What happened last night Re:Dean & DK?

..excuse my ignorance, but I was busy last night.
Was there a democratic debate?
Is there a thread where I can read up on what happened?
Thank you very much.

On edit:
Yes, there was a democratic forum last night for the AFL-CIO. There are threads prolly on p.2 or 3 of GD....

Kucinich was talking about social security, saying something like, if you don't want to cut defense, that means you're going to cut social security. The way to fix social security is NOT raising the social security age to 68 or 70, Mr. Dean.

Dean waited until it was his turn to talk again, and said "When I read through the rules of the forum, I read that if someone adressed me by name I had a minute to respond. Well, I'm not going to take a minute, but I'll take 20 seconds."

He then said that he WAS NOT for raising the ss age.

Funny thing is, though, last month on Meet the Press he did indeed tell Russert that he was 'entertaining' the idea and that it may indeed be a solution to the SS crisis.

So it's not like DK was making things up like raving loony. IMO, Dean was being less than forthright about his position on it.

You don't have to cut social spending to balance the budget.

Yeah, when Kucinich said that, I was like, uh, Dennis...if you rescind all the tax cuts (as Dean wants) that's how you'll fund SS, and you don't have to cut defense to do it, LOL...

But Dean was not being totally honest either--and while he was at it, he made DK look like he was lying about Dean's position.

...that he WOULD or COULD entertain the idea, which is not the same thing as saying you HAVE or WILL. DK should have spoke more clearly, stating that he would not entertain the idea, or consider it. Then he can tell us how exactly he plans to move beyond the mountain of red ink that will await the next Democratic president thanks to Bush...

I disagree.

In 1995, he DID come out for raising the retirement age to 70.
Last month, he DID say he would entertain the idea of raising it to 68 (he never directly answered about 70).

So when he acts like he just has NO IDEA what DK was talking about when DK said Dean wanted to raise the retirement age, YES, to me that is dishonest. He didn't say hey, it's an option, or hey, we may have to do that. He acted like he was vehemently against it.

Whew!!!!!!! :silly:

What is wrong with it?

It sounds like he thought about it
and decided it would be a bad idea.

Every single Dean supporter is going to think he's being honest.

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked, LOL.

This was a counterattack to Dean's previous charge that he wouldn't cut defense in response to Kucinich in a previous debate. I did think that when Dean made that statement he was a little smug and the amount poured into Defense (and the obscene amount of waste with diminishing oversight) will have to be acknowledged sooner or later.

The same goes for the tax-cuts- with our economic situation, the choice is butter or guns. That is the reality.

Dean may have mentioned the possibilty but that doesn't commit him to it. Suppose he had feedback from that statement, or listened to people on his campaign and ruled it out? If a candidate is willing to evolve and grow in response to the people he speaks for, the better.

DK made it sound like this is one of HD's official positions. Came out of the MTP story, in which Russert quoted something HD said years ago and HD responded to the effect that he would CONSIDER raising it to 68 if SS needed salvation.

My take is the DK sees that HD has got the 2 'mos' (momentum & money) from libs (whether he deserves it or not) and is frustrated beyond belief and resorted to Lazio-like attacking (Lazio pulled the same challenge stuff with Hilary) that included a game of "gotcha". ANY one of the others could have decimated him regarding a few things like pro-choice and flag-burning, if they wanted to mix it up on changing positions. They didn't and, frankly, I wish HD would have just ignored it and him as well.

Geesh. We gotta a LOT of bigger bushes to burn this kind of shit.

eileen from OH

no argument. I was just speculating about the psychological interplay.

n/t

...but I was happy with it. I'd only raise the retirement age of groups with statistically higher lifespans though. I'd also entertain the notion of providing means by which those with statistically lower lifespans could make use of money they pay into social security sooner. I'm willing to compromise though...

"I'd only raise the retirement age of groups with "

Is this the new way of saying "I support racism"?

...if my life expectancy is 64 years, you can be damned sure I don't care if the retirement age is 65, 70, 80 or 90. I'd love to see a world where we could all retire at 40 or 50. Give all them youngings something to do and look forward to. That's not going to happen in the forseeable future though...

it's one thing to sit at a desk until you are 70 - it's quite another to do hard manual labor.

I'm afraid this won't be the last anyone will hear of it..

End of story.

And I can't blame him for doing so; he's campaigning for himself versus the others.
But the rules of the debate were that the candidates were not supposed to go against eachother the way he did.

Tweety sucker-punched him and we all watched. Can't afford a repeat performance like that.

I don't really know what it was!

Only in america.

the audience ask hard questions, but that's not what this particular forum was all about. It was not structured that way.

There will be time in the future for debates of a harder core nature.

I don't know what got into that guy last night.

been talking about this since at least March. If you really want to know about his, start checking the Dean Blogs because supporters & undecided people who caught this last night are asking pertinent questions and for clarification.

Dr. Dean needs to clarify his positions for himself and the public before the coming debates otherwise this will happen again.

-----
Oh, the joy I got watching Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont, run into the buzz saw known as Tim Russert Sunday morning on Meet the Press. Tim Russert has a track record of catching people in attempts at misinformation and pandering to voting blocks, and in this case, he did not disappoint. In one single interview, contender for the Democratic presidential nomination Howard Dean was exposed for the pretender he really is.

<snip>

Dean really got thrown for a loop when Russert started throwing his own words at him. In this case, it was over raising the retirement age.

Russert posed the question to Dean about raising the retirement age to seventy years old. Dean successfully dodged the question for a moment, claiming it already had been raised, and then moving the discussion to balanced budgets.

But fear not, Russert would not be duped, and he was armed with some good ammo. After the brief distraction of balanced budgets, Russert moved the discussion back to retirement ages, playing an old clip of Howard Dean supporting the idea of raising the retirement age. Let's go to the transcript:

RUSSERT: "I think we should raise the retirement age about the year 2015-raise it by that time to about age 70." And then Governor Dean said, "I absolutely agree we need to increase the retirement age. There will be cuts and losses of some benefits, but I believe that Senator Packwood is exactly on the right track, and we need to deal with the Social Security retirement age."
MR. DEAN: Well, we've-I mean, we have done that partly. We've raised it to 67. Now, can we raise it more? I am not going to rule it out. But I think before I signed up for that, I'd like to look at the...
MR. RUSSERT: Well, Packwood said 70. And you said you agreed with him.
MR. DEAN: OK, but, you know, how long ago was that?
MR. RUSSERT: Oh, a couple years, but that's all right.
MR. DEAN: Yeah, a couple years. How long has it been since Bob Packwood was in the Senate?
MR. RUSSERT: But that's...
MR. DEAN: Was I even governor then?
MR. RUSSERT: But if you changed your mind, why would you change your mind?
MR. DEAN: Because I am older and wiser and I know that you don't say things like that without looking at the numbers first.
MR. RUSSERT: And maybe running for president.
MR. DEAN: No.

Save us the torture Mr. Dean. Here's the response you were looking for:


My pollsters haven't looked at that one yet. I'm going to do what best gets me the support of those fine, elderly Americans whose blood, sweat, and persistency built this country into what it is today. (Cue waving of an American flag)

http://216.239.33.104/search?q=cache:ckZxDBQSclAJ:www.opinionatedjerks.com/pnarticle16.shtml+%22Howard+Dean%22+Russert++%22Retirement+age%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8


----------------
Russert continued, pinning Dean to the wall on several proposals he'd made while unofficially campaigning for the nomination, including raising the retirement age to 70, cutting Social Security and the legality of Canadian marriages in the U.S. involving same-sex couples. Ouch. No matter how quickly Dean backpedaled, Russert had snappy graphics ready to remind candidate Dean of precisely what he'd said.

Dean stumbled, backtracked, spun, bobbed, dodged and weaved, but Russert was relentless in his pursuit of an honest position.

Was this a case of Dean not working out a message before he started talking? Or did he start believing his own press? Dean's gotten a lot of ink for his hard-line attacks on President Bush, but he seemed ill prepared Sunday to take a stand and support assertions he'd made.

That's not an attractive trait in a candidate for any office, let alone for president.


http://www.timesleaderonline.com/columns/story/0630202003_col01_lisa.asp

That's my local newspaper in the last link! Very cool, its a very small paper that doesn't normally get into politics.

SS will be fine if we raise the amount of money the tax applies to. If worse comes to worse he'll look into raising the age limit to 68 but doesn't think it is currently neccessary.

Because heaven forbid we look at the candidates' actual stands on the issues.

And Dean has the most sensible position of any (that I have heard anyway). Raise the income level to which the payroll/SS/FICA taxes apply. Course, that might kind of be seen as a PROGRESSIVE stand on taxation. However will we square that with the fact that Dean is really just a repub? :o

Dean has a shot

Kucinich does not.


The end.

Presidential Forum
8/5/2003

By Kevin Wuzzardo/WCJB TV-20 News
The next presidential election is still more than a year away. But the votes are already being counted. Tuesday night, the AFL-CIO got a head start with a Presidential Forum in Chicago. Union members and others here in Gainesville got together at a local union hall to watch the Democratic hopefuls talk about issues important to working people.

The Gainesville viewers also held a straw poll. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich led the way with about a third of the vote, followed by Vermont Governor Howard Dean and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Tonight's straw poll is believed to be the earliest in our area.

http://www.wcjb.com/news.asp?id=7753

On edit: I think your crystal ball needs a little Windex action ;) Only time will tell on this one. I've seen several independent polls where Kucinich is #1 so I'm willing to hold my breath on this one... Good luck.

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;-)

I'll remind you again soon.

Why do I not have even the faintest doubt? ;)

I'm sure you, like me, are very sincere in your choice. These next months will be very interesting but I am not looking forward to the tension at DU. I think it's bad enough as it is already. Sigh.

Have a terrific day though i'm sure we'll bump into each other before the day's end!

to *'s atrocities!!!

Do you really think that this economy with all these
people unemployed is gonna help social security??

SS is gonna be down the tubes with people out of work!!

So spare me the retirement crap!!!...Some elderly despise just
sitting around on their asses waiting for their entry to the
pearly gates of heaven.
They would jump at the opportunity to work if they could!!!

So they deserve the opportunity to work!!

Have you been to Sears lately the average age of those employed and
working in Hardware is 75!!!!!

I'm all for it!!!

That's not the point. The point is did he say that or not.

There are many paths that lead to Rome and never would I begrudge either your right to support Dean or Dean's right to consider fixing the retirement age at 92 if he wanted.

The issue here is that he did not come off very well by trying to so obviously distance himself from what he said on MTP.

Pick a position. Sell it. Stick to it and do NOT budge. That goes for all candidates.

would repeal NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO.

What I want to know from Dean is: How many VERMONT jobs were lost because of NAFTA?

...that seemed more concerned with being in the race, as a Democrat or whatever, come November 2004 than stopping the Bush policies. Other candidates have given him props the past couple days, and the way he responds is by attacking everyone on stage (except, curiously, Lieberman), by name, in clear violation of the rules. I'm only 40 minutes in, but Kucinich has already demonstrated that he's shrill, combative, and would not be disinclined toward continuing the erosion of seperation of powers we have in this government, if the person toward whom the power rolled was him. That more than anything bothers me.

he might actually change things. scarry, huh?

Complete chaos erupted when Dean tossed a tennis ball off the stage and Kucinich pounced off the stage to grab it. Returning to the stage with the tennis ball in Kucinich's mouth, Howard Dean was heard to remark, "That's a good dog. Now sit and STFU."

n/t