Election 2008

On Thursday, April 26th, the eight Democratic Presidential Candidates all met in Orangeburg, South Carolina for the first debate of the primary campaign of 2008. The eight that met ranged from best known to hardly known: Hilary Clinton, who just dropped the “Rodham” from her name at the end of April; Barack Obama, who has just found out that he is, among other things, part Irish; John Edwards, the guy that spent $400 on a haircut from a stylist in Beverly Hills, California; Bill Richardson, the former Governor of New Mexico that announced his candidacy on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; Joe Biden, the former presidential candidate who was found to have plagiarized one of his campaign speeches from the former leader of Britain’s Labour Party Neil Kinnock; Chris Dodd, one-third of the infamous “Waitress Sandwich” incident at the La Brasserie in Washington, D.C.; Mike Gravel, possibly the most unknown man of these 8 candidates; and finally Dennis Kucinich, the man that wants to create the cabinet-level Department of Peace, which would mainly do what the current United States Institute of Peace does already.

For the most part, the debate was not as sharp-tongued as many would have expected, with Clinton and Obama not going at each other’s throats. There was also some obligatory Democratic talk on the global war on terror.

One point of recommendation: be sure to read through the transcript of last night’s Republican debate, where ten candidates will be looking to make a strong showing at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The participants are Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson.