We don't have much of substance on last night's sort-of debate by four of the five gubernatorial candidates. (Kerry Healey made yet another of her dismissive boners by not showing at all. Loser.)
The best recap this morning is over at .08 Acres. BMG has some key points too. And the Globe with a reporter/questioner horse in the race has the basic coverage.
We watched and listened. Maybe it was our mood, but we found the whole thing tedious. Nobody scored big and the only real losers were Mihos and Reilly. Christy was a suburban-pandering windbag with no visionary answers to questions that require them; he seemed to figure that if you promise to lower property taxes, voters will love you. Reilly lived up to our nickname, the Mortician, he was bloodless and bland, a pat on the forearm kind of guy. His only refrain was thin -- I have experience in whatever you want to discuss, experience I tell you.
Garbrieli and Patrick were better, but both seemed to be having off nights. Even when Patrick spoke of important ideas and plans, it came over in passing like ordinary ideas.
We attribute much of the yawn factor to the format. It was like a modern-day pot luck at school. Unlike the old style church dinners, we did not see the best each family had to offer, showing off. Instead, the pass the talking stick to one reporter after another dummied down the Q&A factor considerably. It was a table filled by hurried two-career couple warming up the same old stuff.
There were no Barbara Walters popping in with a show stopper. Instead, the reporters brought the predictable dishes. Except for the Mortician's dumb, rambling rant on Cape Cod windmills, no one stood out as a result.
Everyone seemed to have an off night. We certainly did.
Tags: massmarrier, governor, Mihos, Tom Reilly, Massachusetts, Chris Gabrieli, Deval Patrick, WBUR
1 comment:
I agree. This was not the best debate for any of the candidates. Plus, the lighting was just terrible. I found myself squinting at home, I can't imagine how squint-inducing it must have been at the studio.
Someone should tell Tom Reilly that pasting a smile on your face, when you don't normally have a smiley face, looks ridiculous. (and painful)
Deval does this thing when he's concentrating, that depending on the lighting either looks like he's listening intently, or he wants to kick someone's ass.
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