The debate

The democratic candidates have been whittled down to two, Obama and Hillary. Here they are in a debate which took place in Hollywood on 1/31/08:



Both Barak and Obama did very well swiping at Mitt Romney and the notion you need a CEO to run America (into the ground).

I thought Barak stumbled out of the gate and I am weary of his platitudes. I've never seen a candidate get such a free ride in all my life.

Hillary seems to be a candidate-by-rote. There is an automaton vibe in her coached gestures, smile, and answers.

What most interested me was the healthcare section of the debate.

Universal single-payer healthcare is cheaper, covers everybody, is employed successfully across the globe, and easy to understand. Canada has it and their economy is doing better than ours. It is too bad that neither candidate is willing to support it outright. Why not make the republican defend the mess we have now?

Barak says "special interests" a lot. Usually that is code for "unions". Is Obama fervently anti-union?

Hillary's healtcare "plan" was a disaster that we're still stuck with. Insurance was better and cheaper before politicians like her got involved. So why does she always bring it up as if we should be impressed?

Obama is fast on his feet. He stumbles a bit getting what he wants to say out, but his answers are usually steered in an intelligent direction. He got to the word "balance", as in balanced tax burden, when talking about funding his healthcare plan and that is something even people like Warren Buffet agree with.

There are a lot of things Hillary "would do", "when" that she "hasn't done", "now or then". As the president Bush has pillaged and plundered where was her outrage and thunder? Where was her opposition to the tax cuts, to the war, and on and on and on.

After all that talk about healthcare I have my doubts if either Obama or Hillary will be able to make anything better. The piecemeal approach they both talk about can be defeated on 1,000 fronts.

The point Wolf Blitzer wanted to hammer home and did was their plans require tax increases. What if either of them had talked about the savings that come from going to a universal single-payer healthcare system?