Almanac: At the Capitol

So the first DFL U.S. Senate debate is done, it's being debated (and ripped) in the blogging world. Despite lots of bloggers speculating that no one was watching on a summer weekend, we had a healthy audience. The ratings were comparable to some of our fall debates much closer to an election. Let me say that we think dedicating half of the show to this race more than a year away from the election was totally appropriate. We've never dedicated the whole hour to an intra-party debate that any of us can recall. Sure we could have managed the clock a bit better, that's why we were pushing the candidates to move on, and that pushed our State Fair questions to the end and we only got to the global warming issue. It's live TV and often difficult to predict, but that's what makes it fun.

Now to some interesting behind-the-scenes stories. The mood was pretty tense beforehand. Ciresi surprised me with how loose he was. He was smiling and joking before and during the debate. He's apparently learned how to soften his personality. The Ciresi camp was playfully throwing down cash in their holding room, apparently wagering on the debate. They seemed pleased afterwards and a lot of the blogs and dozens of people I've talked to thought his performance was strong, aside from the confusing gay marriage answer. Franken was serious, as he has been thus far in this campaign. A lot of people I talked to were disappointed he didn't show much humor and his delivery was a bit slowly paced. He showed he could talk about the issues intelligently, but he did talk around them a bit on the gas tax and mortgage issue. Many people before thought Franken was nervous, walking the hallways repeatedly. Some were surprised he was nervous since he's broadcast before many, many more people on live TV before a national audience. This was just statewide TV. It was his first debate so there's bound to be some nerves. Cohen was mad he didn't get enough time. I don't know of any other media that have given him nearly that much time. Before the debate Cohen was wondering if his feet would show and concerned his socks were too short (a common concern on the couch).

Tonight, Almanac will host the first DFL U.S. Senate debate. Al Franken, Mike Ciresi and Jim Cohen are invited. They are the declared serious candidates. I know most people are excited to see Franken in action. We've seen Ciresi debate before. I'm getting a lot of people wondering if Franken will be funny or serious, provocative or cautious. This debate has been a long time in the making. We've been calling and trying to schedule this for months. It's not an easy job that our booker extraordinaire Kari Kennedy does better than anyone in the business. At least one of the campaigns has been very interested in the format. There's evidence they've been studying past debates and wondering if some of our old tricks will be back. Of course we'll have some of that, but some new stuff too. We try to keep our approach to debates fresh. No podiums and no stop watches for sure. We've kept this one under wraps for a while, hoping no one would cancel. MDE and Norwegianity (BTW, to fact check that post the show is posted by the next morning at the latest and the average Almanac is seen by about 75,000 people) gave us a plug, but not much chatter out there yet. I think people just aren't thinking about this race yet. I was at the State Fair today visiting political booths and I could hardly get people talking to the candidates to admit they cared much.