The Actual Debates

OK, you know it's a bad sign when a set of presidential debates leaves me wanting to vote for Mitt Romney.

The Republicans argued real issues. When there was mudslinging, it was about real differences in their policies. It was so different from every political debate I've seen.

But the Dems were boring as hell and tired-looking and negative to boot. Change, change, change--it's become what we called in grad school an "empty signifier."

Perhaps the reason is that the Democrats are so closely aligned on the issues that there's no policy for them to debate. They argue about personality--leadership values, flip-flopping, who's more negative--because they have nothing else to argue about.

Which I suppose speaks well of the unity of the democratic party, or something. But couldn't they have hashed out some new ideas if their old ones were so similar? Ugh. It just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

But perhaps part of the problem can be blamed on Gibson, who asked the Democrats lame questions. You ask the Republicans how to solve immigration but then you ask Democrats what's the one thing they can take back? You ask only about their campaigns, not about the actual issues?