Anybody watch the Florida governor debate tonight?

[BushOut06]

Holy crap, Jim Davis absolutely cleaned Charlie Crist's clock. I've never seen someone dance around questions so gingerly before. Even the Reform Party candidate kicked Crist's ass.

[mitchtv]

1. the third party guy sounded superior

Until he started raving about socialism. Nice act though.

[JCMach1]

2. This can only help Davis, he sounded articulate and tough

despite Tweety's badgering.

[SharonAnn]

3. Crist and Sacred Marriage, like he had before his divorce?

[marions ghost]

4. actually I thought

the grilling all 3 of them got on election integrity re. "paper trail" was interesting. Tweety was hammering some talking point about paper receipts revealing how you voted and the possible corruption from that. It was hard to make a case for that but he certainly tried hard enough. Since Crist seemed to echo that same idea I'm taking it that is a rightwing talking point. The candidates were kind of boxed in on this question. What it really boils down to is that "paper trail" isn't good enough. But neither is nothing at all good enough. It needs to be paper ballot, with random hand counts. Davis did support random hand counts, but that's hard to do without a paper ballot. Paper ballots (as do exist in opti-scan areas of Florida) seemed to be a radical notion that everyone was skirting around.

Yes Jim Davis was good, and I liked his deadly serious delivery. Appropriate to the situation. Crist gave pRresident B*sshh a "B" rating. Davis and the other guy gave the pRresident an "F."

[ddeclue]

6. The paper trail part just showed that all four of them didn't understand the issue...

None of them seemed to grasp that it doesn't help to give each voter a receipt indicating how they voted because that STILL doesn't allow the Supervisor of Elections to hand count the ballots because he will never be able to get all those receipts back into his office and he can NOT prove a chain of custody for those ballot receipts.

In reality here is what is needed:

1) The voter doesn't need a record of how they voted. This was never done when there WERE paper ballots. (Many counties still have paper systems that are already traceable and handcountable like the optical scan system here in Orange County.)

2) The voter just needs a receipt indicating their ballot number, not how they voted.

3) The Supervisor of Elections needs a paper ballot that is hand marked by the voter that can be hand counted later if a recount is called for. The opti-scan system used in Orange County Florida is ideal - it is simple and does not lead to the "hanging chad" issue.

4) 3% of all ballots in each county should be hand counted at random to verify against the machines. If an unacceptable deviation occurs, the whole county should be recounted.

5) But no voter should be able to leave the booth with a gov't approved piece of paper indicating how they voted because this can lead to either coercion of voters or vote buying.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[ddeclue]

5. Hey what's a few murders here and there...

I don't think Davis did that great..he did OK but he wasn't like Kerry or Edwards in the 2004 Presidential debate ...it's just that Crist was a total moron and made a fool of himself on statewide TV....and that Linn guy really helped throw him off balance too.

Tonight there were two great sound bites from the Crist - Davis - Linn debate here in Florida:

Crist tripped and stumbled badly and repeatedly fell on his own sword out of his own stupidity...

First one was when Crist told us when asked about gay marriage that he "believed in the sanctity of marriage, like he had before his divorce".

Can I get a Jon Stewart whaaaaaaa????????

The second one was when Crist when asked about the crime rate here in Florida (by the way he is State Attorney General) made the statement that:

"the only violent crime that hasn't gone down is murder"...

Hey what's a few murders here and there.... it's "just" murder... this in a state where the murder rate has been skyrocketing in the last year...

MO-RON.....

All Davis needs to do to win is to run these two clips from the debate as his commercials from now to the election... I think the murder one should be prefaced with a dead pan announcer:

"And now a messsage from the Attorney General of Florida"...

Play the sound bite....

[Neecy]

7. He really was a tool....

I laughed my ass off when he was fumbling around for examples of how sacred a marriage between a man and a woman is...he first cited his mother and father, and then he and his wife - before they divorced! You just can't make this shit up!

Hey, if marriage is so frappin' sacred, maybe the fundies should outlaw divorce.

[ddeclue]

8. Don't give'm any ideas...

They already want to do that...

Crist just imploded on statewide TV tonight... I hope someone was watching besides me and saw it... if the voters saw this he will easily shift 5 to 10 points in the polls in the next two days. I'm also hoping that that Linn guy will split the Republican vote (i.e. he takes the Libertarian Republicans and Crist gets stuck with the Bible belters...)

Crist was married for only a few months before his divorce... why in the world would he want to draw attention to THAT???

What a MO-RON....

Doug D.

[Neecy]

10. Okay, now I'm going to be petty

Not only was he a drooling idiot, but that tan, that tan! It made him look old and leathery, which I'm sure isn't the impression he intended. Does the guy actually work on anything besides his tan?

[ddeclue]

11. I didn't even notice...he doesn't really look all that "tan" to me...

..but he does sound like an idiot now...

I think this was a definite wipe-out for Crist... now we have to push GOTV until next Tuesday.. :-)

Doug D.

[marions ghost]

9. yeah

Tweety nailed Crist on the crime rate thing--hammered that this was what Marion Barry said re DC--"the crime rate is way down" (meanwhile murders are up, but shhh about that). Crist looked so stupid trying to backpedal away.

Right I think both of those issues were really damaging to Crist. Showed his hypocrisy and sleezeball tactics very well.

[BushOut06]

15. Absolutely loved it when Lynn pounded him on taking $$$ from insurance companies

I believe it was towards the beginning of the debate, when Tweety asked Crist if he had taken money from the insurance companies he was supposed to be regulating. Max Lynn, the Reform guy, refused to let Crist dance around the question, demanding a straight up yes-or-no. In the end, Crist just stood there with an awkward silly grin on his face. If that didn't speak volumes, I don't know what would.

[BlueStater]

12. Davis might actually win this one

I hope, at least.

Just two weeks ago, I wrote this race off. However, apparently Davis has caught up in the polls recently and a good debate performace can only help him.

[JCMach1]

13. Evangelical Base has VERY LITTLE to get them out in FL

That is a large % of the party in FL...

Harris has crashed and burned.

Crist supports civil unions and is fighting/covering-up the rumors/truth that his is a closeted Gay.

Davis has a real shot in that environment. The stealth candidate has finally hit the radar screens.

[B Calm]

14. Is it really true that Charlie Crist is another gay closeted republican?