The Debate-Burka's Perspective

Last week Rick Noriega and John Cornyn engaged in a debate for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Among one of the members on the media panel was Paul Burka. In one of his posts on his blog titled simply, The Cornyn-Noriega Debate, Burka gives a good overall summary of the debate and comments upon both candidates. He mentions that it appeared that the media had given John Cornyn, a Republican the upper hand in the debate. He mentions that one of the panelists asked about Noriega’s role during the whole “Killer D” incident and that it was as Burka puts it “a gimme” for Cornyn because it opened Noriega up to criticism. Burka also mentioned how badly Rick Noriega’s performance was during the previous debate. He does take a couple shots at John Cornyn in his blog post saying that Cornyn is not the most “dynamic politician Texas has produced”.Paul Burka said that the biggest overall surprise that he had during the debate was how much the Democratic Candidate, Rick Noriega had developed as an opponent to Cornyn. Burka says that if Noriega had more time and better financed he may have a chance at the senate seat. Overall, Burka does good job in giving his opinion of the debate went and how well the candidates preformed. He writes a very articulated and well developed post on his blog.

Paul Burka has a very reputable set of credentials under his belt. He graduated from Rice University with his bachelors and continued on to receive his J.D. from The University of Texas. He has been writing for Texas Monthly since 1974 and today is a Senior Executive Editor with the outfit. He has won several awards for his excellence in journalism and is a frequent contributor on many major political and news networks. Although Paul Burka does not come out and say that he is democratic, the overall tone of the article seemed to ring with that of a democrat. Overall, the article puts forth a very nice summary of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses throughout the debate. Burka does a very good job.