WDEL is livestreaming the U.S. Senate debate between Chris Coons and Christine O’Donnell right now.
You can watch here: WDEL
Use this as a thread to discuss the debate.
**Update**
I just wanted to get in some quick thoughts before I have to rush back to work (I had a doctor’s appointment).
O’Donnell was very rude and the moderator did not have good control of the debate until Chad Livengood actually asked if they could cut off the candidates. It seemed to go better after that.
I thought Chris Coons was better than in the CNN debate. He had a tough line to walk, to try to not get impatient and sound condescending with O’Donnell’s lies and misrepresentations.
In my opinion, this was O’Donnell’s worst debate yet. I think some commentators will think she did a good job because she was able to talk more. She certainly got her talking points in, for sure and much of her lying had to go unchallenged.
The commenters that had the idea about a Chris Coons fact-check page are onto something. I can’t believe his campaign didn’t think of it first. It’s too late to help this debate, but it’s still a great idea. I hope he puts a page up.
However, she had several unforced errors that I’d like to point out. In the 1st amendment question, she said “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?” as a question. Online & on the radio you heard laughter. According to someone at the debate, it was actually O’Donnell’s group laughing, thinking she got in some kind of zinger. It didn’t come across that way to everyone else. It sounded like she didn’t know what was in the 1st amendment and everyone was laughing at her. Big, big mistake.
Second, she had another unforced error by not knowing the 14th & the 16th amendment. I can’t believe she didn’t study up on this – did she not know this could come up? She had obviously studied a few Supreme Court cases since the last debate.
She also gave a very odd answer about what the government can do to create jobs. She said she didn’t support sudsidies to corporations. OK, that sounds good but what does that mean? Would she cut off aid to farmers? Oil company subsidies? She also talked down to the audience about how innovation works. She’s definitely wrong that great ideas get funded. Does she not know how much innovation came out of government-funded research like NASA or grants to universities? Long-term, fundamental study is generally not funded by the private sector because it takes to long and has much less certainty to not pan out. But when fundamental research succeeds you have huge innovation.
Since I was listening on the radio I can’t see what the candidates are responding to. She was laughing during some of Coons’s answers, which was pretty rude. She needs to learn to control herself better. I couldn’t hear him doing these things.