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Re: Iowa Republican Debate
Old 08-12-2011, 08:37 AM   #5
Professor S
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Default Re: Iowa Republican Debate

As I have stated before, Rick Santorum is a theocratic fascist. He makes no delineation between the government and society. He doesn't believe in the rule of law, and he only values the Constitution when it suits his purposes, shown by his ridiculous statements about 10th Amendment essentially not applying in cases where he doesn't like it (like gay marriage). He believes the government should be the moral watchdog of the people, and this makes him just as much a threat to individual liberty as any top-down, central-control promoting leftist. But to be fair, he probably gained ground last night by appealing to the social and security conservative bases. But at this point it may be too little too late.

Thoughts:

- I loved the format of the debate. FINALLY candidates were asked to respond to one another and pushed beyond talking point. This is good for discourse and elections.

- Huntsman is milquetoast. Utterly unimpressed with him. He ran away from his past statements, and retreated to his talking points in a debate that (thankfully) promoted engagement and discussion.

- Herman Cain did better, but he came off as a student and not a leader. That's not bad, but its not presidential. At this point he's shooting for an economic cabinet position, and I think he'd perform well in that role.

- I was serious when I said I thought Bachmann has a migraine. She seemed off of her game, and I'm not a fan of the game in the first place. She was hurt badly in this debate, regardless of what pundits say. Pawlenty and Gingrich hurt her credibility with their attacks on her effectiveness as a leader and her lack of real accomplishment.

- The other shoe finally dropped for Ron Paul, as I imagined it would. I think people went with him on Afghanistan, but once his foreign policy turned to Iran, he went off the rails. Isolationist is one thing, but ignoring reality is another. Santorum thumped him on that issue. Also, Paul missed a golden opportunity to crush Santorum when he said "We are a nation of values" by rebutting "Yes, but we are a government of LAWS." In the end, Paul is always a non-factor because he only appeals to fiscal conservatives, and pushes away security and social conservatives.

- Pawlenty hurt Bachmann, but I don't know if he helped himself. he stayed still, and that will be enough to end his candidacy. Perhaps a VP candidate, though.

- Gingrich, aside from being acerbic, came off very well. He was the only candidate that showed he could accomplish conservative policy in a split government. As usual, he also came across as being very knowledgeable and accomplished. I think it anyone made a huge improvement for themselves in this debate, it was Gingrich.

- Romney was presidential, and in a very Ronald Reagan way. He was great at dismissing challenges, to his record, many of them valid, with humor.
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