that the obama campaign is attempting to cast clinton as someone who does not care about the state: a stenographer at the charlotte observer essentially planted an article that reproduced a conversation during one of his conference calls today wherein gibbs, his spokesman, claimed hillary would abandon the state during the general election, and now he calls for a debate only weeks after he refused to debate hillary in wisconsin. i guess he realizes that he has to win nc in order to offset hillary's leads in other states. and while it is a shrewd campaign strategy, i find it somewhat disingenuous, for hillary and not obama is the one who has asked for more debates. moreover, he requested this debate only after hillary agreed to the debate in PA. because he announced this desire for a debate this evening, i imagine it will take an hour or two for the clinton campaign to respond. but notice how he is broaching his campaign in nc in a manner similar to the one he deployed in mississippi, where he claimed hillary disparaged the state for not electing women. while it may be effective with some segments of the population, i find it negative, divisive and misleading.

I would very much like to see a debate in North Carolina for pride and attention's sake. (Wasn't the last debate here one of the general election debates in 2000; wasn’t it at Wake Forest?) But North Carolina pride and attention don't do anyone else in the rest of the country any good if Barack and Hillary are just rehashing the same issue positions that everyone who has watched one debate already knows about.

And there have been so many debates in this primary; I feel like they're approaching saturation and irrelevance. I want to see a debate largely dedicated to less discussed issues like foreign policy other than Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan; federal workforce reform; drug policy; prison policy; or homelessness.

We all know there has been a lot of useless talk and accusations about who has and lacks the commander-in-chief chops. I want to see them both get pressed and forced to talk on their feet about issues like NATO enlargement, the simmering Serbia/Kosovo crisis, or China/Taiwan policy. It was absolutely pitiful when Hillary Clinton haughtily brushed off "Dmitri Medvedev" and largely got away with it.

If this turns out to be another debate about Iraq and health care nuances with your occasional "zinger" personal attack, I don't think it will be worth watching.

Hillary! She's female!

McCain....the Democrats Favorite Republican...?

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

Progressive Discussions