Hey folks, Harry here. I just got finished watching the first of the national presidential debates... Now I was watching on ABC... and all at once I became a bit curious what other AICN readers thought about the debates.

Now before ya start screaming Lieberman and censorship and all of that... you should realize that both parties have basically the same rhetoric about Hollywood. Right now both Republican and Democrats have major issues with the perception of marketing violence at kids in the media.... be it musical, televised or on the big screen. It's a safe and easy issue to stump on for them...

Personally as I saw the debate there was only one presidential candidate and some other bloke that stumbled out on stage with a fingernail's grasp of the issues and on what faced the country. I won't pussyfoot around... I liked Al Gore tonight. He had a command of world events, domestic events.... issues both current and future. When discussing what was happening in Yugoslavia he knew the principal's names... Bush refered to Milosevic as 'that man' and when he tried to say his name he mispronounced it. He stumbled around looking and searching for catch phrases instead of debating the issues and the facts... Returning time and time again to phrases like 'fuzzy numbers' when he could have (if they were fuzzy) pointed out specific numbers that Gore was fudging... except either Bush didn't know the correct numbers or was simply dodging the issue.

I'm also a very big future technology person... very environmental... very education oriented. We don't talk politics much here on the site... but I'm curious to see what you folks are like... what you thought of the debate and where you stand. I love talking politics, debating the issues back and forth... At one point it was the field I wanted to pursue... until I rediscovered film after a few astray years of high school and college.

This is likely to get quite heated down below, but let's try to talk out the pros and cons for each candidate... what we liked and didn't like about what we saw tonight... and stay away from the name calling and character assassination tactics that so often populate talk back. Talk.... I can't wait...