Edwin Edwards - Garrett Graves debate

GG

Let's vote for the corpse just for shits and giggles.


Not really. He'll probably die next year.

I'd really love to watch this, but the feed is absolute shite.

I can't stand this buffering crap!

Graves is Jindal's man. How's Jindal working out for you?

Two terrible choices. I'd rather vote for ye ye or gaucho before these two clowns...

FWIW, here's a youtube link to the Edwards v. Graves debate.

This video was apparently shot on a camera phone, so it's a little shaky at times. But, the whole debate is there without buffering issues.

For my money, GG came off as the arrogant Jindal appointee I expected. EWE had brief flashes of his former self, but nothing sustained. It reminded me of the old Lewis Grizzard comment about the Harvard / Yale football rivalry: "They're all a bunch of damn yankees, and I wish they could both lose!"

Graves lost me on his tightrope walk regarding net neutrality. He promised to both sit down with TimeWarner, et al. and to be "guided" by a personal belief in uninhibited access. EWE was surprisingly coherent in flatly supporting both net neutrality and rural broadband access.

Overall, the positions they each took were almost identical. GG did "win" the closing statement portion with a well-rehearsed speech versus EWE's somewhat disjointed ramblings. After GG had finished, EWE made a short quip, but his microphone was already off. Graves apparently heard the remark and responded (into a live mike) with the Hayride remark quoted in today's Advocate coverage.

I know the moderator pretty well from some prior political work, and I'm not sure the Chamber could have found a more staunchly conservative Republican in the district. But, either to his credit or because the format was so tightly constrained, the host's politics did not seem to be a factor.