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The Statesman vs. The Clown

Posted on October 14th, 2010 by Staks

So yesterday was the big debate between Delaware Senate candidates Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons. The debate has gotten a surprising amount of press for a race that seems all but decided. Despite Chris Coons’s unfortunate name he came into the debate up almost 20 points in the polls.

It isn’t like this is an important debate. They aren’t running for President or anything. They are running for Senate in Delaware and one of the candidates is up nearly 20 points! Still, Wolfe Blitzer moderated the debate and it got center stage in the national media. Here in Pennsylvania we have an exciting Senate race in which the two candidates are separated by only 3 points and the outcome is much more in question. Will CNN cover any of the PA Senate debates?

It is Doubtful CNN will cover the PA debates with the same coverage as they did this Delaware debate because let’s face facts, this debate isn’t about the Senate, it is about Christine O’Donnell. People want to see what wacky thing she is going to say next because she is a clown and people want to be entertained by her. While I only watched half of the debate so far, it is clear that Wolfe’s questions seemed focused much more on O’Donnell’s wackiness despite Coons’s attempt to keep it focused on actual issues. The whole show was designed to see if they could get Christine O’Donnell to say something wacky.

Republicans will call this the left wing media conspiring against them, but the reality is that the media is conspiring to be entertaining and they think O’Donnell will deliver. They pretty much failed. Sure O’Donnell didn’t get all that specific, Coons had to correct her when she talked about Iraq when she meant Afghanistan, and O’Donnell couldn’t name a Supreme Court case she didn’t like, but those are really minor flubs compared to the things she has said on other shows and in her own commercials.

Chris Coons came off as a knowledgeable statesman who was embarrassed by having to debate a clown in a circus tent. Christine O’Donnell came off as less clownish than she had previously, but her continued ridiculous attacks on Coons did seem a bit childish.
Still, in a race between a statesman and a clown, most people will vote for the clown every time.

No one actually wants politicians to fix problems; they just want to be entertained by them. So I am predicting an O’Donnell victory in Delaware despite the fact that she is almost 20 points behind Coons. George Carlin put it best when he said that the reason we have stupid politicians is because we have stupid people voting for them. We get what we deserve.