Oh! I forgot to watch the recall candidates debate!

Forgot even to tape it. I did notice at one point that there was a debate and made a mental note to tape it. I had the motivation of wanting to tell you all about it, but I forgot. It was a Friday night. Did anyone watch?

Well, I'm sure it's on line. Yeah, here. And we can always check out the Wisconsin State Journal report:

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, and Secretary of State Doug La Follette appeared at Wisconsin Public Television's Madison studios for their last debate before Tuesday's primary. The winner earns a shot at unseating Walker in a general recall election June 5....

The Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls were careful not to jab each other too hard Friday and risk alienating each other's supporters; the nominee will need a united front going into June. Instead they spent most of the evening trotting out well-rehearsed talking points against Walker.

Trotting out well-rehearsed talking points and not attacking each other? Then there was no test of who would do better actually wrangling with Walker.

But Barrett accused the governor of caring more about traveling around the country and parlaying his reputation as conservative superstar into loads of out-of-state campaign contributions.

"I'll stay here in Wisconsin to work and retain jobs," he said. "I won't be a rock star to the far-right movement."

That's a relief! I'm sure Barrett will be quite the non-rock-star — of the left or the right.  That's his pitch: I'm very bland. How that retains jobs, I have no idea. He's not even offering to grow jobs (as Walker did). Just retain them, okay?

Meanwhile, Falk said:

"No one will work harder than I to get people back working."

So she'll work hard. No Walkeresque claim of creating job, nor even a Barretty assurance of retaining jobs. Just working really really hard.  It's the diligence, the very earnest diligence that matters so much. Diligence and good grammar. No one will work harder than I [will].

They also talked about restoring civility, because you know how Scott Walker caused that terrible outbreak of uncouthness:

"That's what's missing in Madison right now," he said. "The basic human respect is gone."

Falk likened the state to a broken family. Sometimes, she said, it takes a mother with a firm, strong hand to bring it together again.

Oh, no! Falk is playing the gender card.

"We need a mom and I'm anxious to be that mom and bring us back together," Falk said.

Oh, no! Ha ha. That's laying it on really thick. I'm live-blogging my reading of the article, so I hadn't seen that when I was making fun of her "No one will work harder than I" idea for building economy. I was going to say it sounded like a school girl running for class president. I was even going to break out the Tracy Flick comparison...



I decided not to. My feminist scruples won out and I decided not to lay a gender template on that striving overachievement attitude. But then she outright played the gender game. So Tracy Flick must be noted. It's simple pop culture literacy to cite Tracy Flick. I'd just plain not be doing my job as a blogger if I didn't embed that.

Now, I'd like to embed something comparable for Barrett, because I'm not endorsing anyone. But what pop culture reference could I make? He said himself that he's not going to be a "rock star," and that's actually pretty comical in itself. You know, you have somebody who has zero capacity to be something, and he assures you that he'll refrain from being that.  What's the pop culture reference for that?

ME: "Can you think of someone who was in a famous rock band, but was totally in the background, like somebody completely boring and schlubby, where you'd be all look at the bassist, why is that guy in the band?"

MEADE: Maybe Phil Lesh.

ME: No, he's too cool.

MEADE: Phil Lesh is cool?



So... the candidates were asked how they'd restore the public workers' collective bargaining rights:

Barrett promised to use "any vehicle I can to get to the destination," but said he'd start with a special legislative session shortly after taking office.

That reminds me. Speaking of "any vehicle"... I note that they didn't even mention one thing that Doug La Follette said at the debate. Here at Meadhouse, we've been laughing for days about this:

... La Follette says he would "fly to Washington, D.C." to try to reclaim funding for high-speed rail that Walker nixed....

Meade said: "Fly to Washington! Why doesn't he take the train? There's a train to Washington."

I said: "Well, let's be fair. Maybe he has little wings and he can fly. Make Way for Douglings...."

"Within the high school gossip circle that is New York’s congressional delegation, Kirsten Gillibrand’s nickname is 'Tracy Flick.'"

"'Nobody really likes her.'"



ADDED: The DVD of "Election." The Blu-Ray.

Hillary as Tracy Flick — the video.

American Idol: I hate disco.

I'm not going to say a whole lot about American Idol this week, unlike last week. Maybe I'm sad that all the male singers are gone, but much more basically, I hate disco. I hated it when it took over the airwaves in the 1970s, and I don't usually have it imposed on me anymore, but tonight I was plunged back into the nightmare of disco. I'm vaguely impressed that anyone can sing their way through such unsingable things. And it doesn't help to start off by shouting "Come on!" My view of that is: you come on--let people respond to your performance, not your orders. I'll say one thing nice: Donna Summer was a decent enough celebrity panelist (I like that she didn't preen like all the others). And I'll make one comment about one song that I particularly hate: "It's Raining Men." To me, the image of many human beings falling from raincloud level is one of mass carnage, a horrible bloodbath. Don't lyricists have to think at all about what they are saying? Apparently not, because audiences seem to buy into the fabulous celebratory attitude of it all. How I hate disco!



Who will leave tomorrow night? I'd say La Toya, possibly Fantasia. Fantasia knew that second song was horrible (to her credit). La Toya--they keep reminding us she's boring. I'm sure if the contest were open to all ages, there would be scores of women who could sing that well, but I don't think the show is about picking a mature, technically proficient performer. You've got to inspire the kids with pop style. Jasmine, of course, is the one who deserves to leave, but she cried! It's funny how no one else has ever just up and cried about how bad they were and how harsh the criticism was, but good old Jasmine pulled out the last desperate move and just cried. Between that and the fact that she rules Hawaii, she will survive. (Hmmm... a disco song not sung.) Of course, Diana is the safest of the safe. (And didn't she look like Kate Hudson tonight? Kate Hudson with baby fat.)



UPDATE: One more reason why Jasmine will survive: that dress! I mean that sheet of black rubber she was daringly swathed in.



FURTHER UPDATE: Diana reminds Tonya of Tracy Flick. Prof. Yin's comments about the show seem to reveal that he is a disco fan.