#NCSEN: Look at Meeeeee! I’m David Crabtreeeeeeeeee !!!
I wanted to find something nice to say about what WRAL did with this election broadcast. Really. First, the format was much better than last night. WRAL deserves kudos for going to the roundtable discussion with ONE moderator. After that, it all goes DOWNHILL.
THIRTY MINUTES ???? They’re only going to give FOUR candidates in a crucial US Senate race THIRTY MINUTES — the day before early voting gets started?
Well, WRAL is owned by Jim and Barbara Goodmon — a deep pocketed couple who dump tons of cash on Kay Hagan and other granola-flavored socialist delicacies. Granted, TV time is expensive and precious. But this thing got marketed to viewers as an important educational event the day before voting begins. What did they have to cut the broadcast short for? Entertainment Tonight !!!! Seriously. Host David Crabtree hustled everyone to wrap up their talking so the Goodmons could get today’s edition of ET on the air. (I believe they preempt stuff like ET for ACC basketball.) 
Tonight’s broadcast totally evaporated what respect I had for WRAL anchor David Crabtree. He was rude and domineering. He interrupted and talked over the candidates. He argued points — from the leftist perspective — with the GOP candidates. It’s always been said that the best debate moderators are the ones who are hardly noticed by the audience. You couldn’t miss Crabtree here. He made the broadcast mostly about him. I heard more from Big Dave than I did from the four contenders. Last time I checked, Crabtree WILL NOT be on the ballot.
Crabtree tried to goad the GOP foursome into saying that they would repeal ObamaCare and kick little old ladies off their health insurance. Never mind that ObamaCare HAS MADE — and will continue to make — health care delivery worse. Never mind that Kay Hagan’s enthusiastic advocacy for ObamaCare has created overwhelming financial and physical stress on families all over the country.
Crabtree also demanded that his victims hostages guests check their religious beliefs at the door because our Founders wanted “a separation of church and state.” Greg Brannon, Mark Harris, and Heather Grant had to remind him that wasn’t exactly true. Brannon brought up that the whole “separation of state” concept doesn’t appear in The Constitution and only came up in a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote.
Crabtree told the candidates that global warming is a problem and that they need to tell him what their plan is to fix it. He argued with Brannon, Harris, and Grant when they suggested it is not the problem statists and radical environmentalists make it out to be. (Thom Tillis appeared to come down on both sides of the global warming debate.)
Crabtree also demanded that each candidate give him ONE example of a “job-killing regulation.” As each candidate tried to inform viewers about the evils of big government, Crabtree repeatedly talked over them and interrupted them, demanding ONE and ONLY ONE example.
Despite Crabtree’s antics, Heather Grant performed surprisingly well. I had not known much about her prior to these two debates. But she proved herself tonight to be very articulate, principled, and well-versed on the issues. She’s not going to be elected senator this year, but I think she has a bright future as a political leader here in North Carolina.
Mark Harris helped himself out quite a bit tonight, in the little time he and the other candidates had. Might it be too little, too late though? Greg Brannon reinforced his position as the leading conservative candidate for the US Senate nomination.
Tonight, David Crabtree committed a huge journalistic sin by making himself THE STORY. He scored brownie points with his leftist wacko bosses, but he did a disservice to the viewers and state’s voters trying to gain important information to aid them in their election decisions.
The only thing missing was Tillis saying,” Candy-I mean Crabtree get the transcript!” The net of this for North Carolinians is that democrat-progressives are exactly alike no matter what state your in.
Once again more support for my pet theory that WRAL is an acronym for We Really Are Lefties.
Learned one thing tonight. I’m definitely not voting for that Crabtree fella.
Remember, WRAL is just a branch of Obama’s media and should never be trusted.
Both Ron Burgundy AND Ted Baxter were embarrassed for David Crabtree.
Sure, David likely scored an atta-boy from Jim & Babs Goodmon for his Amateur Anchorman performance. Maybe NOW every Conserv/Repub will see what “The Goodmons” are all about….. “worse than The N&O”.
David Crabtree is a leftie political hack. He would have fit in just fine at Radio Moscow back in the Breshnev days. Far left ”journalists” attempting to impose their views on Republican candidates is obnoxious and not what I would call a ”debate”.
The state and national Republican Party can’t negotiate better forums for our candidates than this? They are part of the problem. This bad joke is on us.
Thats why we need to stop electing establishment Republicans (ehhmmm, Tillis)
Oh! That was a debate. I just thought it was more of empty-suit David Crabtree’s ongoing audition for a position in the Obama Administration.
Telling that these were the forums that the Speaker chose to participate in and not the ones hosted by conservative organizations.
It’s easy to look conservative when the forums are being moderated by Progressive Socialists. It’s another to have to defend a less than stellar conservative record by those that know.
Also by avoiding questions from real voters, they tend to avoid questions with any substance. The empty suits of the liberal media usually lack substance.