Courtney vs. Simmons

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in the Danbury area. Some advantages are living close to New York City and being only a 30-40 minute drive from most of the major cities in Connecticut. One of the disadvantages of living here is not knowing enough about what is happening on the eastern side of the state adn that beings us to Rob Simmons-Joe Courtney debate from last night.

You see, I live in the New York City market and my cable provider only carries MYTV9-WWOR TV, not the Connecticut version of MYTV-9, which carried the debate last night. Until someone uploads the complete debate (or if it's re-broadcasted on CT-N), I won't be able to see it so I have to rely on reports for my news.

Usually, Ted Mann writes killer articles for the Day but his report on the debate was unusually short and not very informative. Maybe the print version will be longer.

But never fear, bloggers are always on the scene and lucky for me, one of my favorite blogs, CTBlue, filed a more detailed report which explains how Courtney tore Simmons to shreds.

Overall I thought Joe came across well. He won. He demonstrated a superior knowledge of the issues, including Iraq, and he was able to debate without falling back on spin points and cliches. (It should be a capital offense for a politician to say "9-11 changed everything". What they really mean is 9-11 excuses everything).

The crowd was decidedly weighted toward Courtney. I kid you not. We filled up (appropriately) the center to the left of the auditorium, while the Simmons crowd was concentrated in the extreme right wing, with plenty of empty seats toward the back.

I encourage all who want to know what happened to read CTBlue's entire post. I don't want to blockquote his remarks as his post is a good read and includes video highlights of several key moments of the debate.

UPDATE: Reports from the event are coming in which echoes the views of CTBlue.

I was there. The Courtney contingent was much more visible and pumped up in the audience, I'm guessing it was 2/3 Courtney and 1/3 Simmons. Courtney did a good job. Ted Mann did a good job with his questions, but Morgan McGinley of the Day was terrible--his question was along the lines of "since entitlements like social security have run us into a deficit, how can this be dealt with?". Courtney was excellent in rebuttal that it's the Republicans who have landed us in the budget mess, not "entitlements". Overall, Courtney seemed to be in command of the facts and to give much better answers. He has gotten stronger as a speaker as he's gone on, in my opinion.