Regarding last night's debate and the response from the board, the enthusiasm from our conservative brothers is palpable!
My thoughts: Michelle Bachman: Opening line from the moderator is something like "stay away from the talking points and one liners." Opening statement from Bachmann is to do her little raising the voice and slowing down as she says "1 term president!" Can't stand her. Thought Pawlenty made a great point about her when he said that she runs on this idea of "leading the fight" against all of Obama's policies that got passed anyway. So she's running on failing? The more I see of her the less I can stand her. Thought the Chris Wallace "would you submit to your husband as president?" question was out of line. Tim Pawlenty: Some of his attacks on Bachman were good, but he just sucks. So scripted and really comes across as desperate for your vote. Has no shot and brings nothing to the table other than entertaining shots at Bachman. His attempts to go after Romney are embarrassing. Forget their policies for a minute, the contrast between the two men is astounding. Romney is poised and knows who he is and completely shrugs off Pawlenty. Pawlenty is constantly trying to get himself in the conversation with Romney who just completely outclasses him without saying a word. Rick Santorum: Funny last night. Not much to break down as he didn't get much chance to speak and isn't much of a viable candidate. I hope he pulls an upset and finishes 3rd in Iowa or something just to knock off Pawlenty. Was disappointed with his straw man polygamy argument against Ron Paul that he wouldn't let go of. Thought it was interesting that he boldly stood against the 10th amendment when he said "states don't have the right to do wrong." That is a really interesting position for him to stake considering the current right wing electoral climate. Nobody else on the stage would go after the 10th amendment there. Herman Cain: Boy, he really tries hard to backtrack from the mosque issue. Was impressed that he admitted he didn't know enough about issues before and has learned about them since. That is an honest answer and truth be told is something I appreciate. I don't expect that the president is going to know the ins and outs and best solutions to every problem. I want to know that they will get the right people to educate them though and do the appropriate delegation. Unfortunately for Herman I just can't support someone is so loose with Constitution that he would argue a town should have the right to deny a particular religion from building a place of worship. Huntsman: Doesn't even look like HE knows what he is doing there. Several times didn't address a question until the last 2-3 seconds of his answer. A scripted ploy to try and make the audience miss the fact that he was dodging questions. His answer on civil unions and while people were wrong if they were against them was the weakest copout in debate history. "Everyone has the right to their opinion." Lost all respect for him there. What good is it for you to support a cause if you will waffle and say something as weaksauce as that when you get the national stage? Obama thinks that waffling on gay rights was weak. Winners: Mitt Romney: The dude is just poised and presidential. His is so far above the fray in this election cycle it isn't funny. Last time around he let himself get dragged into the fights with McCain, Huckabee Thompson, etc. This time he really sits above it. He really looks like the only professional among a crowd of amateurs. Newt Gingrich: Newt is badass. I said it. I wish our political media could get to a place where we let real analysis and ideas get discussed and debated instead of a lot of the stupid shallow nonsense that gets dealt with. Gingrich is absolutely right that our media is so interested in the shallow stuff that they never ask real policy questions. Can't stand it. Can't stand that our media is an accomplice in getting people elected that the vast majority of Americans really know nothing about at a policy level. We hear about their shallow little "proposed economic plans" that are completely useless, but none of them ever address real serious policy issues that exist. I bet (with the possible exception of Santorum and Romney) that the rest of the candidates couldn't even tell you what the bills Gingrich addressed last night represented. Our system is such a joke. I don't know if Newt would make a good president and I certainly don't agree with him on a lot of policy, but I sure as well would prefer a national debate on issues and policies between people who think like him than watching the rest of these jokers juggle their talking points with a dimwitted smile on their face.
Pawlenty's attacks on Bachmann really show how desperate he is. Even though he has never been close to Bachmann he defended Bachmann for years but is now citing the same criticism of her that he previously deflected. As far as Romney I am more and more disapointed in him. While what he is doing is what he needs to to win the Republican nomination it is just sad to see how much he is running away from what he was as candidate and governor of Mass.
In general I agree that there should be much more focus on issues but in Gingrich's case this is his attempt to deflect attention away from how terribly he has run his campaign. Issues are very important but how a candidate runs his campaign is an issue since that gives a sense about what type of executive they will be.
This wasn't a new strategy though. In the last debate he blasted the panel for turning immigration into an issue of "you're either for illegal immigration or you want to deport every immigrant." It's so ridiculous. We can't have intelligent conversations about issues and the media is largely to blame for that. (so are the American people, but the media feeds it) The whole concept of a 1 minute answer to some of these question is indicative of our problem. I hate the questions they ask about how you would handle a war or Iran trying to get a nuke. If one of the candidates had the stones to say "Mister Moderator, I can't possible tell you how I would handle Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon. First of all, time doesn't allow me to articulate a truly intelligent response to such an important question. Secondly, without being in the White House with access to intelligence information and our sources on the ground and our military advisors, any answer I gave you would be nothing than an uninformed ideological talking point. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I would never telegraph on national television what steps I would take to navigate an international issue of such significance even if time did allow it. Thank you." I would be blown away.
Out of all those candidates in the debate last night I thought Ron Paul won hands down. He's the only one of them that had any kind of rational thought at all. While I think some of his policies go off the deep end, I did agree with a lot of what he had to say last night. It's too bad he'll never get the nomination though. Romney looks and acts like a phony. His deflection of the Mass health care bill issue is so very weak and somewhat hypocritical. So the states should be the ones to decide health care and not the federal govt, but the fed should be the one to decide gay marriage not the states?! He's a flip flopper in the truest sense. Cain is way out of his league. Bachman is crazy. And I truly wish the moderators would have called her out on the debt ceiling. She said we shouldn't have raised the debt ceiling and our credit downgrade was because we can't pay our bills. No, it wasn't. S&P clearly said our debt risk was fine, it was our political grandstanding that caused the downgrade (however right or wrong that argument was). Santorum started pissing me off when he kept going after Paul with arguments that just didn't stick with me. He seemed like he'd be willing to go to war with Iran to stop them from getting a nuke. That's a scary path. I also didn't like how he criticized our handling with Israel, that we should stand shoulder to shoulder with them, as if Israel can never do no wrong. Huntsman, well I respect him from not shying away from his stance on civil unions. He didn't get any applause from it, as expected, but he didn't shy away from it like others would have done. Hell other's did shy away or backtrack on things they have said in the past. Pawlenty, meh. Newt is kind of fiery but didn't offer much substance to me. I also hate the fact that none of the candidates offered any real solution to immigration. Fix the borders. Gee, wow, what an easy solution. To bad the border is thousands of miles long. You cannot protect and have eyes on every portion of the border, or even just every portion that would be possible to cross. And on the troop wind down in Afghanistan. I think this is a point that clearly underscored how much the Republicans have stood in opposition to Obama from day one. They can't even give him credit for ending the war in Iraq and setting a timeline in Afghanistan. No it's that the President isn't bringing the trips home slow enough now. I bet if Obama had followed the advice of the generals on the ground, Republicans would say he's not bringing them home fast enough! Sad that our current President has not gotten a fair shake from day one. Wonder how different things could have been if the other side was willing to work with him for the good of the country. Ah well, hopeful thinking in this current deeply partisan environment I guess.
Mitt Romney is another Corporate Puppet. If you want to see another 4 years of the same ole status quo then vote for him
He's the only one who was able to say what he thinks. The others are just clones that are re-iterating the same thing over and over. The whole thing was a battle of who cut more spending and who cut taxes more. Also who hates Iran more and who loves Israel more etc.. etc.. I still think Ron Paul is a complete nut but he sounded like the only one who has ever read a history book. I'm fairly certain none of the others know who Mohammed Mosadeq is or that Iran is a net importer of oil and is on the brink of an economic meltdown. (both of which Ron Paul pointed out). I took a poli sci class in college where we analyzed older presidential debates and the primary debates were so different. You had a huge diversity of republican candidates from across the spectrum (from Northeastern moderate Republicans to Barry Goldwater clones) Today its a battle of who can cut more taxes and spending while espousing false patriotism. Honestly outside of Ron Paul what's the difference between the others. Romney won't even acknowledge his own record and Huntsman looked like a tool when he talked about his defense of civil unions. They're both complete cowards. Hopefully someone in the Republican party that isn't Ron Paul starts speaking his or her mind. (although to be fair Bachmann is probably actually speaking her mind when she talks)
I think some of Cain's ideas would be great, but there isn't a chance in hell he'll win a nomination. Just too inexperienced, which is unfortunate. I was impressed with Ron Paul last night. I like Santorum and think he is genuine, compared to 98% of politicians who are just spewing hot air, but he came off as an extreme "we have to protect the world and make it a better place" type last night. We have too many issues at home to worry about all of that right now. We need the focus to be on fixing the U.S. before starting more wars.
Exactly what I was thinking! Besides that, I don't think the left, even in his second term, were so hell bent on obstruction as the right has been with Obama. Not even close.
Seriously. Corporations are made up of vampires and robots and the profits generated by them go to space aliens. People? Bah!
