Watching debate of the motion “California is the first failed state” was a lot more fun than I expected. Both me and my better half were “undecided” before watching the debate.
I will let you watch the debate and judge for yourself first. And then you can read what I have to say after the video clip.
My better half changed her vote from “undecided” to “against” the motion. The sticking point for here are the words “is” and “first” and also if there can be reasonable doubt for the fact that California may not be “failed” yet.
For me, I changed my vote from “undecided” to “for” the motion. I saw the three arguing for the motion being much better in presenting their case than the other side.
The following are my impressions of the members of the debate teams,
- FOR–Andreas Kluth (I think Andreas set up the framework for the debate really well and then his performance in the other two segments also helped convince me a bit more.)
- AGAINST–Gray Davis (Strangely, may be it is just me, the act of hearing the governor listing his achievements during his term really detracted from his effort in arguing against the motion. To be honest and a bit blunt, Governor Davis seemed to me the weakest member in both teams.)
- FOR–Sharon Waxman (Great points re Hollywood. And Mr. O’Donnell’s points were so weak and obviously untrue that he lost my respect for his views afterwards.)
- AGAINST–Van Jones (Strongest in the “against” team but not strong enough to make a difference. And a few of the arguments seemed a stretch.)
- FOR–Bobby Shriver (Did a good job in laying out the arguments. It takes some guts for a sitting mayor to argue for the motion but his arguments and rationales seem reasoned and sincere.)
- AGAINST–Lawrence O’Donnell (Most of his arguments didn’t help to convince me at all. And of course, there was the credibility issue.)
By the way, let me be clear. I believe California is a great place but now I know it has a lot of problems as well.
[HT Andreas]
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Kempton - ideas Revolutionary 
Very interesting to read your two very different reactions, Kempton.
Thanks for watching (they should have cut it down to the highlights).
The whole debate was great. Seeing the full debate means I have almost the same experience as live audiences. If any edits were done, then we will always wonder if something important (to us) are edited out.
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