Washblog

David Postman writes that maybe  Hinton and Particleman will duke it out.  Dan K responds in the comments section: he was interested, he writes, till he read that.  

I have to agree with Dan on the Hinton angle.  Here's Hinton in a comment on a recent Sound Politics post: "..you may feel free to send every penny you make to a wholly owned subsidiary of the labor union and tribal thugs that own this state's government, aka the Legislature..."

Oh, gosh.  Labor unions and "tribal thugs" own our legislature?  This is pretty depressing.  I feel sort of, well, defeated, low, after reading that. No wonder we're having a political apathy problem... All you Particlemen out there -- you wouldn't let this interesting experiment that TVW and Seattle Times is hosting get mired down like that -- would you?  I'd call in, I would, but I'm shy, goshdarnit.  Plus I may not be home in time.

As for David Postman's question on whether the CNN YouTube debate can actually represent a "revolutionary" change in how we do political debates when, after all, the moderators control which questions are "let through" ...   Good point.  I hope someone asks Sandeep to speak on the other side of that too -- how does the electorate get through all the consultant-managing to the real human-being candidates?  I mean, even if the "real" questions get through -- how do we: 1.) Change our political landscape so that it's possible for the candidates to give us the "real" answers and not get, well, accused of being union thugs or something?  and 2.) Reform the consultant culture?  Ah, there's a loaded question? Sandeep's a good one to ask this as I'd expect candor and interesting analysis.