I wound up getting to see most of it... Here's my notes: 8:21pm - When discussing why citizens have a hard time trusting politicians, McCain mentions "failure with Katrina, and failure in Iraq" 8:29pm - Impressed with Mitt Romney's quick wit in the first half hour... Looked good... 8:35pm - McCain earned some points bringing up how tough he is on pork... 8:37pm - Fred Thompson looked confused, and kept stud-d-dering... Lost points... 8:39pm - Ron Paul looked enthusiastic and confident... 8:42pm - McCain attacks Ron Paul's stance on the Iraq War, and the crowd boos... Then McCain claims soldiers don't like Ron Paul's foreign policy ideas, and Paul comes back with the fact that he's received more donations from the military then any other candidate... 9:25pm - McCain says we're "winning the war in Iraq"... Even though just an hour and four minutes earlier he said it was a "failure"... What'd you guys think?
At first, I was pissed. But I'm calm now. I think if anything, for an undecided voter, this was GREAT for RP. Paul didn't get into a tit-for-tat with anyone, as much as McCain tried to push it, and he was an expert at turning shitty questions around to his advantage (like the last one, which he quite literally knocked out of the park). He definitely looked off his game at some points, I heard he's recovering from the flu. But overall, I think he did really good, and if I had never heard of Paul before, a lot of his answers sounded really good. Hunter/Tancredo were non-factors. I can't imagine either staying in too long, we'll probably see them drop out after Iowa/New Hampshire. Thompson had a few good points, but overall, he didn't seem to be much of a factor in this debate, and nothing he said is really memorable in my mind. He has a lot more money and support though, so he'll be here a lot longer than the two I just mentioned. Guiliani and Romney looked bad. If anything, and for Romney in particular, it seemed like a live 2 hour hit piece. Seriously, between immigrant mansion, abortion in Thompson's commercial, and the other flip flop issue (can't recall what), Romney was really painted as a guy who says whatever his current audience wants to hear. He got slammed tonight, and his responses on things like the Confederate flag is going to hurt him big time. McCain was iffy. At times he looked really presidential and his response to Romney on waterboarding was excellent, and I felt it helped him a lot. On the other hand, at some points he just seemed to be ranting and not really there as compared to the other candidates. Huckabee, as much as I hate to admit it, did quite well tonight. He got the crowd into a lot of his responses, despite it being almost pure rhetoric. The other thing I saw for the first time tonight was a LOT of dodging. He tried to maneuver around the illegal immigrant scholarship thing, the death penalty, the tax record, and I think if you were really paying attention or looked into his record, you'd see a history that doesn't match up with his folksy conservative image. He is starting to look like the most liberal candidate on stage, quite a feat with a duo like Guiliani/Romney running alongside him.
I thought the attack ads were interesting. Neat to see who went after whom. Thompson went after Romney and Huckabee. He trails both IIRC in NH and IA. Hunter's ad was the best they could probably do on a short budget. It was a super Congressional ad, but not the level needed for the debate. Giuliani's ad was totally forgettable. Huckabee's ad was super good. McCain's ad was forgettable, but I know he attacked someone. Romney's ad was like all of his ads. Very slick and with high production value. But pretty emotionless. Paul's ad was very good too. Apparently there were better ones not chosen. I can't speak for Tancredo, but as for the rest, Paul's ad AFAIK was the only one produced by supporters. The other ones were all done by professionals. I'm surprised that Bay (?) Buchanan (Pat's sister) is Tancredo's campaign manager. He's way too far behind to make a comeback as someone who can beat Hillary.
This short 90 and 30 second format favors entertainers, hucksters and demagogues. No one really gets a chance to explain themselves past the time limit except for Giuliani. Romney, McCain and Thompson had to fight to finish their answers. I heard that Paul got ripped off on a YouTube question, it was posed to him, and Anderson Cooper asked Giuliani to answer it. Paul held a rally afterwards, it was on Justin.TV and off the hook. People were going nuts. Anyways, Dr. Paul told this Then the Florida supporters gave Dr. Paul a T-Shirt signed by them, and he put it on, and the crowd went crazy. Very cool night, I'll post more tomorrow.
Couldn't agree more; if the debate was only this topic, McCain would be a shoe-in... Eh, I think he did OK, but not great... Haha, yeah (cough/thompson)... I should have driven down there last night, but then I would have missed my UFC show... It would only be a 30 minute drive, probably would have been worth it... Oh well...
What? What UFC show? The finale of the ultimate fighter?!? I thought that shit was going to air this Saturday?
No... This week was the last quarter-finals, next wednesday is the semi-finals, and next saturday (the 8th) is the finale... So because I was home in time to see the debate... 8-10 i was watching the debate 10-11 i was watching ufc 11-11:30 i was watching the "wild world of spike" my girlfriend was bored out of her mind, haha...
Huckabee was outstanding IMO...I loved the "Jesus is smart enough not to run for office" line...btw, he is now leading the Iowa Caucus polls as well...and where is RP? Well, the good man is dead last, where he has always been and where he will always be.
The debate sucked. I didn't like any of it. Huckabee did the best, but do the American people want to elect a comedian or someone who will get stuff done? I think Romney and Giuliani did the worst, they were after eachother's throats for awhile there at the beginning. I won't be suprised to see their numbers fall while Huckabee's and possibly Paul's numbers rise? I did not like the format. edit: I was also frightened at those who pledge themselves to cut taxes to some group.
I think the debate was horrible. Horrible for the candidates. Horrible for the Republicans. Horrible for the conservatives. Horrible for the Office of The President. It was a snooker job. The questions were not about primary topics. It started off with the parody song... When was "gays in military" issue a hot topic? Why pick that? When was the farm subsidies a driving discussion? Why pick that? Death penalty - Isn't that the judicial branch and legislative branch and mostly at state level? Confederate flag? That is one of the most important topics in the nation? Lead in Chinese toys? And on, and on.... The point of this debate as far as I can see? Make conservatives, in particular Republicans look like fringe kooks, who are racist, biggots, xenophobes, anti-everything. Yes, the branches of the tree looked oh so pretty. But look at the picture of the forest. It was set on fire, while the listener was entertained. And all the candidates just "smiled" with pain. Instead of having the testicular fortitude to say "this is degrading, and a caricature of the Office of the President. Good bye." Bah.
Exactly Libertate, seems like CNN wanted to crucify every candidate. Conspiracy theory questions, the whole gays in the military thing, punishments for abortion. Was there ONE Iraq question? Who cares CNN sucks.
the gay general at the debate was actually part of the clinton campain's 'steering committee', that's what Cooper said afterward.
There are many unanswered questions on how CNN conducted this debate. (The Obama supporting girl, the log cabin "Republican", the Union representative, etc.) CNN spent time to put a video together to show how they filtered out questions. Yet, now they state "we didn't know he was a Clinton staffer"... You mean the gentlemen CNN invited and flew in form California was a surprise, he showed? Integrity is a rare commodity nowadays in news reporting. And the established media is wondering why their viewers/readers are dwindling, while Web based "amateur" news is laughing to the banks.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...idential_election/iowa/republican_iowa_caucus RP polling ahead of McCain. It's one thing to be ignorant. It's another thing to promote your ignorance.
That debate was terrible. I thought I had seen the worst of moderators, but Cooper takes the cake. Could he enforce a time limit at ALL? Plus the slanted questions, the Hillary plant, the ridiculous Bible question. It vaguely reminded me of the Values Voter debate, and that is SCARY.
I'd just like to add, that I counted Rudy say "9/11" six times... Twice at 9:24pm, once at 9:38, and three times at 9:39pm... In his defense, the last four were answering a question about his saying "9/11" though...
I'll give Rudy a lot of credit, he moved away from 9/11 tremendously, and I thought he looked a lot better in this debate. I can't help but think the two are at least tangentially related.
Pretty interesting that Paul's 30 second response to McCain was interrupted at 20 seconds by Cooper. I wouldn't be surprised to see the GOP pass on CNN next time.