Reading The Pictures: And, If You Happened To Have Missed Any Part Of Last Night's Clinton-Obama Pennsylvania Debate

Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to ABC's Pennsylvania Democratic debate

(screen shots: ABC - taped delayed on the West Coast)

Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to ABC's Pennsylvania Democratic debate

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Comments

[mlaiuppa]

The first commercial should have been for "Depends".

[Dan1967]

NEW POLL IN MICHIGAN: OBAMA IS THE BETTER CANDIDATE AGAINST MCCAIN.

Barack Obama leads McCain in Michigan 43 to 41% with 8% undecided, but Hillary is losing to McCain in Michigan 46 to 37%. Barack Obama is clearly the Democrats strongest candidate against McCain in the general election. I copied and pasted the poll below, and the Link is here:
http://www.mlive.com/elections/index.ssf/2008/04/obama_does_better_against_mcca.html

Monday April 14, 2008
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- A new poll shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama doing better against Republican John McCain among Michigan voters than Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The poll by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA shows 43 percent of the 600 likely voters polled back Obama, while 41 percent back McCain. Eight percent say they'd vote for independent candidate Ralph Nader, while 8 percent are undecided.

McCain leads Clinton 46 percent to 37 percent. Ten percent say they'd vote for Nader and 7 percent are undecided.

Fifty-nine percent have a favorable opinion of McCain, while 55 percent feel that way about Obama and 45 percent about Clinton.

The poll was conducted April 3-8. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

[Eric8]

The last few pictures of Charlie and George surprised by being heckled after the debate strikes me as the culmination of the nights debate and its truth. It must be difficult being a real elitist who is offended when their shoddy journalism questions are subjective to judgment by average people. They act so surprised at being confronted over their comments, as if the room was full of elephants and not donkeys. George and Charlie believe people want to know gossip more than issues, kind of like Jesus believes wealth should be concentrated in the hands of a few people instead of broadly distributed. When will the Age of Philistinism end and the Age of Truth begin again?

[Dan1967]

I am very happy to see that our major news media is FINALLY being seen for what it has become. Our media has become a bastion for greed, money, and stupidity. Barack Obama distanced himself from the real elitists at the debate. The real elitists are Hillary, McCain, and the media. The elitists such as Hillary, McCain, and the media are all frosting and no cake. Barack Obama is the only candidate who has any substance, and he is the only candidate who can take our country away from the same old politics of fear and hate and in to a new era of hope and change.

VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA AND LETS GET A DEMOCRAT WIN IN NOVEMBER!

[ProgressiveBum]

The Prilosec ad was very appropriate, as the moderators made me sick to my stomach.

[peachfuzz]

Flattering shot of Ed Rendell.

Stick him on a southern porch swing with a mint julep in one hand.

[FreedomLoverX]

Hillary: Queen of the drug lobby!

[bascombe]

dead on!
*caps*
*bold*
this was so much about these asstards at Assinity Before Conscience network and not the election or the electorate.

[gopindrag]

Gibson and Stephanopolous: Little Disney Whores!

[InofTouch]

I think the Versus pretty much gave it away of what was going to happen

[Dem02020]

Among the million and one observations we can make from the pictures of last night's debate, is this one:

In the last several screen shots, we see the two ABC clowns against a set-backdrop, that certainly appears as though it's supposed to look like part of the U.S. Constitution (written in Philadelphia of course), specifically the beginning of the Preamble.
You can see the words "We the...", but for whatever bizarre reason, ABC (or their set designer) chooses to orient these most important Constitutional words, 90 degrees out from the left-to-right way they were written (and we as English-speaking People would read them: left-to-right)... those important Constitutional words are instead climbing foolishly upward, from the bottom...

What's up with that?
How idiotic a way is that, to invoke those important Constitutional words?

And as you can see from the screen shots, there's not enough room on the set backdrop, to include "People", as it runs out at "We the..."

What's up with that?
Can more disrespect be shown for our Constitution, in the city in which it was written?

The whole thing of presenting those important Constitutional words in such a bizarre and incomplete way, seems to instead say
"We the... idiots at ABC, care not enough about the People, by whom and for, the U.S. Constitution was written, to include them in our set design"

[Cyndee1113]

Hey look guys! Woot! I told you guys that Hillary messed up last night.



You heard it here first. Council member and newly elected superdelegate Harry Thomas Jr., initially a supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is announcing in minutes that he will cast his vote at the Democratic National Convention in Denver for Sen. Barack Obama.
Thomas received more than 100 phone calls and e-mails from constituents who feared that he would use his power as a superdelegate to vote for Clinton despite the city's overwhelming support of Obama in the Potomac Primary.

"After meeting with the candidates and listening to my constituents, I have to honor the 83 percent who support Barack Obama," he said in an interview, referring to the results of the Democratic primary.

Thomas will make the announcement at 10 p.m. at a debate watch party.

[gmcc]

that is the safest bet.
If elected Obama will fail, through no fault of his own, he seems like a decent human being, he just has bad policies.
Then all the super delegates, a majority of whom are elected democratic officials, cannot be blamed.
"I was only following the will of the voters."

[apoyo]

Exactly, it was left for the viewer to fill in the blank. We the sheeple?

[CaptainObvious]

Thanks for this. I remembered some of the advertisers from last night, and was looking for a complete list. This is a nice start.

[OrionGal]

Ha! I was thinking "this debate is a crock of s**T" and then the Dulcolax commercial came on. I hooted in laughter.

So glad someone else saw the same symmetry.

[apoyo]

Does anybody notice that out of the 9 products depicted 5 are drugs?

Ambien CR and Lunesta for insomnia in case watching this debate agitates you to the point that you can't sleep.

Benadryl in case you become allergic to watching ABC.

Prilosec to treat the indigestion and acid reflux you get after watching ABC.

And Dulcolax so you can pass ABC's crap.

[deceiveandobsfucate]

When I saw Senator Obama at a Town Hall in PA, he mentioned that one of the ways healthcare could be nationalized was by asking all parties involved to sit at an open door session. He pointedly brought up that he had no problem with the fact that pharmaceutical companies needed money for research and development; he had a problem with all the money they spent on advertising. This post supports that point.

[RIBassist]

As long as the Lunesta ad is the one featuring that lovely blonde school teacher working with her kids on a music project, they can run it over, and over, and over....

:-)

[flatus]

Yep, you have your finger on the problem , Mike.
Sponsors pay for eyeballs, eyeballs stay glued when there is a scent of blood in the air.
Ergo craphole gotcha questions.

[ruffmama]

So are these the products we should be boycotting?

[Aleka]

I think so.

[ljmck]

Boycotting--not so effective if it's just a few of us--but add on the phone calls and emails and you might just wake them from their drugs-induced stupor.

Suggest you start with your local ABC news channel, also contact the ABC network. Then call a sponsor or two. You can find them online, but I don't think I'm allowed to give the links here.

Quality TV? Not anytime soon, but we can begin to insist.

Commenting here helps. Choose your poison.

Heck, call your grocery store and tell them what you won't be buying and why. They get nervous really fast.

Just a single action by everyone who has yelled today on the HuffingtonPost will reach the ears of the networks, the sponsors, and the candidates.

What if the sponsors no longer want to play debate, then what? Maybe then the networks will be forced to invite The League of Women Voters back. I believe that would change the tone.

When the next election rolls around, let ABC know (if they are around to sponsor a debate) that you won't wait 52 minutes for a substantive question, that you'll be gone in five if you don't hear one or if the moderator doesn't pursue a real answer from the candidate.

We’ve got access. Let’s use it.