MSNBC Debate

The poll on the drugde report showed Paul as the 3rd
most "Reaganesque" candidate. Where or where is the media story
today headlined "Ron Paul emerges as breakout candidate from first
debate"?

--- In lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com, "Terry Floyd" <tlfloyd3@...>
wrote:

Despite the lack of attention given to Paul's campaign,

MSNBC's "Rate the

Candidates" page at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18421356/ shows

Paul's

approval ratings jumped from 9% prior to the debate to 41% after

the debate.

Of course, this is in no way a scientific poll, and is possibly

being gamed

by the Digg effect, but it does show that he's now being taken

seriously.

The clip that they use for rating Congressman Paul is one of the

best

responses he gave during the night.

Terry Floyd

  _____

From: lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com [mailto:lpsf-

discuss@yahoogroups.com] On

Behalf Of Rob
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 7:04 AM
To: lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [lpsf-discuss] Re: MSNBC Debate

I worked late, so I had to watch the rerun.

He didn't answer any of the questions wrong, as I recall, but he
clearly didn't have the polish and presence of the other

candidates.

He didn't look presidential. Not his fault, I guess. When everyone
else on the stage was 6 feet tall, with coiffed hair, an oratorical
voice, and Vaseline on their teeth, normal people can't help but

look

and sound like whiny elf Dennis Kucinich.

I'm not sure if Chris Matthews was cutting him off prematurely on

the

rare question that headed his way, but he didn't appear to have good
timing, even on questions where he had a slam-dunk answer like his
vote against invading Iraq.

I hate to say it, but Bob Barr would have done better in that

debate.

Because it was a staged infomerical where every answer had been
memorized and rehearsed a dozen times (when a question came their

way

that wasn't one of their memorized sound bites, they dodged the
question and talked about something they had memorized), it was only
the professional campaigner Romney and the former DA Giuliani who
shined. I was unimpressed with McCain's performance, but he still

had

that LBJ persona that despite being terrible at a state dinner or
diplomatic meeting, he wouldn't be out of place in the Oval Office.

One of the first comments after the debate from MSNBC's talking

heads

was that unlike Gravel's performance at the Democratic debate,

nobody

at the Republican debate shifted "tiers" that night. The top tier
guys looked presidential, and the second tier guys didn't.

It's a shame, really. Ron Paul could have pulled a Gravel-

type "these

guys scare me" and made a splash with it. But he was too interested
in looking like a mainstream Republican. His chances of winning the
nomination are so tiny, and have been so since the beginning, that
he's crazy to be following this mainstream strategy. He should use
every debate appearance to say what's wrong with all the other
(pro-Iraq-war) candidates. Instead, on Iraq, he only said that he
tried to get a declaration of war passed so it would be
Constitutional. It seemed like he was running away from the one vote
that 3/4 of Americans and a majority of Republicans agree with him

and