Talking clock from Dem debate

Here's the talking clock from last night's Democratic debate from Chris Dodd's Website. I can't say that I have much issue with it - it's pretty evenly spread, and the two candidates lowest in the polls got the least amount of speaking time. Honestly, who among us wants to hear 10 minutes of Mike Gravel? I don't.

Mike Gravel is one strange guy

Stick with this video - I promise it won't be worth it. This is some strange footage of Democratic Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel, a man who has as much hope of becoming president as I do at quarterbacking the Philadelphia Flyers' power play unit next season.

Some people might look at this video and try to psychoanalyze it; "it's a metaphor for this" or "it's symbolic of that," etc. I'm not buyin' it.

This is the mark of a desperate candidate who can't raise two plug nickels. Why? If you spend five minutes listening to him, you know why. He's too angry, too extreme and too unknown.

Don't get me wrong - I'm in the camp of "the more candidates the better," but this guy should have had the rock dropped on his head. What's more, this video, which runs 2:50, could have been done in about 45 seconds. But Gravel probably can't afford to hire a video editor, either.

Dem debate talk clock

This chart was created by Chris Dodd's campaign - a chart on how much talking time each candidate received during Sunday night's Democratic Presidential Debate in New Hampshire.

Some people have complained about how much talk time Wolf Blitzer received. I watched the entire debate, and I have to confess, I didn't notice it during the flow of the debate, but if these numbers are accurate, he did receive entirely too much airtime.

Many more people are taking Wolf to task on how he moderated the debate. Frankly, I think he did a good job moderating, but his choice of questions, at times, was absurd, specifically his ridiculous hypothetical questions. I'm anxious to see how Blitzer frames tonight's debate between the GOP candidates. I'll have much more on the upcoming Republican debate later today.

Other than Blitzer's time, I think the balance of time among the other candidates is about right. Mike Gravel received the least amount of time, as he should have. Really, he should have been happy to even get an invite; Osama bin Laden has higher poll numbers than Gravel.

Also, notice that the top three candidates in the polls got the most air time.