watched the second half of the final debate last night.

didn’t watch the first half, except in stutters, with constant “buffering…please wait” messages flashing across my screen. it’s not my internet access — cnn streamed their two debates to me without a hitch. and when i finally abandoned all hope and went to wonkette.com to read a liveblog of the debate, i found that everyone else in the comment strings was having the same problem.

and the commenters recommended cleveland.com as an alternative, which worked perfectly, and i watched the second half with no hiccups whatsoever.

and as a capper, each time i reloaded msnbc.com’s feed, the prestitial commercial streamed perfectly and then the live coverage didn’t work.

good job there, people. if you are going to heavily promote accessibility to your debates, then make sure you have the bandwidth to do the job. failing that, at least make sure that the audio streams continuously, even if the video drops frames. last night’s feed just froze constantly. it’s always encouraging when the national network is outplanned by the local affiliate. but thanks for all of the commercials. i’ll run out and buy some preparation h, or whatever.

not that the msnbc debate was well-planned anyway. brian williams, and especially tim russert, asked inane and poorly formed questions, and repeatedly got in the way of the candidates and made the event about themselves, and not about the candidates and the issues. here’s how to run a debate: ask a well-thought out question, and shut up while people answer it. at some points, i thought the debate was between tim russert and hillary clinton, or tim russert and barack obama.

and, can we cue up the right video, please? jeebus. that was so unfair to hillary clinton, but both candidates handled it gracefully.

in general, i found clinton to be grating and overly aggressive to no apparent positive point. perhaps her (to me) off-key performance was prompted by the out-of-bounds questioning, but barack seemed to handle the same aggressive questioning with aplomb. that tells me whose cool demeanor i want sitting across the negotiating table from tinpot nutbag dictators.

i keep asking myself if i am watching these debates with a view askew, slanted toward the candidate i am supporting. but every time i approach her with an open mind, clinton just disappoints.

obama is just a cool customer. to me his vision and demeanor trumps purported “experience”.

watched the debate last night, the same way we did last time, since we have no cable tv.

like last time, i liked hillary. she’s intelligent, measured, informed, and projects enthusiasm, power, and competence.

problem for her is, so does obama. two great candidates. and what i’m reminded of is the cycle i went through after the last debate — she impressed me then as well.

and then her campaign kicked in, with all her (to plagiarize a phrase) silly politics. obama plagiarized his speeches, and his wife michelle doesn’t love america, and we’re going to steal his pledged delegates, and what not.

silly.

i liked her a lot after the last debate, and then she (or more accurately, her minions) completely turned me off. if she can’t control her message and campaign in a disciplined and effective manner, why should i believe that her governance will be any better?

ready on day one, indeed. she’s not even ready now to run an organized campaign, after two years of running for this office.

it’s too bad that the discourse of her campaign doesn’t match the level of her personal discourse.

if the republicans have any real nasty, smoking gun-type dirt on barack obama, why would they save it for a general election? why wouldn’t they get it out there now in hopes of knocking out obama in favor of hillary?

hillary, about whom they have warehouses of dirt to unload. and you know they’d rather run mccain against hillary, who they can (and would) beat, rather than run mccain against obama.

i don’t think there’s a lot of real dirt out there to be had. i think that obama smartly has gotten out ahead of any real nasty revelations. the drugs, the rezko thing, and all.

at least i hope so.

from kos, a great snapshot of where obama stands, how he got there, where the race is probably going, and why we should take a deep breath and appreciate the race lasting a bit longer.

from the article:

Now I know people will be calling for her to quit the race, but I hope she rides it out through Ohio and Texas. I think Ohio needs a good dose of infrastructure building, and this primary will help make that happen. Same with Texas, where a solid ground operation can pave the way for some serious people-powered action in the Senate race with our man Rick Noriega.

It would be great if this thing went to Pennsylvania for the same reason, but I doubt it’ll get that far. I’ll call it right now — baring a major gaffe or disaster, Obama will win both Texas and Ohio and that will be that.

from his lips to god’s ears.

this can’t be coming from the campaign, right? still, don’t these people know they are hurting her far more than they are helping her?

is this hillary’s attempt at mobilizing young voters via viral video?

if so, it’s hard to imagine a more tone-deaf attempt.

if not, the campaign should have had the foresight to not let a camera anywhere near this spectacle. or, indeed, not produce the spectacle in the first place.