I watch debates, so you don’t have to

December 13, 2007

Yesterday’s debate for Republican presidential hopefuls is, thank goodness, the final debate before the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. However, with 22 days between the event and the results of the first contest, this was the last chance for candidates to hammer their rivals, undermine the frontrunners, and draw “distinctions” with the rest of the field. I almost wondered if actual blood would be shed on the stage.

But it was not to be. Yesterday’s event might as well be labeled the Hippocratic Debate: As in, “First, do no harm.”

The GOP field seemed far more interested in getting through the last debate without screwing up than scoring points at their opponents’ expense. The event’s hosts seemed anxious to play along, going out of their way to make this the single dullest, substance-less, inconsequential debate of either side this year. When the audience learned early on that the debate would include Alan Keyes, but not include questions on Iraq and immigration, we knew this would be a long 90 minutes.

How bad was it? The biggest news of the event came after it was over, when Mike Huckabee talked to CNN from the spin room.

The Arkansan said he apologized to Romney right after the debate for a quote that will appear in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine in which he wondered out loud if Mormons believe Jesus and the Devil are brothers.

“I’ve stayed away from talking about Mitt Romney’s faith,” Huckabee told Wolf Blitzer. “And I told him face to face, I said, ‘I don’t think your being a Mormon ought to make you more or less qualified for being a president.'”

Huckabee, who has ridden a wave of positive media attention until a dose of scrutiny that has come with his rise, added that he is “being much more cautious now, because everything is being parsed.”

At least we know what it takes to get Huckabee to apologize. He won’t back down on quarantining AIDS patients, and he won’t apologize for urging women to be submissive to their husbands, but he will apologize to Romney for taking a cheap shot at his religion. Good to know.

Of course, this is not to say that the Iowa debate was completely devoid of noteworthy developments.

Observations from my notes:

* Asked whether Americans should be asked to sacrifice to help pay down our debts, the candidates apparently agreed we should not. How generous.

* Fred Thompson easily had his best performance as a presidential candidate yesterday, including this mini-revolt against one of those silly hand-raising questions.

WASHBURN: Thank you. I want to take on a new issue. I would like to see a show of hands. How many of you believe global climate change is a serious threat and caused by human activity?

THOMPSON: Well, do you want to give me a minute to answer that?

WASHBURN: No, I don’t. I —

THOMPSON: Well, then I’m not going to answer it. (Laughter, applause.)

Haven’t debate organizers learned by now that this is a foolish way to ask questions in a debate?

* In the opening minutes, Rudy Giuliani explained his belief in the Tax Fairy: “Right now we should reduce the corporate tax. We should reduce it from 35 percent to 25 percent. It would be a major boost in revenues for the government.” Has this not been debunked enough lately?

* Giuliani also had one hilarious, laugh-out-loud moment in response to a question about his Shag Fund scandal:

“The reality is that all that information was available and known to people, known six years ago. And I would make sure that government was transparent. My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did it…. [A]s far as, you know, open, transparent government, I think I’ve had both an open, transparent government and an open, transparent life, and it allows you to lead, then, with honesty and truth.”

That Rudy is quite a cut-up. “Transparent” government? “Honesty and truth”? Stop it, Mr. Mayor, you’re killing me.

* Duncan Hunter tried to take a shot at Romney, saying something about Bain Capital working with a Chinese business, which tried to get a defense contract, which may have done business with Saddam. It was so weak, Romney didn’t even bother to respond. You know it’s embarrassing when a candidate ignores an attack completely.

* John McCain actually had a really good answer about climate change: “Suppose that climate change is not real, and all we do adopt green technologies, which our economy and our technology is perfectly capable of. Then all we’ve done is given our kids a cleaner world. But suppose they are wrong. Suppose they are wrong, and climate change is real, and we’ve done nothing. What kind of a planet are we going to pass on to the next generation of Americans? It’s real. We’ve got to address it. We can do it with technology, with cap-and- trade, with capitalist and free enterprise motivation. And I’m confident that we can pass on to our children and grandchildren a cleaner, better world.” Republicans will probably hate this, but he’s right.

* Watching the debate, I kept wondering whether Keyes should be institutionalized. Why he was invited to participate at all remains a total mystery.

* I’d be hard pressed to name a “winner,” but apparently a Fox News focus group strongly backed Romney.

* Expected fireworks between Huckabee and Romney never materialized, but there was one noteworthy exchange. The question was about what the candidates thought they could achieve in their first year in office.

ROMNEY: I want to do more than talk in my first year. There are a lot of things I want to get done. First of all, I want to establish a strategy to help us overwhelm global jihad and keep the world safe. I want to end illegal immigration. We can get that done. I want to end the growth — the expansion growth of entitlements, rein them in. I want to end the extraordinary growth in federal spending and I want to keep our tax burden down and reduce our tax burden on middle-income families. I want to get us on a track to become energy-independent. I want to get our schools on a track so they can become competitive globally, and I want to get health insurance for every citizen in America. It’s going to take four years for that to happen, but I’ll get us on track in that. We’ll have a stronger military, a stronger economy and stronger values, with stronger families, after my first year in office.

HUCKABEE: Well, I like the laundry list that everybody’s had, and I would agree that every one of those things is important. Reality is, none of that’s going to happen till we bring this country back together. I think the first priority of the next president is to be a president of all the United States. We are, right now, a very polarized country, and that polarized country has led to a paralyzed government. We’ve got Democrats who fight Republicans, liberals fighting conservatives. The left fights the right. Who’s fighting for this country again?

It summarized the last several weeks very nicely: Romney seems to care about impressing audiences with some semblance of substance, Huckabee seems to care about fluff.

So, what’d you think?

Who’s fighting for this country again?

So in Fuckabee’s opinion politics has become polarized and that’s bad (true) and if he were President he’d stop the problem (great). But in his opinion the problem boils down to nasty libruls fighting the poor old conservatives.

Gee, a Prezident who accuses the other side of aggression while turning a blind eye to what your guys are doing. Where have I heard that before?

One wonders how he would get the mean ol’ bully Democrats in line, but thankfully one won’t have to find out.

Creep.

  • Isn’t that cute. CB wrote Ron Paul right out of the debate, but included Alan Keyes in his analysis –despite the fact that ABC News included one Dr. Ron Paul as winner of the debate.

    Are you bucking for a job with Foecks News with that kind of fair and balanced analysis, CB?

  • I would still not vote for McCain, but I am very surprised by his answer. I have been shocking friends for years by saying essentially what he said. As a scientist, I am not yet fully convinced that we are causing global warming (though it seems likely), but there are so many upsides to cleaning up our treatment of the environment, it makes sense to do it whether we are causing global warming or not.

  • come on, jkap. your repetitious remarks are getting a little tiring.

    (flaming in 5, 4, 3…..)

  • I was just listening to Air America and I was shocked by the comments made by one of the hosts.

    He was saying that Clinton is too much like Bush and that we need a real Democrat and that Hillary is just like the Republicans.

    It seems to me that either he is nuts or I am completely insane.

    Hillary may be to the right of Obama and the others but she is not significantly different than any of the Democrats.

    I can’t even figure out who is on the left of the Republican party. Paul wants to get out of the war and McCain is against toture but there is not a significant difference there either.

    We elect a Democrat and we get someone like Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. We elect a Republican and we can a Scalia clone.

    I could go on and on about the difference between the parties. I think it is difficult to find any difference within the Democratic party that comes close to the differences BETWEEN the parties.

    Why do Democrats attack other Democrats?

    OK, I know the answer. It is because we ARE Democrats.

    Maybe I should ask:

    Why do Democrats enjoy losing elections so much?

  • John McCain actually had a really good answer about climate change

    John McCain had the pragmatic answer about climate change. And it’s the type of answer than Republicans from about 30 years ago would be persuaded by.

    This is just going to be more grist for the mill among the “Real True Conservatives” that McCain is a filthy leftist dirty hippie commie. Because ANYTHING that remotely suggests that a “liberal” might be correct about something is tantamount to donning a Che Guevara shirt and signing a Communist Party membership card to those clowns.

  • I didn’t watch, but I listened, as much as I could; occasionally, I had to stop because my eye-rolling was making me dizzy…

    A couple comments about process: I would have to say that I though the debate was poorly moderated. I couldn’t pay close enough attention to figure it all out, but it seemed like at random points, a candidate was given some specified amount of time to make a statement, the moderator would then go back to the debate questions, and then at some random moment, another one would get his chance. I also thought the candidates pushed the moderator around, chafing at the structure and refusing to go along. Some candidates were asked a particular question, and others were not asked. Keyes at one point forced the moderator to allow him to address an issue, and when she gave him 30 seconds, he fought for – and got – the minute the others had, but used the extra time to berate the moderator for her obvious bias against him.

    I am still puzzled about the inclusion of Alan Keyes, considering that in the Democratic debate today, Dennis Kucinich is not being included, as he apparently does not have an office in the state, and that was one of the requirements.

    As for the answers these candidates gave – mostly the same old, same old. Giuliani’s assertion that he had a transparent government in NYC should have drawn loud guffaws – instead, I’m guessing it will draw evidence to the contrary.

    I sure hope the Democratic debate is more fun!

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  • Neil – (re # 6) –
    “I belong to no organized party.
    I am a Democrat.” – Will Rogers

    This has been going on for a long time. My opinion about the “Hillary opinions” is that she represents corporations almost like a Republican. I agree that as a Democrat, she’s different from the other party. For one thing, I don’t feel that she’s any where near as evil as the torture party.

  • A fun debate. What a novel concept. What would be fun is for all candidates to show their best ad one after another. At least we could compare the strengths and weaknesses of their ad agencies.

  • Sometimes watching Drudge is instructive, too. Here’s this morning’s clump of headlines showing under a picture of Pelosi and a podium:

    HELL DAY AS PRESS TURNS VICIOUS

    WASH POST: Dems Blaming Each Other For Failures…

    WSJ: Intraparty Feuds Dog Dems, Stall Congress…

    WASH POST: Dems Bow To Bush’s Demands In House Spending Bill…

    THE HILL: Dems Cave On Spending…

    USA TODAY: Surge’s Success Holds Chance To Seize The Moment In Iraq; Dems ‘Lost in Time’.

    Of course, the truth is that the Dems are frustrated and fighting each other because the GOP is using it’s minority “hold” on the Senate to block all legislation. The only solution, between now and November, is for Dems to use their majority as viciously as the GOP did theirs. Late night meetings, holding open votes, no GOP invited to committee meetings. C’mon guys and gals. Serve your higher purposes by doing something other than voting Christian Christmas wishes to an overly pious, hypocritical warlike nation. Get down and dirty and change those headlines to something we cn applaud.

  • At least we know what it takes to get Huckabee to apologize.

    I thought Republicans never apologize for anything regardless of how wrong they might have been because manly men never make mistakes (or some bs like that). Or does it not count since he apologized to another Republican?

  • CNN excluded Mike Gravel because of a lack of support as evidenced by his failure to raise $1,000,000. (Kucinich squeaked by at 1.1)

    Keyes raised $23,000.

    Three letters… W.T.F.?

    Boy, Gravel sure was making SOMEBODY mad. They shivved him good and dumped his body in the river and no one said “boo.”

    Kudos to McCain for almost quoting my Pascal’s wager argument about climate change.

  • I love watching Alan “Marvin the Martian” Keyes. I wish he moderated the Republican debates.

    Hell, if the writers’ strike goes much longer, Comedy Central should seriously consider just giving him a half-hour every night.

  • I noticed that Romney specified health care for all Americans as one of his goals. The fact that a Republican is bringing up health care without being specifically asked about it shows we’ve made a lot of progress in this debate (all though we still have a long way to go).

  • What’s interesting is USA Today thought Thompson won the debate based on “who was specific, good-humored and exuded an executive persona during the low-key, 90-minute session …He was folksy, warm and conservative…” Per USA Today Thompson’s highlights were refusal to answer a question on global warming and bashing the teachers union. Wow, with leadership like this don’t expect any changes.

    The one surprise came from McCain “Suppose that climate change is not real, and all we do adopt green technologies, which our economy and our technology is perfectly capable of. Then all we’ve done is given our kids a cleaner world. But suppose they are wrong. Suppose they are wrong, and climate change is real, and we’ve done nothing. What kind of a planet are we going to pass on to the next generation of Americans? It’s real.”

    From the GOP race McCain seemed to score the most points. However, it’s like watching a sinking ship where five people are vying for captain.

  • JKap, I think Paul was there, unfortunately and as always, as a fringe candidate, and he did exactly what he always does very well. So maybe CB thinks it’s a “Dog bites man” story. Keyes hasn’t been in the debates until now, so that was news. IMHO, CB doesn’t have it in for Paul more than Keyes, he was simply pointing out what’s changed since the last round of Republican idiocy.

    So for the record, here’s what Ron Paul said. All of it. I apologize for the length, everyone. Having read through it, I have to say I agree with a lot of it, almost everything except the currency silliness and getting rid of the department of education. Note that I am not saying I agree with all of his positions, I simply agree with what he said at this debate. And I wish we could have more people on the Democratic ticket saying a lot of the following…

    MS. WASHBURN: We’re going to start with a discussion about the financial situation facing our country, which was the single biggest issue Iowans of both parties wanted you to talk about… The comptroller general has said the U.S. faces a tsunami of debt that is a great threat to our national security. Do you agree our country’s financial situation creates a security risk? And why or why not?

    REP. PAUL: It’s absolutely a threat to our national security because we’ve spent too much, we tax too much, we borrow too much, and we print too much. When a country spends way beyond its means, eventually it will destroy the currency, and we’re in the midst of a currency crisis. Our dollar is going down rapidly as we speak. It’s because we have lived beyond our means. We can’t afford the foreign policy that we have. We have to cut back. We have to live within our means. If we’re going to spend money, we ought to spend it at home, and that is why we have to change this foreign policy. We can’t afford it to do what we’re doing today because it will destroy our dollar.

    MS. WASHBURN: Congressman Paul, what sacrifices would you ask Americans to make for debt reduction?

    REP. PAUL: I think it’s absolutely unnecessary to sacrifice. We want to give people more freedom, more chance to spend their own money. It’s unnecessary… We can cut by looking at our foreign policy. We maintain an empire which we can’t afford. We have 700 bases overseas. We are in 130 countries. We cut there, and then we have a better defense of this country, and the people get that money and they get to spend it here at home. There’s no need to sacrifice. We need more liberty, more rights for the people to spend their own money. And in this — in that situation, there is no sacrifice and no need for it.

    MS. WASHBURN: Who in this country is paying more than a fair share of taxes relative to everyone else: the wealthy, the middle class, the poor or corporations?

    REP. PAUL: The most sinister of all taxes is the inflation tax and it is the most regressive. It hits the poor and the middle class. When you destroy a currency by creating money out of thin air to pay the bills, the value of the dollar goes down, and people get hit with a higher cost of living… It’s the middle class that’s being wiped out. It is most evil of all taxes.

    MS. WASHBURN: One in five jobs in Iowa depends on exports to foreign countries, but we’re also exporting a lot of high-wage manufacturing jobs. What’s your plan for keeping foreign markets open while protecting good-paying American jobs?

    REP. PAUL: Well, we need to adopt free trade agreements with other countries. Today we inhibit the export of, say, farm products to countries like Cuba. It’s time we changed our attitude about Cuba. We should be looking to open these markets, but our markets get closed for monetary reasons because our chief export is our dollar.

    Because we have the reserve currency of the world, people take these dollars and our jobs go overseas. You can’t solve any of these problems if you don’t look at the monetary system and how it contributes to these job losses in order to provide the prosperity for our people here at home.

    MS. WASHBURN: What specific changes should be made in NAFTA?
    (RacerX: long string of “answers” from other candidates preceded the following, which does not appear to answer the original question)
    REP. PAUL: The goal of all political action should be to preserve liberty. We need more freedom in this country. We need to look to ourselves in what we are doing… We have drifted so far from our Constitution that the government that — the Constitution was written to restrain our government. Yet we turned around, and the Constitution now is used to restrain the people. But we have no chance if we don’t restrain the government, all that they do in undermining our personal liberties, controlling our economic well-being and using our — using it as an excuse to police the world. If we don’t change the role for government, this country is going to suffer a very, very serious economic crisis.

    MS. WASHBURN: what’s the biggest obstacle standing in the way of improving education in the United States, and how would you address it?

    REP. PAUL: Probably the federal government. We’ve been involved at the federal level for our 50 years. We’ve had a Department of Education. It used to be the policy of the Republican Party to get rid of the Department of Education.

    We finally get in charge and a chance to do something, so we doubled the size of the Department of Education and we have No Child Left Behind. The teachers don’t like it, the students don’t like it, and the quality of education hasn’t gone up; the cost of education has gone up.

    So we need to look to our local resources, we need to release the creative energy of the teachers at the local level. But we can do immediately is to give tax credits — I have a bill that would give tax credits to the teachers to raise their salaries. At the same time, we should encourage homeschooling and private schooling and let the individuals write that off. The parents have to get control of the education. It used to be parents had control of education through local school boards. Today it’s the judicial system and the executive branch of government, the bureaucracy, that controls things, and it would be predictable that the quality would go down. The money goes to the bureaucrats and not to the educational system at home.

    MS. WASHBURN: In light of the big needs and the financial realities we’ve just discussed up to this point, realistically, what do you believe you could accomplish in your first year as president?

    REP. PAUL: Well, there’s a limit of what you can do in one year, and at home it’s more difficult. You would have to work with the Congress, but a commander in chief could end the war. We could bring our troops home. That would be a major event; it would be very valuable. We could be diplomatically — we could become diplomatically credible once again around the world. Right now, today, we’re not. Even our allies resent what we do.

    We wouldn’t have no more preemptive war. We would threaten nobody. We would not threaten Iran. Now it is proven once again Iraq didn’t have the nuclear weapon, had nothing to do with 9/11. The Iranians have no nuclear weapon, according to our CIA. There’s no need for us to threaten the Iranians. We could immediately turn the Navy around and bring them home, and I think this would be a major step toward peace.

    MS. WASHBURN: Voters have told us that character and leadership qualities matter as much or more than many issues. Over the past few months, we asked candidates who have spent time in Iowa about some of their core values, and we videotaped the answers. Since we’re pitching websites, you can see all the insights videos at desmoinesregister.com, but today we’re going to see a few of them and then expand the conversation.

    REP. PAUL (on videotape): The Internet is delightful. It is just delightful for finding the information, and if there’s a question that I need asked, you can find it… So I spend a lot of time getting information that was — at one time in my life was very difficult to find. There should be no excuse in this country anymore for not finding correct answers and analyzing the problems that we face, because the correct answers are out there and judgments should be made to the best of one’s ability.

    MS. WASHBURN: Congressman Paul, your — you call your campaign a revolution, and I think it’s safe to say that your brand of change is one of the most sweeping proposed by any candidate of either party. But getting your agenda through Congress would likely require a revolution of an entirely different sort. So how would you adjust your plan in light of political reality in Washington?

    REP. PAUL: Well, the secret is is the term “revolution” wasn’t my word, and it didn’t come up on our web page. It was coined by the supporters. But in a way, it is revolutionary to go back to the Constitution, and we’d like to continue the old revolution. And believe me, freedom is unifying; we bring a lot of people together. People then are free to choose what they would like to do with their lives, free to choose how they would spend their money, and all of a sudden, we would be telling other countries how to live. … This brings people together. And I think it’s appealing to both left and right and middle, and our campaign really has that appeal. So therefore, we would bring the Congress together.

    MS. WASHBURN: We’re going to talk about New Year’s resolutions. … Please suggest a New Year’s resolution for one of your opponents here today.

    REP. PAUL: My advice would be to reread the oath of office, take it seriously, obey the constitution. We can — we are well defended against all enemies foreign. We should be much more careful about defending against the enemies domestic.

    I see Ron Paul as the Republican equivalent of Ralph Nader, saying some things that no one else seems to be willing to say and making them all look bad by comparison, even though IMO he would make a terrible president and luckily he has but a snowball’s chance of actually winning. That said, I think we all owe him a little respect for making so many Republicans listen to some hard truths during their presidential campaigns, which are normally so devoid of truth of any sort.

  • Candidates who supported the “Patriot” Act are “fringe” if you ask me, Racerx. Then again, I believe that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land.

    The Corporate Military Industrial Media is perpetuating the destruction of our Constitutional Republic and the end of our open, democratic society through their distorted, biased and often dishonest reporting. I scarcely believe a word they say anymore.

    And there you are perpetuating this meme that Ron Paul is a “fringe” candidate (whereas I never hear that knock against, say, Huckabee who believes in “theological” war or the rest who think we should attack Iran, etc.).

    And what is the basis of the “fringe” label?

    Well, if by “fringe” you mean counter to the status-quo that finds the United States today with some 700+ military bases in 130+ countries around the world, then I can accept that.

    If you mean counter to the status-quo that finds the United States today with some 100,000 military personnel stationed in Japan and South Korea combined, then I can accept that.

    If you mean counter to the status-quo that finds a “quasi private” cartel of banks (whose ownership is secretive) manipulating our monetary system and the prodigious inflation of the dollar through the outright printing of money and through “Fractional Reserve Banking,” then I can accept that.

    If you mean counter to the status-quo that finds the Constitution and the Bill of Rights discarded through unconstitutional legislation, such as the “Patriot” Act, the Military Commissions Act, the “Protect” America Act, the Defense Authorization Act of 2007, and the proposed Senate Bill 1959, “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” than I can accept that.

    But if by fringe you mean that Ron Paul is not climbing in polls fast enough based upon antiquated methodology that excludes the rapidly growing segment of the population (primarily of younger Americans under the age of 35) that today reside in cell phone-only households –as opposed to the diminishing segment of the population which resides in landline-only households (which has been PROVEN to the chagrin of some left wing authoritarians), then I disagree with your characterization.

    And if by fringe you mean a candidate that has raised $20 million dollars (more money than was allotted for the 9/11 Commission) in the year 2007 –and soon to be perhaps $10M more on December 16th, then I disagree with your characterization.

  • That’s it. JKap just convinced me. I’m now a Ron Paul person and will fight to get him into the Whitehouse until the day I die. There, now will you just lay off with this noise? We’re liberals. Paul’s ultra-conservative. You’re at the wrong fricking site! Believe it or not, we’re not idiots. We know what Paul stands for and we just don’t agree with him. Deal with it and move on. You can try to cherrypick a few issues that we have in common with him, but I’d still rather have Mitt Romney for President than Ron Paul. At least Romney tries to give people want they want. But Paul is a diehard who will push his agenda no matter how much people don’t like it; sort of like another president I know. And I seriously doubt that any Republican can possibly win the general election, so all this is moot. The Democratic primary is very likely to pick our next president and the only other issue is to decide which Republican is going to lose. And it’s not going to be Paul.

    I don’t mind if you have non-Paul stuff to say, but your obsession with Paul is a bit scary. As I’ve said before, if the Redstate people don’t even like him, then he has no chance of gaining our acceptance. I didn’t like Paul in the nineties and I don’t like him now.

  • Keyes is the sub-conscious of the other candidates…their secret self. He really is insane.
    Why was he allowed in the GOP debate but Kucinich is not allowed in the democratic debate? Totally unfair.

    There really wasn’t much substance in this debate. Seemed kind of pointless.

    Hukabee may have apologized to Romney but the damage was already done and could not be taken back. So sorry I shot you, it wasn’t fair.

    Thank God I don’t have to worry about any of these people being president.

  • ***Jkap*** give it up. All the best parts of Paul are already indicative of Kucinich except the rest of Kucinich is still democratic progressive liberal. Anything we might agree with Paul on, Kucinich already incorporates. In fact Paul even endorsed Kucinich as the best and most honest democrat that if he were a democrat he would support,…”but I’m a republican”, he said. So all we need from Paul we already have in Kucinich so why keep bringing Paul , a republican, up at our primarily progressive democratic site? Sell him somewhere else because we really don’t care to keep hearing about this republican. (who is really a Libertarian on the ‘fringe’ of being republican).

  • JKap, just go with the fringe thing. I mean, Fringe Festival was one of the best weeks of the year when I was in college. . . 🙂

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