I finally broke down and watched the awful Brian Tyler Cohen version of the debate, where that soy idiot sits in the background and makes mocking remarks about DeSantis the entire time. Not what I wanted, but I simply can't find it anywhere else. I don't know how Cohen is getting away with running this when it's Fox's property. He has over 500k views because it's the only option right now.
I've watched about 20 minutes so far. My impressions:
- This is a very DeSantis-biased debate. Every question is framed from a right wing standpoint, and putting Newsom on the defensive. If I were a Democrat, I would be pissed off watching it being moderated this way.
- Newsom is a smarmy, slick politician who won't answer a single question directly, and just quotes skewed stats his team prepared for him beforehand in order to distract people from his failures.
- DeSantis' one problem so far is constantly quoting unverifiable anecdotes about "former Californians" he has talked to. I never liked the "people have told me" form of debating.
- Otherwise, I don't think DeSantis is coming off badly. He's trying his best to get Newsom to answer directly, but Newsom is just too good at question dodging.
Bottom line is that anyone with sense can see that Newsom is absolutely full of shit, even if this debate is clearly shaded to make DeSantis look better.