Thursday, 12.13.07
Howdy to all! This evening I wanted to start off with a screencap Cyn sent over to me:
John was joking around with Kyra Phillips yesterday from Iowa. Here’s the transcript of the banter during the afternoon broadcast of CNN Newsroom:
PHILLIPS: We all like to break the rules. Candy Crowley, John King, Wolf Blitzer, especially John King. See there you go. I knew it…
KING: Snowball?
PHILLIPS: Yes, save me that snowball pal.
Speaking of Cyn, you might have noticed that I’ve added a new link to johnthenewsking: her Michael Ware blog, “Ware~Abouts”. For all the Mick Ware fans, her site is definitely the place to check out!! I can tell you this, Cyn really knows her MW stuff!!
Last night on AC360, John opened the program with the “Raw Politics”. Here’s Anderson right before tossing it to John as he introduced the program’s lead story: the last Republican Iowa Debate before the critical date of January 3rd.
John reported that the debate was markedly not “feisty”. This had to do with the fact that the debate moderators had set up some ground rules prior to the event. Some hot button issues were off-topic, such as Iraq and Immigration. That didn’t stop some of the candidates from trying to squeeze those topics in, though!
He also noted that Mike Huckabee tried to smooth over some tensions with Mitt Romney over recent remarks he had made about Mormonism:
Although that surely wasn’t the smartest thing to say about one’s competition, at least Huckabee went straight to Romney after the debate and apologized for that remark. Will that gesture be enough to fan out this most recent spark of fire? I guess time will tell…
After his voice-over piece, John was joined on the program by Donna Brazille and Bill Bennett for a round-table discussion.
John discussed Huckabee’s efforts to build himself up as a bigger figure, a larger figure, one who is trying to bring everyone together. He said, “Anderson, strategically here in Iowa, he knows the next three weeks he’s going to be catching a lot of harpoons so he’s trying to be big. Trying to say, ‘I want to end the polarization, I want to end the politics.’ So that when the rivals come at him, maybe voters will say, ‘Isn’t that that nice guy to wanted to bring the country together?'”
He also discussed Rudy Giuliani’s public image surrounding the scandal of his affair while in office, including the fact that he has been married three times.
These personal issues about Giuliani were touched on during the debate, but as John pointed out “If there was a voter out there who won’t vote for Giuliani because he’s on his third marriage, that voter already knows that information, Anderson.”
A summary of today’s Democratic debate will be included in tomorrow’s blog.
Have a great Thursday everyone and take care!
johnthenewsking 