera would cut to Jon while Conrad was responding, or trying to, and Jon was just chuckling and I could almost hear him saying to himself that this is like taking candy from a baby.

Conrad used, endlessly, the same old tired phrases like "you liberals" and "the other side of the aisle" has prevented us from doing what we need to do etc. But at one point he said he had voted for tax increases, then corrected himself, looked a bit sheepish and then uttered some other silly homily. I almost felt sorry, or at least embarrased for him and emabarrased that we would even be having a debate about who is more qualified. I felt like someone should have just stepped in and said, "Excuse me Conrad buit you need to step down right now, no waiting for an election; you are a doddering fool."

Tester speaks his mind so well and he just kept hammering home his main point about how there needs to be some vision and a plan, whether we are talking about Iraq, energy independence or border security. When they were sparring about spending Jon laughed again and told Conrad that he spends the people's money "like a drunken sailor." It was perfect.

Conrad got in to asking if Jon would open up ANWAR and Jon was great when he started talking about how short sigted that is at that, once again, we need a vision that looks into the future instead of the next 5 years.

That's about it from the front. I'd like to be hopeful and say that the elction is a lock for Tester but like my wife said when I was talking about how any fool could see who the better man is, that other people, Republicrooks she said actually, probably watched it and thought Conrad did a great job. I just don't know how many of those folks there are around here but I'm looking forward to finding out in November.



UPDATE: YOU BE THE JUDGE

You can watch the whole Tester-Burns debate for yourself and see if John's wife got it right-- that anyone, no matter how brain dead could have thought Burns did well-- here. And here's the second 10 minutes of the debate:



6 Comments:

At 5:14 PM, Blogger Nate said...

Thanks... I went looking for this debate yesterday but couldn't find it. I've been looking forward to sitting down and watching it. h/t to C&L for linking to it.

 
At 8:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have no clue what that methane thing is... but Tester clearly was well read on the subject while the multi-term state senator had absolutely no clue what it was, and then had the audacity to say something to the effect of "WTF does that have to do with our foreign policy? If it doesn't have to do with terrorism, we don't want to hear about it. "

 
At 7:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tester scores! Slam dunk!
Conrad Burns is a one-note guy. Burns is grabbing onto little Rickie Santorum's cans of degraded mustard gas from the Iran/Iraq war like it's some sort of life preserver & he doesn't know nothing about methane.

 
At 8:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting the debate. Tester is a really exciting candidate, and very knowledgable on the issues.

 
At 8:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I caught most of the debate. Tester is the real deal. Montana needs him as their representative for sure. Burns facts were so off base , it was embarrasing.

 
At 4:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I watched all the debates on You Tube and Conrad is a bumbling idiot. But to say that Tester is articulate is a stretch. Unfortunately even though Tester had better speaking skills, after watching the debates I've decided to vote for Burns. I don't like either men. Conrad is corrupt and Tester is much more liberal than I had originally thought. I honestly thought Tester should be running in California with his foreign policy and tax agenda. If he was a moderate democrat there's no question he'd have my vote.

My vote will not be so much for Burns as it will be against Nancy Pelosi taking over Speaker of the House and a liberal Supreme Court legislating from the bench. It's going to be a VERY close race. However, if it was a for sure lock that the Republicrooks as you call them would maintain the senate, then I would have voted for Tester simply out of disdain for Conrad.

 

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