News Roundup, 4/16/08: Yet Another Debate

May yesterday have been the last Democratic primary debate we'll see this season? It looks like that may really be the case this time.

And the debate gave us some fresh looks at some issues that we hadn't had the chance to hear about as of yet. The first half of the debate covered all the big news items that had come up since the last debate, be it Obama's calling small-town America "bitter" when it clings to tradition or Clinton's error on her statement of being "under sniper fire" when exiting a plane in Basra. The second half focused more on policy positions, which covered a lot of ground we'd already seen before but did at times touch on some points that hadn't seen enough attention this cycle, such as gun control or capital gains taxes.

The overall consensus seems to be that Senator Clinton had a very strong showing, as Obama finally had pointed questions addressed to him of the kind that Clinton has seen for a large number of prior debates, and Clinton was able to maintain a cool, collected demeanor both in answering her issues and in responding to Obama's answers. Obama looked more defensive as he sought to explain instead of retract statements on such problems as the "bitterness" issue or the problems with Rev. Wright's statements, while Clinton clearly and directly apologized for the gaffes regarding the "sniper fire" comments and seemed more relaxed and in control of the conversation as a whole.

There were also some very interesting policy details covered with regards to foreign policy and to proportional response to aggression on Iran's part and the proper scope of that. You can see the recorded debate at ABC News' site.

There is some talk of another debate being held prior to the North Carolina primary, but considering how lengthy a primary season it's been, whether or not we'll see one is still up for grabs.

John McCain has been putting a lot of effort into backpedaling on his "bail out companies, not people" economic policy and making out like he has a plan to help Americans. It's a shame that the plan never seems to be particularly good. He presented a speech on economic policy that floated the idea of having a gas tax holiday, bringing of the dual questions of where we would make up the federal income from and why that would be anything other than an incentive for oil companies to raise prices by the same amount at the pump.

The NRCC is also finding itself in some trouble, for different reasons: the DCCC filed a complaint yesterday with the Federal Elections Committee alleging that the NRCC illegally coordinated with the conservative group Freedoms Watch to make an attack ad against a candidate for a Louisiana congressional seat.

And they need to be sweating about every seat, too. Democratic congressional candidate Michael Skelly is showing himself to be a serious force for Texas' 7th congressional district. Skelly's outraised his opponent, incumbent Congressman John Culberson, by more than a two-to-one ratio over the past reporting period.

Constituent services have always been a strong suit for Congressman Nick Lampson, and he made news yesterday for his support of NASA and the U.S. space program as a whole. After some constrictions to the space program budget by the White House which are threatening a drastic downsizing of industry jobs, Lampson has started a concerted push to increase funding above the levels the Bush administration has suggested so that the new Constellation space program can be launched earlier, maintaining some of those jobs both in NASA and the Kennedy Space Center.

Speaking of Florida, the federal government is once again learning in the Miami terror case that trying to manufacture terror threats to support the extreme policies in place to limit others' civil rights often ends up coming back to put egg on your face. The Sears Tower bomb threat case has led to a mistrial for a second straight time. Little surprise, considering that the evidence seems to indicate that the government actually reached out to them and gave the idea to this ragtag group of people so that they could turn around and accuse them of it and "prevent a terrorist plot." BBC says that "the government wants to try them again next year."

Finally today, we have an interview with state senator and ex-Austin mayor Kirk Watson; as well as his political history, we talk about salient environmental and transportation topics in Texas.