Cardin and Steele on Meet the Press

My take on the Cardin-Steele debate on MTP yesterday (excerpts of which are available at Oliver Willis' blog):

I don't watch MTP that often, mainly because I find Tim Russert to be pompous and smug, but the other reason was heavily on display this time: Politicians tripping over themselves to explain what they really meant when they said X, Y, or Z isn't much my idea of an informative debate. I guess it beats no rules at all, though...

Anyway, I thought Cardin acquitted himself decently, though once again he was put on the defensive a lot, particularly on Iraq. The whole line of questioning about whether Cardin would "cut off funding for the troops" was moronic, and you would think someone who had the good sense to vote against the war in 2002 would be able to project a lot more moral authority over a pair of sycophants like Russert and Steele. Instead, both Steele and Cardin sounded mealy-mouthed about what to do in Iraq -- Cardin because he was holding on to the unrealistic possibility of getting the international community involved in resolving the conflict, and Steele because he was trying to portray himself as both a critic and a supporter of the occupation. Of course, I found Cardin to be more credible than Steele on the matter, but to the casual observer, they sounded rather similar.

Cardin seemed to be on firmer ground when the debate shifted to stem-cell research, which he vocally supports. In the wake of the Michael J. Fox ad, Steele has been trying to explain that, in fact, he does support stem-cell research -- just not embryonic research, the kind that matters. Steele also got pinned a number of times on just how pro-life he really is. It turns out Steele is an advocate of "snowflake babies", and demurred on taking a position on confirming judicial nominees, a constitutional amendment banning abortion, or anything concerning abortion, for that matter. For a conservative Catholic, he seemed awfully shy about saying what he believes about the so-called life issues. It reminded me of Chief Justice John Robert's fake-out during his confirmation hearing, actually.

All in all, I think Cardin is a better legislator than a debator, which is fine with me. I'd rather have someone in the Senate who knows how to craft good policy than someone who knows how to please Tim Russert. But Steele didn't fare very well, either, coming off, by turns, as slick, bullying, and incoherent. This was probably the last chance for Steele pick up any undecideds or weak supporters of Cardin, and between this and the Purple Line gaffe, I'd say he blew it.

(Edited to sound less snarky.)

UPDATE: Jim Henley's comments on the debate are worth reading. He's more sympathetic to Steele, but says his performance was mostly "the usual Republican dancing."