Posted on 05/07/2011 7:30:30 PM PDT by Ken in Eastman
The South Carolina Republican presidential debate was held last night and featured five GOP candidates that Democrat pollster and Fox News analyst Doug Schoen described as the B team. Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum showed up and delivered an energetic, friendly debate that generated some noteworthy video clips and sound bites.
Winning the debate is an obvious goal, but candidates had more important things they needed to achieve. Both Herman Cain and Gary Johnson needed to increase their name recognition and prove they could stand on the stage with the competition. Though Johnson is a former New Mexico governor, he is unknown to a vast majority of people and in the South is probably less known than TEA Party icon/businessman/radio talk-show host Cain.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is well-liked in the media. Hes well-spoken and his positions are mainstream. Unfortunately for him, some are not mainstream for Republicans. Pawlenty needed to convince voters that hes not simply a more articulate, wrinkle-free version of John McCain.
Texas Congressman and libertarian darling Ron Paul had a difficult task. During this campaign, he has to convince a lot of people . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at thekencarroll.blogspot.com ...
There is also a poll on the same page asking who YOU think won the debate.
Thanks,
Ken
Cain sucked less?
Pawletty as far as I am concerned with his clean air crap can piss off, he blew it.
Why the hell can’t the GOP get a decent person to run for once?
Oh that’s right they have to be establishment and go with this biased media
Agree on Pawlenty, plus, he just has a phony presentation to me. Finally, he just looks goofy.
Pawlenty
I never WAS for Pawlenty, but I was willing to listen to him....until the first words out of his mouth was all that mealy-mouthed bullhockey about thrilled he was about SC sponsoring the debate and on and on. Before he even finished those suck-up opening remarks he had lost me for good!
Given the fact that NONE of these five could EVER beat Obobo in the general, should we care about them? What amazes me is someone like Gary Johnson—I mean, he’s the political equivalent of a bag lady at a wine tasting.
None of that group is on the A list of name recognition but Herman made a strong case for VP.
I don't know, I would love to see Cain and Obama debate. This won't be like his Keyes debates, Cain has the skill like Obama of being relating to folks. It also won't be like Obama's McCain debates as Cain isn't afraid to go for blood. IF he could get that far, it could be a good and ugly fight and I think he could get Zero stumbling enough it could stand a chance. No matter who we get, it is an uphill fight because the media/pop-culture machine is behind Zero.
MITT ROMNEY won the debate.
As long as there are a bunch of right-wing candidates splitting up the conservative vote .... nobody to the right of Daniels & Romney can put together a large coalition. (Do ya think that was Fox’s objective in holding this debate?)
CAIN - getting teaparty support
Santorum - the serious pro-lifers
PAUL - has his crowd to himself
Conservatives are going to have fun with their own intramural contest to see who their favorite candidate is while MITT/Daniels waltz off with the nomination.
Maybe one strong candidate wins AMES in AUG, the others will go away. BUt I doubt it.
Pawlenty says he has a different position on Cap and Tax now.So if he changed his mind on such a big thing, WHY did he change it? Until he can explain why his position changed, then as far as I’m concerned he still favors Cap and Trade.
Pawletty as far as I am concerned with his clean air crap blew it. Oh thats right they have to be establishment and go with this biased media.
Pawlenty is out and will lose grassroots, and have to compete mainly with the RINO cash and support going to whats-his-name that wasn’t there, the Bush favorite.
The others were quite anti-establishment and will be nailed without mercy by the media. Cain is very well spoken as far as he goes but being nicely organized, and sharing chapter three of a BA text book seemed to me slightly elementary to me and by itself a campaign it does not make.
I liked Santorum. He seemed to be in a bad mood and I loved it. He is in your face about “family”, anti-abortion and no-holds-barred will take it to Obama. He is politically astute and so well knows the game that he has decided to go for broke.
Pawlenty needs a gay guy to cut his hair, seriously.
And primp him some.
That way he won’t look like the 70’s before mullets.
>>>> Really? What the hell is a PREBATE? >>>
It is probably the most confusing part of the Fair Tax, which cannot be explained in a short post. The book explaining it is rather short, and if you really want to know how it works, it is cheap and quick and worth the read. Then decide.
I will say this: while I have mixed feelings on the Fair Tax, 99.9% of the drive by comments about it are based in ignorance of how it works. Is it perfect? No. Then again, it is a heckuva lot better than what we have now.
I agree with the Fair Tax. I also agree that it is not perfect. My problem, and one of the very few, is that Cain went into this in a short answer debate. No way to sell a fantastic idea. That is why I defended Rick on his answers when the obvious winner threw out this garbage answer.
I think I agree with your last post 100% in fact.
Santorum is not impressing me, and I was hoping for a lot more from him. Ive read inspiring political commentaries of his and he is able to put good conservative thought into words, and I longed hoped he would seek seriously the office of the Presidency. But there is another that is somewhere between a complete bore, and a Romney Light. At the debate we saw the complete bore.
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