Democratic candidates Harris Miller and Jim Webb have agreed to appear on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews. likely Thursday afternoon. This will put the candidates before a national TV audience.
Friday morning at 10am, the two will appear on the Washington-area radio station WTOP, “The Politics Program.” Those of us outside of the broadcast area can listen online here or here.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Web is 1 and 0 so far against Miller. Miller’s going for the knockout punch. Can Webb handle it?
I don’t think anybody won that first one.
On the issues, nobody won. As far as appearance…well…
Webb appeared to be stronger and more Senatorial, but Miller appeared much more tenacious and energetic. Depends on what you’re looking for, I guess.
If either Miller or Webb scores particularly well on Hardball it could be telling in a lackluster race that has been short on ideas. On substance, I would agree that the first debate was not won by either man. Still, to me, Miller looked weaker on what I’ll call “presence.”
Maybe it’s too bad how our candidates come across on TV matters so much, but it’s true. Most voters never meet the candidate.
So on style I think Miller lost some points for being rather twitchy — a lot of blinking, etc. That he’s willing to run the risk of looking that way again, maybe from the abrasive Chris Matthews barking at him, says something…
But I don’t know what.
At The Richmond Report, Michael Shear says Miller’s crowd actually wanted the Hardball gig more than Webb’s. That surprises me a little bit. Perhaps Miller feels he’s behind. Or, maybe Miller has some high-grade ammo he’s itching to use on national TV.
VJP,
This is what I was talking about last week, issues like this:
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?_26039092766+0
At this point, I’m not surprised. This is a basic filing deadline, no one should miss this deadline, especially since this was the second filing of the campaign. All they had to do was put it in the mail and postmark the envelope by the deadline date, right?
I can only presume that the Webb campaign’s finance documents were not in order, they ‘forgot’ about the deadline, or both.
Again, this is coming down to personal and political aptitude. Harris Miller and his campaign have it down, and are ready for George Allen. Jim Webb and his campaign will have to spend lots of money and time over the next two-three months to get ready—time and money that Webb does not have.
Allen just announced an open house for his campaign headquarters in Shirlington (Arlington), which will be on primary day (coincidence, huh). Allen is also releasing a tv commercial tomorrow. How can Webb and his inexperienced staff compete with that?
As far as the FEC letter, a real embarrassment (someone else, not me, has already posted it on VC–which is how I came to find out about it). If Webb manages to win, this letter further proves how bad his campaign is running.
Sorry, I pressed send without finishing:
If Webb manages to win, this letter (still) proves how bad his campaign is running, and how much work there is ahead of him to get his campaign up to the varsity level.