Debate wrapup

The three Democratic candidates for governor squared off in the first debate* of the season Sunday at The College of William & Mary. Hosted by The Farm Team and moderated by Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC, the crowd of 400+ was treated to 90 minutes of political posturing as the candidates presented their stances on a wide variety of issues.

[Cliff Notes version for those who don’t want to read further. McAuliffe: “The answer is jobs.” Deeds: “I stayed in the Senate.” Moran: “Fighting for 20 years.”]

For political junkies like myself – and all of those whose articles have been quoted ad naseum throughout the blogs – there was little new information. I suspect that any Republican may not have recognized the subtle differences between the candidates. But the differences were there – and, at times, not so subtle.

In talking to people after the debate, as expected, each candidate’s supporters thought their guy won. But it was the undecided voters that I was interested in speaking with and, believe it or not, I found a few in the crowd. All of them said that they felt more informed about the candidates after hearing them speak and a couple felt more inclined to support one candidate over another. One woman I spoke with told me that she had come in supporting one candidate (she didn’t identify which and I didn’t ask) and was leaving unsure about that support. Another woman said she has waffled between supporting two of the candidates and, after the event, was sitting firmly on the fence. (She was emphatic that she would not support the third candidate.)

(I wish I could convince one or more of the undecided voters to write about what they learned about the candidates. It certainly would make for more interesting reading.)

Overall, there were no major gaffes by any of the candidates. On the strength of one question, though, I give the edge to Brian Moran. The question was about the Marshall Newman amendment (check out video 2 below, at about the 5:40 mark). As a member of The Farm Team, we were given the opportunity to submit questions when we registered for the weekend meeting. I submitted that question, even though I knew already where the candidates stood. I know that Moran worked very hard to defeat the amendment. And we all know that Deeds has “grown” into his position. I even knew McAuliffe’s position on it, since I’d asked him about it in our interview. Nevertheless, I was surprised by the answers of all three.

Deeds said the state shouldn’t be involved in marriage. That he has progressed this far is amazing. McAuliffe was extremely disappointing, basically saying he would do nothing about the current state of affairs in Virginia – not even try. Come on, Terry. You’ve told us that if you are the nominee, you will help us get the six seats to gain the majority in the House. Are you really telling me that with a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate this issue is off the table?

Brian hit it out of the park, promising to work for the repeal of the Marshall Newman amendment. As much of a supporter of the rights of the LGBT community as Moran is, I was fully prepared for him to say he voted against the amendment and stop there. But he didn’t – and I couldn’t have been more proud to call myselff a Moran supporter.  Brian Moran will work for all Virginians and the proof was in that statement.

UPDATE: I forgot to explain the use of the asterisk on the word debate above. The word “debate” generally means give and take. Given that there were no rebuttals, you can’t really call this a debate. Rather, it was more like a joint appearance.