Deeds v. McDonnell – Livecast Debate

This video is lagging out all over the place, but in case it gets any better, here’s a live stream of the debate today at the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia between Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell, the Democrat and Republican candidates for governor, respectively.

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Post-debate Edit

That was disappointing.

What this has shown is how discussion of the issues are now secondary to prepackaged rhetoric (this man will raise your taxes) and political catchphrases (stealing from Paul to pay Peter). Rather than analyzing each other’s actual proposed solutions to the issues of transportation, business growth, and gun control, the candidates neatly sidestep tough answers by continuously trying to make it seem like they’re very different politicians.

But if the debate showed anything else with any clarity it’s that there’s not much difference between Deeds and McDonnell. They acknowledge as much in attacks on each other. Seems like an odd smear. “Oh, yeah, well this guy agreed with ME on these occasions. Do you really want to vote for someone who would do that?”

Deeds seems to have less of a draconian position on abortion than McDonnell. He also acknowledges the importance of environmental legislation. Most importantly, for all his talk about being friendly to business, I didn’t quite hear how McDonnell plans to turn Virginia into a magnet for “Bill Gates” and “Rolls Royce,” but it does sound as if he’s willing to sacrifice a lot of Virginia programs to give businesses tax breaks.

Overall, quite disappointing from both candidates. McDonnell arguably was a better debater, but his campaign appears to be the classic Republican formula: “Government bad. Put me in government to undermine it from the inside and encourage the corporate stranglehold on this society.”