Earlier tonight, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama joined Pastor Rick Warren at his California megachurch for an event pegged as “The Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency.” The interviews, each an hour in length, were separated by thirty-six tense seconds in which the presumptive nominees shared the stage (and an awkward hug [video here!]). [...]

Hilary Clinton’s answer during the Democrat’s most recent debate and an article in the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs got me thinking- What do I want the next President to do with American foreign policy? Well, here are the 10 things that Yao, Gary, and I are looking for:
1) Engage Foreign Leaders- As [...]

I’m watching the debate right now and it is wildly mildly exciting. Some of the questions have been mildly humorous but also serious (see: snowman) although most have been stupid or very serious. The best answer thus far has been Barack Obama’s response to whether or not he would work for a minimum wage. Overall, [...]

This morning, a friend of mine directed me to the blog of Matt Browner-Hamlin, who works for Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd (D-CT). It seems that Browner-Hamlin has recorded (and graphed!) how much time has been devoted to each of the candidates during the New Hampshire Primary debates. The Democratic “talk clock” can be found here, [...]

8:00: Larry King is scheduled to have some big guests soon, but I’m done liveblogging for the night.
8:00: The debate is over.
7:57: They are glorifying Reagan. Romney is totally dodging the issue. I’m not impressed. Hunter made some crazy claims against McCain, Romney, and Giuliani. I dont know if any of them really defended [...]

[ June 5, 2007; ] Yao had a pretty interesting preview of the GOP debate coming up tomorrow night. Here are the top 5 things I’m looking forward to.

5) God- No one doubts that every candidate will talk about their faith. Mitt Romney isn’t going to have any trouble making his faith compatible with the republican base, but I want [...]

Given I’ll be stuck somewhere up in the proverbial arse of the Continental Divide during the debate tomorrow and consequently won’t be able to watch it, I’ll give my version of a preview for tomorrow’s Republican showdown. Take note that this will be inevitably more offensive than anything CNN or MSNBC will put out.
First, look [...]

Here is my recap- I’ll go candidate-by-candidate-
Barack Obama- Barack Obama is officially just another candidate. After losing a lot of the steam that he entered with, Obama looked flat after last night’s uninspiring performance. After being hailed as a magnificent speaker, Obama definitely let his supporters down with a stiff and boring performance. Obama’s diss [...]

The winner of yesterday’s Democratic debate was Al Gore, who presumably napped in New York while Clinton and Kucinich stood (literally) on soapboxes.
On the whole, the few candidates who seemed even remotely likable appeared that way for mere seconds, and even then only while spewing rehearsed and prodigiously irrelevant nonsense. I was most charmed [...]

My thoughts on the Democratic debate tonight:
First, the frontrunners (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) certainly played it very safe. I suppose you could say that they approached it in classic politician format: not giving any definitive answers. Playing it careful is probably a good idea, but it’s giving too much ground for the fringe candidates to grasp [...]