#NCSEN: Look at Meeeeee! I’m David Crabtreeeeeeeeee !!!

glassesI 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.) boobs

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.  

lookCrabtree 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.