Unqualified Offerings

Maryland Senate candidates Ben Cardin and Michael Steele are on Meet the Press. Russert is pressing Steele on where he stands on Iraq.

Steele says we need to put pressure on the Iraqi government to meet our benchmarks and to “democratically” something. Russert could ask, “So what if the Iraqi government democratically tells us to shove our benchmarks up our ass?” Doesn’t.

Steele probably buys himself a little cred back with voters when he answers Russert’s question about Donald Rumsfeld by saying, “Let’s put it this way, he would not be my choice for that office.”

The rest of it is the usual Republican dancing.

Cardin has an easier time of it, and shows how easy it is to be a Democrat on this issue if you can say, “I voted against the war in 2002.” However, he engages in some of the characteristic Dem blather about “energizing the international community.” The idea that the “international community” will willingly stick its hand in that dispos-all was a fantasy in 2004 and it’s a fantasy today.

UPDATE: Now Russert is pressing Cardin on whether Cardin would “cut off funding for the war.” Cardin says No, but he would somehow “use the appropriations process.” This feels like mere gotcha-questioning by Russert, seeing if he can get Cardin to say he’ll “vote against the troops.” That gives Steele an opening to profess “shock, shock” that Cardin would “play games with our soldiers lives,” despite the fact that Cardin has professed “I would never put our troops at risk.” What’s really going on here is that Russert, Cardin and Steele are demonstrating how useless “the power of the purse” is to restrain executive warmaking, but nobody on the show is going to admit that.

UPDATE2: Steele is complaining that the Democrats haven’t “put up a plan.” As if any plan Democrats had mattered. As if the party out of power is responsible for winning the war the party with all the power has proven it can’t win.

UPDATE3: Cardin answers Russert’s question, “Where do you want the troops then?” with “I want them here.” Steele is now talking out of both sides of his mouth again. He’s trying to hammer Cardin on “What will Iraq look like when you pull that last soldier out?” implying, pretty bad and don’t you care. And yet, he has already said that if the Iraqi people “show that this is what they want” (chaos, fratricide) then we can’t stop them, and by implication, ought to go.

Steele is hamstrung by trying to play the standard Republican hand on national security (”Don’t trust the Democrats!”) while also distancing himself from the President and, especially, the Secretary of Defense, because, let’s face it, he’s trying to win a statewide election in one of the country’s more liberal states.

UPDATE4: Russert is pressing Steele on the fact that he’s been avoiding the word “Republican” in his campaign ads and materials. Steele is handling this part okay.

UPDATE5: Cardin could take a nap here. It’s the Michael Steele show.

UPDATE6: Back to Cardin, something about the fact that he’s voted against the Bush administration “70% of the time” or something. I think Russert also said something about “investigations,” but - ah, here we go. Russert wants to know why Cardin said “We need to investigate the President.” Cardin answers that Congress does, like, oversight.

UPDATE7: Cardin just used the word “oversighting.” That’s it. He’s off the list.

UPDATE8: Now Steele is saying that “in time of war” we shouldn’t be, well, “oversighting.

UPDATE9: An ad about our “moral responsibility to stop the genocide in Darfur with ‘UN peacekeepers and a no-fly zone’.” Because what could go wrong?

UPDATE10: Now back to the debate, and stem cells. Duelling ads: Michael J. Fox versus Michael Steele’s little sister, a doctor. Steele opposes “research that would destroy the embryo.” Doesn’t say what anyone would use the embryos for otherwise. Cardin says: they would be discarded. Back-and-forth is degenerating into bickering, with Steele interrupting Cardin a lot.

UPDATE11: Now Steele is trying to make the case for the technical stability of adult stem-cell lines but he doesn’t know the material well and is stumbling. Russert presses him on the fact that the embryos being discarded are functionally identical to embryos discarded at fertility clinics around the nation. Russert is pushing hard on a “Why don’t you?” line - asking Steele whether he would “forbid fertility clinics from destroying embryos.” Steele says “he’d like to look at the issue,” but he hasn’t yet. You’d think if the fate of embryos meant that much to him he’d have done some looking already.

Cardin is saying “We have a responsibility to prevent cloning” but he won’t say why.

UPDATE12: Wow. Steele just said he wouldn’t support a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion. Amusingly, he acts ignorant of the fact that “human life amendments” are already circulating around Congress. Also says flat out that he would like to “follow the stare decisis” on Roe v. Wade.

Russert throws Cardin one about “parental notification,” but it’s a batting practice pitch. Cardin stutters a bit because parents vote and most parents are leery of their kids going through a pregnancy and termination of same without themselves knowing about it. Russert lets it drop.

UPDATE13: Russert moves to voting for Supreme Court justices. This is another topic where Cardin has it easy because of Maryland’s 2:1 registration edge for Democrats. Steele has to play dumb here, while Cardin can simply say, “I’d have voted against Alito etc.” Steele does get a chance to avow his support for affirmative action, giving himself a chance to run to the left of the Republican default. He’s back on his implicit campaign message, “I’m not too scary for Maryland!”

UPDATE14: Steele gets to blame Repubs for out-of-control spending next, reinforcing his theme. Cardin says he could save money by using the power of government to bully drug companies into charging less. That’s all he’s got. And, time’s up!

I like Steele. He came off pretty well. I hope this isn’t the end of his political career. But it’s 2006 and he’s a Republican running for national office, so he falls foul of the “Punish the Wicked” principle. Cardin voted against the war, so he gets rewarded. It’s that simple.