Opinion: That debate was a biggie--and there’s more to come
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You know that Democratic presidential debate that was on cable TV last night from South Carolina and you heard later that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seemed to get so angry with each other while you were watching something else because you figured you’d already heard them discuss their minor differences enough already?
Well, it turns out, according to CNN, that it was the most-watched primary debate in cable news history anyway among total viewers and key demographics. Take that, Fox News and MSNBC.
CNN says the two-hour confrontation, which also included John Edwards playing the role of a non-historic white Southern male candidate, attracted an average of 4.9 million total viewers and nearly two million adults 25-54.
Let’s see, 4.9 million. That leaves something like....
298 million Americans who were not watching the three remaining Democratic candidates and what’s-his-name, the guy with the animal name and the wispy beard. Presumably, the viewers under 25 were out drinking and the older viewers were taking their Metamucil.
The next debate, in case you’d like to plan your week, is on MSNBC Thursday night at 6 Pacific time among Republicans assembled in Boca Raton, Fla. And what a perfect place for them.
After that come the really, really important debates next week in Los Angeles co-sponsored by The Times, Politico.com and CNN. The debates, both of which will be live-streamed here on this website, occur Jan. 30 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley among Republicans and the next night at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre among this same feisty trio of Democrats.
Those are the last joint verbal confrontations before the Big Day, Feb. 5 when it seems, almost everybody in America casts their primary votes except the quaint folks in New Hampshire and Iowa and South Carolina that we’re all so tired of hearing about. Oh, also Montana, which doesn’t vote until June because it doesn’t thaw there until then and Big Sky Country wanted to be the big concluding state that decides the whole ball of wax.
--Andrew Malcolm