Ratings of Democratic Candidates--2nd Debate

Manchester, NH (TLS). The Democratic Presidential candidates squared off in this, their second major televised debate.

As always, The Liberty Sphere will provide complete evaluations on all of the candidates, based upon their performance and how closely they adhere to our eight key issues that impact human liberty.

First, a word about CNN and Wolf Blitzer's job as moderator. Blitzer is due high marks for his willingness to level the hard questions at the candidates, giving them very little wiggle room for deflection. Right out of the starting gate he zeroed in on the War on Terror in light of yesterday's foiled attack at JFK.

There was only one 'stupid question' segment of the debate, a segment which we have come to expect from the mainstream media's coverage of Democrats. In contrast to MSNBC and Chris Matthews' penchant for emphasizing the absurd, Blitzer only asked one question that could be considered stupid, which was, 'What role will you give Bill Clinton if you are elected President?'

Overall, however, Blitzer and CNN are to be commended for producing a debate that focused largely on the pertinent issues. Fox News is still tops in the manner in which they handled the Republican debate, but CNN is running a close second so far.

GENERAL EVALUATION OF DEBATE PERFORMANCE OF CANDIDATES

In terms of communication skills, clarity, answering the question asked, and ability to connect with the audience, The Liberty Sphere believes that there are two candidates that came on very strong--Joseph Biden and Dennis Kucinich.

The two candidates who exhibited a marked improvement over their last debate performance are Chris Dodd and Mike Gravel.

Bill Richardson and John Edwards both can be placed in the 'good' category, both giving a solid performance.

Once again, Barack Obama came across as rather tentative. We noticed this tendency during the last debate. The candidate often seems to struggle to put together his answers. And, since this is certainly an observable trend rather than a one-time fluke, we feel that the candidate is simply not in the same league with the other candidates.

This leaves Hillary Clinton. Her performance was as expected--nothing to win people over but nothing to discourage her supporters either. Her problem, in our view, is her playing loose with the facts. We noted several instances where the candidate simply was not candid in her answers and instead opted for her usual spin of facts.

For example, she referred to the War in Iraq as 'George Bush's War.' This was big lie number one. She voted for it, no matter how she spins the issue. In addition, this is America's war. OUR sons and daughters are fighting in it. We are in it together.

Big lie number two was Hillary's claim that her husband tried to 'take out bin Laden.' Actually, the record shows he had several opportunities to do so, but opted out.

We will stop with the first two big lies of Hillary, simply because much of her rhetoric is not worth the time to evaluate.


RATINGS OF CANDIDATES ON THE ISSUES THAT IMPACT LIBERTY

The Liberty Sphere's eight key issues that impact liberty are as follows: national defense, taxes, healthcare, gun rights, abortion, the war on terror, U.S. foreign policy, and immigration control.

Based upon the candidates' answers this evening, and their previous statements on these issues, we rate them as follows on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest score:

Joseph Biden--5
Bill Richardson--4
Chris Dodd--3
John Edwards--2
Hillary Clinton--1
Barack Obama--1
Dennis Kucinich--1
Mike Gravel--1

Joe Biden's strong showing this evening is perhaps THE big news of the debate.

Bill Richardson lost some points from his first debate performance due to his answers concerning immigration, taxes, and U.S. foreign policy.

In addition, Richardson's assertion that the Border Fence that is to be built between the U.S. and Mexico is like 'the Berlin Wall' is the most ridiculous statement of the evening. The Berlin Wall was built to keep oppressed people imprisoned by a totalitarian government. Our Border Fence is being built to keep a free people from being overrun by those who neither respect nor value America's way of life or her government.

That Richardson would even suggest such a highly ludicrous and asinine thing is simply unbelievable for a Presidential candidate.

Running a close second to Richardson's most ridiculous statement of the evening is John Edwards' repeated assertion that the War on Terror should not be fought and that it is 'just a bumper sticker slogan.' That he would suggest such a thing only one day after the FBI foiled one of the most massive terrorist plots in the history of the nation is simply baffling.

We must at this point question Edwards' judgment, and therefore, wonder if he is fit to be President.

Only one Democratic candidate believes that English should be the official language of the United States--Mike Gravel. He is also the least likely to gain any ground as a viable candidate.

Thus, there are NO Democratic candidates who believe that English should be the official language of America.

You will note that none of the Democratic candidates could muster above a rating of '5' on our Liberty Scale. This is very telling and very dangerous.

If the Democratic Party can offer no one but these, or perhaps Al Gore to boot, then it is obvious that American politics has reached a sorry state of affairs when it comes to human liberty.