The "debate" (I'll call it that, if you insist) was taped yesterday and broadcast tonight. Tancredo's camp never would agree to a live debate, or one in front of an actual audience. Probably a smart move on his part. It denied Bill an opportunity to work his considerable charm. But, as the challenger, you take what you can get.
This was not, as I indicated above, a debate by any reasonable definition of the word. For some reason we abandoned the debate concept, where there is real interplay between the candidates, in our politics long, long ago. One is tempted to speculate that this happened because less articulate politicians, with less defensible platforms, wanted it that way. Whatever the reason, we are left with exercises like the one shown on one of Denver's two PBS affiliates tonight: three journalists asking questions of three candidates, with virtually no opportunity for any candidate to address directly any of the others.
Jack Woehr is the Libertarian candidate in district 6 this year, and of the three he probably had the best time of it, in some ways. He clearly felt less constrained to pull punches (or dress up) than the other two, and said many things that I rather wish Bill Winter had said instead, about Bush and Iraq and the economy. He of course blamed both parties for all our woes, and he might even have picked up a few votes tonight.
Bill, true to form, eschewed dwelling on the past and harping on the negative. I say this all the time about him, and it was certainly true of him tonight: Bill Winter is a plain-spoken guy. His is not a terribly polished presence. Now what do I mean by that? Bill is articulate and what he says is well thought-out. He gets his point across, and in fact he can talk a blue streak. But he's not above the occasional grammatical error or sentence fragment. Bill strikes you as energetic, maybe even a little nervous, but he's clearly very comfortable with himself in a public setting, and he's approachable too. In many ways, Bill Winter is an everyman. He's the local football coach (literally) that you have over for barbecue on Saturday, who can just as easily talk football with you as current events. That is a big part of his appeal.
Tancredo tonight came across as effete, almost diffident; the only assertive gesture he made was toward Jack Woehr, regarding the true reasons for our invasion of Iraq. Early on he tried to pin a "nationalized health care" tag on Bill, who quickly rebuffed the charge, but mostly Tancredo spent a lot of time agreeing with Bill Winter, about Iraq, about the failures of the Bush administration, about health care and education. Perhaps this was calculated to keep Bill from establishing himself as different, as offering an alternative, but I don't think Tancredo really achieved that. Mostly it made Bill look like a leader and Tancredo like a follower. The fact that Bill is physically so much larger than Tancredo added to this effect. Tommy had to be hating the fact that Bill, and not Jack Woehr, was sitting right next to him, fairly towering over him the whole time.
Tancredo doesn't mind addressing a crowd, where he controls the flow, but he is clearly uncomfortable in a more intimate encounter like the one aired tonight. He had several tongue-tied moments. He made a couple of feeble attempts at banter and looked like a stiff. He gave the overall impression of sincerely not wanting to be there.
Bill made a good showing tonight. He did us proud. And he got one solid hour of free TV time.