Posted on 08/07/2015 9:33:06 AM PDT by The Looking Spoon
I predicted the debate could be a letdown, in some ways I was right. There were, however, times such as when Chris Christie and Rand Paul mixed it up on government data collection that makes these debates worthwhile in the first place.
If only we had more of those. That is what real debate is, not some ultra-controlled environment where candidates give canned answers that are even less appetizing than oven fresh Spam.
Candidates like Rubio, Cruz and Walker went about as well as would be expected from them. A major screw up from them would be like an NFL kicker missing the extra point after a touchdown. It's sort of unthinkable.
Anyway, here's the four main takeaways the first debates:
1. It's a travesty that Carly Fiorina isn't in the top tier. Forget top 10, she should be in the top 4. She was on my wishlist for the main event and she did herself a HUGE favor with her performance in the B-list debate. Her answers were so good you would think they came with a teleprompter. Unless she was warned ahead of time I can't see how that would be possible, partly because that would be unethical, but mostly because she isn't Hillary Clinton. My mind wasn't changed on much last night, except Carly. She now has a fan in me (not an endorsement, by the way), and I wouldn't be surprised if she got called up to the "majors" soon. She would deserve it.
2. Donald Trump IS a paper tiger. I predicted his performance might reveal this, and while his supporters would vehemently disagree, I think it did. If Trump was in the business of answering questions instead of being real estate mogul he would be the poorest beggar in NYC right now. The Rosie O'Donnell quip was funny, but that's all it was. Brit Hume says he didn't move the ball forward or backward, and I agree. His supporters are still there, but he won no converts, and as the campaign continues on his cantankerous approach will wear thin and give way to substance...or at least it has to.
3. Jeb Bush talks a good game, but I've already been fooled twice. The Bush family is not conservative. At best they're center-right moderates who find conservatism when they need the votes. On a less fallacious level than guilt by association, if one completely erased all preconceived notions of the Bush family from my head I still simply don't get the impression that Jeb is capable of the type of strength required to be the anti-Obama that America will need in less than two years.
4. This is a MUCH MUCH better crop of GOP candidates than the 2012 offering. Even guys like Jindal and Pataki were very adept at giving compelling arguments for why they could/should do the job. Another way to put this would be: Our bench is as deep as the Democrats is shallow. While 16 candidates is pretty unwieldy I'd rather have that than what the Democrats are currently staring at.
I had a lot of fun watching 2012 unfold, as depressing as it was at times. I think 2016 has promise to be even better, and right now I have optimism that the very best has yet to rise to the top.
My four take aways:
1) Carly won.
2) Trump lost.
3) Carson, Cruz, and Huckabee all did very well.
4) Christie got the better of Paul.
After perusing Media and Twitter reactions this morning, my biggest “takeaway” from the debate last night was that WE lost, and America is likely screwed in 2016.
As Rush is saying RIGHT NOW, no Dem Candidate is EVER going to be asked to justify why they are running.
Completely agree with all four.
The Paul/Christie dust up with the most interesting part for me, and I think Christie won it.
He’s right, the MSM tried to paint it as a circus, but now we know there’s A LOT more substance there, especially over 4 and 8 years ago.
This is good stuff.
The biggest winners are the late night talk shows and SNL.
And it’s inexplicable to me, frankly. I thought he did very poorly. Some would say that’s his lack of polish, I think it’s him deflecting questions he doesn’t want to answer, or at a minimum a combination of that and no polish.
I stopped watching SNL years ago, not because they lampoon the GOP, but because it’s completely unfunny.
Their jokes are based on caricatures that aren’t even real and they fall flat even with the NYC audience.
I always thought a debate was to argue a specific
question. These were hardly debates.
Just meet and greet.
He’s a celebrity with 30 years of history. Only a fool would have expected he would get an easy ride and only a bigger fool thinks it will get any easier.
A smart candidate can take a hostile question and give a civil if not downright friendly answer. If nothing else, look at it as if you were on the witness stand in a court of law.
Judging from Donald Trump’s twitter feed, he has decided to double down.
Regarding the Paul/Christie dust up...
To me it was closer to a tie. The “hugging” comment was a real zinger and took away from the previously impassioned things Christie had said. He didn’t fully recover and was kind of cut off by Kelly at the end. But Rand’s attitude in continuing the exchange showed him to be a little more juvenal and Jr. High than, I think, he intended. That hurt him. It looked like the match made in Hades for both - fire meets gasoline.
GRAHAM: "Change the Mexico City policy, not take one dime of taxpayer money to fund abortion organizations overseas, and restore the NSA that's been gutted. We're going dark when it comes to detecting the next attack. We have gutted our ability to detect the next attack. And I would not stand for that as president of the United States. I would take the fight to these guys, whatever it took, as long as it took."
I don't think that many taxpayers are aware that we not only fund PP in the States, but that we fund it overseas. This so-called "Mexico City Policy" is a wall-switch that is the first switch to be flipped by every incoming president since RvW. D's turn it on, R's turn it off. It has been the pattern for three decades. Graham, very much an insider, knows this.
Trump deserves tough questions. He doesn’t deserve having the entire debate built around singling him out. He was even asked about in the JV round. Fox was pathetic. He handled parts well, and parts horrible, as most of us would expect.
Seeing a supposed right leaning fox focus on the fake war on women and ginned up racial issues was poor. Happy they didn’t get into other crap issues like global warming, and they questions on gay marriage and abortion were mostly inbounds. Focusing an early GOP debate on abortion for those raped, and pointed questions about going to a gay marriage. are iffy at best, but they were fortunately all prepared and the answers were solid.
At lunch today I saw a copy of the St Pete Times with the headline “Trump Dominant”. I wasn’t moved either way by his performance, but if SPT is pushing...
I’m optimistic the trajectory of his prospect will move down, where they belong.
I’m very hopeful that the reverse will be true for Fiorina, I was truly impressed by what I saw/heard from her.
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