tpm: Asked to respond, Stephanopoulos said that getting criticized "comes with the territory."
"Our job is to ask the questions," he said. "His job is to go out and win votes."
Asked to defend the fact that policy didn't come up for the first 40 or so minutes of the debate, Stephanopoulos said:
"We decided to focus at the top on the issues that had been at the center of the debate since the last debate. Everything we brought up in that front section had not come up since the last debate. And they all focused on the same theme -- which candidate would be a stronger Democratic candidate in November."
"This is the core question for the campaigns, and a lot of Democratic voters right now. That's why we decided to lead with it."
Asked why we should presume that electability, rather than issues, was the dominant concern of many Dems right now, Stephanopoulos argued that it was a frequent topic of discussion on the campaign trail.
i might be inclined to agree with him if they didn't dredge up rev. wright, i mean, how tired of we of that?
i might be inclined to agree with him if they didn't ask about the weatherman. really, i hadn't even heard that one, and i've been doing about 10 blogs a day for months now.
i might be inclined to agree with him if they they didn't ask about the flag pin. really. that's just insulting. obama hates america and that's why he's running for president. come on people!
what's with this electability thing? obama is electable if we elect him. he's night and day against mccain and 8 million more democrats have voted than republicans so far, so i'd say the democrats have a pretty good shot of winning in the general election. obama said today at the north carolina rally that against hillary he's been holding back, but against mccain, he'll come out forcefully against the mindless distractions they dredge up.
since the media doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference between a distraction and something worthy of reporting, our part during the general election will be to tune out the media on these foolish distortions.
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