The Philadelphia Obama Clinton Debate

It’s hard to know where to start or, in fact, where to end. This was yet another debate which seemed to vacillate between opportunities for the candidates to trot out the same old tired talking points and endless examination of the minutia of minor, ill advised quotes by the candidates or other actors attached to them from the Nth degree. The majority of the attack dog questions were leveled at Obama, but only because he’s had the most recent stumbles. The “bitter-gate” comments, Reverend Wright, anti-war activists from the sixties were all on display. Was Hillary really a young, gun loving Annie Oakley or a sneaky Democrat who wants to repeal the second amendment.

These have all been huge, ink-sucking stories for the chattering classes, but how much do these questions really intrigue American voters? Rather than focusing on the specifics of this dog and pony show, I rather like what Andrew Sullivan had to say on these “hot topics” of the previous weeks. He notes in a recent posting that the so-called “bitter-gate” has barely nudged the needle on public opinion. We’ve seen the same thing for previous comments by both Obama and Clinton – far more of a collective yawn than distressing alarm bells. Why?

If this pans out in the actual primary, then a very large number of pundits and bloggers and pols are going to be revealed as hopelessly out of touch with the country they are talking about. I’m beginning to think that this past week was a serious tipping point for the media elite. And it’s worth noting one individual in that elite who didn’t join the throng: Matt Drudge. Sometimes a condo in Miami is more in touch with rural Pennsylvania than anyone in the Beltway.

People simply are not focusing on all of this minutia. I’m pretty much in Sullivan’s camp on this one. All over America we have far too many people who really aren’t paying attention to this election yet, and for those who are they have real world concerns that involve things like the price of gas and milk, the flag draped coffins still coming back from Iraq, and a housing market that is taking a beating befitting Mike Tyson in his best days.

I can’t pretend to read the collective minds of the voter base on either side, but I imagine a debate like this which focused primarily on snippets of stump speeches and generalized platitudes about hope and change won’t be changing many minds or votes. We likely won’t know much about the real attitude of the populace until the majority begin paying attention this fall. And even then we may all still be in for some shocks when they go to the polls.