President Obama on Friday attended a dinner at a retreat for House Republicans in Baltimore, MA. The President delivered a speech calling for bipartisanship and following this, there was a Q&A session that played out more as back-and-forth mostly civil, though sometimes heated, arguing. This went on for over an hour!
This was quite interesting considering the almost scripted and narrative (thanks to the mainstream media) nature of American politics. Lucky for the American people, it was televised.
The American Catholic 
That almost turned me into an Obama fanboy. I realize that the format of the debate favored Obama but he was probably never going to change my substantive views anyway. I applaud him for embarrassing politicians for playing politics.
“I applaud him for embarrassing politicians for playing politics.”
He was only there restrainedradical because of politics. But for Massachusetts and the Democrats in Congress running for the hills in panic, he would still be attempting to pretend that the Republicans in Congress do not exist. Now he realizes that after November nothing will be accomplished in Congress without heavy Republican input, and he is preparing the groundwork to establish some sort of relationship with the GOP. It is smart, but it is also politics.
Baltimore is in Maryland.
I should know 🙂
But most of us outside the M states are terrible with their abbreviations.
This reminds me of the SNL skit of (I believe) the 1988 debates. President Bush gives a long rambling, incoherent answer to a question, and then they cut to Dukakis, who says “I can’t believe I’m trailing to this guy.”
So yeah, Obama is a great speaker, and can run rings around Republican House members in debate. But when it comes to actually accomplishing anything, he seems to always fall short. Pretty words will only hold you for so long.
Btw, I’m watching the video now, and Obama just said the reason health care negotiations weren’t broadcast on C-SPAN as he promised is that the logistics of setting up the cameras was too difficult. Now there’s a brilliant answer.
Anyone else notice the “shout out” Obama gave to Kirk Dillard, current GOP candidate for Illinois governor? He’s one of 6 candidates in a VERY closely contested primary with a lot of people still undecided (including me!) We’ll know in less than 24 hours whether this comment hurt Dillard or helped him…
I can’t imagine it helping him in the primary. I am voting for Adam Andrzejewski for governor. I was leaning towards Jim Ryan, but I think anyone with the name Ryan running for governor is still going to lose votes due to “Crooked George”, as irrational and unfair as that association is.
Not to mention that he (Jim Ryan) simply didn’t run a good campaign, has other past baggage (which I won’t bore non-Illinois resident readers with) and, for lack of a better way to put it, just doesn’t seem to have the energy to get through a campaign let alone four years as governor.
For reasons that would take all day to explain, I am torn between Brady and Dillard. Adam A. is an admirable guy for certain and I hope we see more of him in the future, but I just dunno that someone who has NEVER held a single public office is really ready to be governor, given the horrendous situation we are in that will demand every ounce of knowledge, trust, and political skill the next guv has.
I would like to see the next gov (whom I expect to be a Republican) appoint Adam A. budget director or chief of staff, or something similar; then four years from now, he would be in a position to either run for governor again should the incumbent decide not to, or challenge Dick Durbin (I’d for sure vote for him then!)
Still, any of the GOP candidates would be acceptable to me except McKenna, who “sank” the Illinois GOP ship on his watch.
Woohoo, this is turning into a barn-burner… Brady and Dillard duking it out for 1st place and they are only about 500 votes apart with 95 percent of precincts in… I ended up voting for Brady in the end and it looks like my vote coulda made a difference!
Should Brady pull this off, it would be a rather substantial upset, maybe not quite a Scott Brown level upset but pretty darn close 🙂
Exciting news Elaine. When I went to bed that hack McKenna looked to be the nominee, and I was very disheartened. If Brady gets it, I think he will be a strong nominee in the Fall. He has a good record and is a good speaker, and I think he will come across as the type of change Illinois voters are desperate for in Springfield.
Definitely recount time as some precincts still aren’t in and Brady is up by only 500 votes… one pundit (Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight) actually projects that Brady could, literally, win by ONE VOTE 🙂
I was just glad McKenna didn’t win — he was, however, not conceding defeat as of 1 a.m.; he’s about 10,000 votes behind Brady and Dillard last I looked.
I notice also that Brady hasn’t claimed victory, and was urging party unity no matter what the results… he and Dillard are, so far, showing a lot more class than sore loser Dan Hynes, who is at least 7,000 votes behind Gov. Pat Quinn but refuses to concede defeat.
Lessons to be learned here are: 1) Statewide candidates who focus on the Chicago media market only and ignore or diss downstate, do so at their peril; 2) experience does NOT always equal corruption, even in Illinois; 3) money and snappy TV commericals alone don’t win elections; 4) there are limits to bipartisanship.