Robinson - Tiberi Debate Video Online

If you missed the first showing on Monday night, you can still catch David Robinson giving a very strong showing against a clearly peeved and surprisingly petty Pat Tiberi (and an amusingly befuddled Libertarian candidate). You can watch it or Tivo it Sunday at 1pm, or you can see it in its entirety on ONN's website.

Now, I'm not the most unbiased observer (ya think?), but I have to believe that it's a surprise to many people watching that Pat has turned into a blame-Pelosi-first and smear-your-opponent-with-reckless-plagiarism-charges type of candidate. He's always been that kind of legislator, but the lack of credible opposition and cover from a friendly majority in Congress have let him play the part of a bi-partisan nice guy in campaigns past.

By the way, for a guy whose idea of 'all of the above' is the noxious "No Excuses' bill, Pat's certainly willing to make a bunch of them himself. Most of them have to do with his growing Senate Envy. Why can't Congress get anything done on energy? Pat says that it's the crummy old Senate's fault. Why can't Congress do something about healthcare costs? It's the Senate's fault! Why did Pat vote against Children's Health Insurance before he voted for it? Because the crummy House had a bad bill and it was up to the great and powerful Senate to fix it before he could vote for it. Why did Pat vote against stabilizing the credit and banking industry before he voted for it? Because he was waiting for the god-like Senate to fix the rescue package.

A nice diary over on the Big Orange contained a newsclip I had missed, which I've embedded below. During the debate, Pat tried to make it out like David Robinson had focused his entire campaign in an anti-Tiberi rather than Pro-Robinson mode. There's a small grain of truth in this. Pat's entire campaign is based on the idea that the district "knows him" and "knows his record." They don't. And while papers like the Dispatch base their endorsements on explicit agendas, others like the Newark Advocate have endorsed the incumbent because, despite their obvious respect for David Robinson, they treat the election like a referendum, and they don't believe that the district should terminate Pat (although their readers on both the left and the right are pretty consistent in their disagreement). Under these conditions, where many actually do view the election as a yea-or-nay vote on Tiberi, and where many are quite misinformed about his views and values, the campaign would be nuts not to point out to the public exactly what Pat does stand for. On the other hand, people are not going to vote against Pat without a viable alternative. Which brings me to the video clip:



Robinson is clearly comfortable making the positive case for himself, in part because it's one of the better one's you'll hear among challengers. This guy belongs in Congress. IMHO, the DCCC really does need to get a coordinated Kilroy-Robinson-Neuhardt ad up in Columbus. In the meantime, watch the debate. If you think someone else needs to see it when you're done, email the link.