Democratic debate September 9 (Quebec)

[UPDATE: Nuggets from the transcript.]

The Democratic candidates for president are currently pandering debating on Quebec TV Univision.

The first immigration question I've seen was a question from crack "reporter" Maria Elana Salinas. She wanted to know whether the candidates support a "wall" (muro) on the border with Mexico, but not with Canada. The answer, of course, is obvious. However, the answers received from Clinton and Obama - as much as I was able to make out because of the translator - were just their stock BS about supporting "comprehensive immigration reform". I believe Hillary put something in there about supporting a virtual fence where it makes sense.

However, neither they nor Dodd pointed out the obvious. And, if we can't even state the obvious anymore than we've got a problem.

PANDER UPDATE: The next immigration question was whether they'd work for "immigration reform" if elected president. Well, duh. They responded by pledging to do it immediately.

The next question was whether they'd block the immigration raids; I believe Richardson responded yes.

Then, whether "undocumented workers" are necessary, followed by what they're going to do about "anti-immigrant" and "anti-Hispanic" sentiment. Hillary responded by possibly lying about HR 4437; Obama is now discussing Cesar Chavez. More discussion of the questions asked here.

Note: I think Bill Richardson is wearing Man Tan all the better to pander; Obama looks a bit dyspeptic; in case it wasn't entirely clear what this was all about, one of Univision's pages has a subtitle: "Precandidatos reconocieron poder hispano" ("candidates meet Hispanic power"); also, both Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich seem to be quite popular...

It would be tremendously helpful to get the English-language-only feed and use that to create Youtube videos. Hopefully their pandering went just a bit too far and it can be used to end at least one of their campaigns.

I can't stress that last point enough. If one of the Dems is forced out of the race or loses a lot of support because of their immigration stance, everything will change.

Immigration2007b · Sun, 09/09/2007 - 17:27 · · Importance: 1