If Only They'd Invited Colbert...
I happened to catch the second half of the Republican YouTube debate tonight. Safe to say, Canadian parties could learn a thing or two from this about how to make many-candidate leadership debates interesting. Here are a few random observations:
-Duncan Hunter: "Most army recruits are conservatives with deep judeo-christian values – that’s why we can’t have gays in the military". Whaaaaaaaaaa? Come back Daily Show! Your snark is needed!
-Huckabee on putting an American on Mars: “Maybe Hillary Clinton should be on the first rocket to Mars”.
-Huckabee on What would Jesus do on the death penalty: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.”
-John McCain says the US didn’t lose the Vietnam War. I guess he also believes that John McCain didn’t lose the 2000 Republican nomination.
-Mitt Romney believes nothing he believed 10 years ago…
-When asked about the crumbling infrastructure in the United States, Ron Paul says there’s too much government so…uhh…privately owned roads anyone?
-John McCain says it was Ron Paul’s strategy that allowed Hitler to come to power. It's never a good sign when you're a Republican and running plays from Elizabeth May's strategy book.
-Ron Paul says he had 5,000 people show up at a rally “with flags and Hispanics”. Wow. Flags and hispanics - that must have been quite the organizational feat!
-Giuliani has trouble defending himself on immigration, guns, and...wait for it...baseball. You think he'd have a snappy comeback for his Red Sox rooting by now but he's still stumbling around on that one. My suggested answer for the next time he gets asked the question: "Not rooting for the Red Sox would mean the terrorists win. 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!" It doesn't have the Huckabee witt to it but at least it fits in with his overarching campaign theme.
-Kudos to Fred Thompson for skipping his 120th birthday celebrations to attend the debate.
-Thompson’s youtube video goes after Romney and Huckabee on abortion and taxes. It’s a bad sign when your campaign feels that Mike Huckabee is worthy of an attack add.
-According to the pundits, immigration is the number one issue in Iowa. Go figure.
-A CNN commercial calls this debate “one for the history books”. That may be a bit of a stretch.
-Duncan Hunter: "Most army recruits are conservatives with deep judeo-christian values – that’s why we can’t have gays in the military". Whaaaaaaaaaa? Come back Daily Show! Your snark is needed!
-Huckabee on putting an American on Mars: “Maybe Hillary Clinton should be on the first rocket to Mars”.
-Huckabee on What would Jesus do on the death penalty: “Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office.”
-John McCain says the US didn’t lose the Vietnam War. I guess he also believes that John McCain didn’t lose the 2000 Republican nomination.
-Mitt Romney believes nothing he believed 10 years ago…
-When asked about the crumbling infrastructure in the United States, Ron Paul says there’s too much government so…uhh…privately owned roads anyone?
-John McCain says it was Ron Paul’s strategy that allowed Hitler to come to power. It's never a good sign when you're a Republican and running plays from Elizabeth May's strategy book.
-Ron Paul says he had 5,000 people show up at a rally “with flags and Hispanics”. Wow. Flags and hispanics - that must have been quite the organizational feat!
-Giuliani has trouble defending himself on immigration, guns, and...wait for it...baseball. You think he'd have a snappy comeback for his Red Sox rooting by now but he's still stumbling around on that one. My suggested answer for the next time he gets asked the question: "Not rooting for the Red Sox would mean the terrorists win. 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!" It doesn't have the Huckabee witt to it but at least it fits in with his overarching campaign theme.
-Kudos to Fred Thompson for skipping his 120th birthday celebrations to attend the debate.
-Thompson’s youtube video goes after Romney and Huckabee on abortion and taxes. It’s a bad sign when your campaign feels that Mike Huckabee is worthy of an attack add.
-According to the pundits, immigration is the number one issue in Iowa. Go figure.
-A CNN commercial calls this debate “one for the history books”. That may be a bit of a stretch.
Labels: Republican Nomination, US Politics
posted by calgarygrit at
11:14 p.m.
15 Comments:
"Thompson’s youtube video goes after Romney and Huckabee on abortion and taxes. It’s a bad sign when your campaign feels that Mike Huckabee is worthy of an attack add."
Or a common sense idea given Huckabee is leading the GOP in the Iowa race at the moment.
By
Anonymous, at 12:34 a.m.
Thomson says reversing Roe v. Wade "should be our #1 priority"
reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaly!
By
Anonymous, at 12:39 a.m.
Uh, Huckabee actually IS a legitamite target now that he's in the top two in Iowa. Fact it, the race is so fluid that it wouldn't be a shocker if Ron Paul was actually winning a state or two.
But Tancredo and Hunter? Now that's a stretch.
By
Alexander Soley, at 10:54 a.m.
True enough...Huckabee is probably as serious as John McCain at this point. Toss in the top 3 and it's a very hard race to handicap.
By
calgarygrit, at 1:12 p.m.
Huckabee would be more serious than McCain. Huckabee has been able to not only catch up to Romney in the Iowa polls but he is leading in Iowa. McCain currently polls 4% in Iowa along side Tom Tancredo.
If you look towards the Super Tuesday vote, Huckabee is currently tied with Fred Thomson for second place behind Giuliani. Huckabee has a strong growth potential as he is the one candidate that Evangelical Christians are most likely to support.
By
Anonymous, at 2:07 p.m.
I only caught half of the debate last night, but from what I saw Huckabee was the most impressive (though McCain's dropping the H-bomb against Ron Paul was an interesting twist).
By
daveberta, at 2:17 p.m.
Purely from a political junkie standpoint, the Republican Primary is one of those interesting races because each candidate has piles of baggage and quirks (expect a lot of attacks on Huckabee's fiscal conservatism real soon).
However, I am not sure this should set the standard for the Canadian leader debates. There are a lot of key questions that you want every leader to answer - in this debate you wound up not knowing where the candidates stood on particular issues.
Actually I think the best route for the Canadian debates is to go back to the same scrappy, adversarial format - instead of the lame, sedate affair that were the 2005/6 debates. Our prime minister can't just be a speech-maker (unlike the US president), because he/she must also kick ass and take names in the house.
History-buffs: here is the 1968 leader's debate on legalizing homosexuality and abortion.
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-538-2674/politics_economy/omnibus/clip3
By
french wedding cat, at 12:26 a.m.
Yes Guliani has several achilles heals (although he is likely tenatious and enough of a warrior to prevail) and Romney seems to have flatlined, so Huckabee shouldn't be dismissed at all....except for one thing. Do they really want a prez named Huckabee? That's almost as bad as Obama. (snark)
By
Ian, at 2:15 a.m.
The US didn't loose the Vietnam war.
By
Nastyboy, at 3:08 p.m.
You're right they didn't loose it. They did, however, LOSE it.
(Spelling flames may be lame, but when someone persistently misspells a common word it tends to show that not only can he not write, he cannot read and thus has little to contribute to discourse. Nastyboy is a prime example)
By
Reality Bites, at 4:25 p.m.
proof reeding is for pussies.
By
Nastyboy, at 6:19 p.m.
I would like to see Canada's Liberal party steal a few ideas from Ron Paul. Such as eliminating income tax ( the most regressive tax ever , why punish people for working ?) , also Ron Paul's foreign policy of non-intervention is very attractive and makes alot of sense. Paul is a hard core libertarian that is pro-life, anti-death penalty and he tells it how it is.
Freedom is very attractive and that is why Ron Paul is raising millions of dollars.
By
Anonymous, at 10:10 a.m.
"Such as eliminating income tax ( the most regressive tax ever"
Ohhh! You're in favor of a GST rate of 20%?
By
JimTan, at 11:45 a.m.
I would rather have consumption taxes instead of income taxes. When you stop taking taxes off everyones paycheque, what do you think they will do ? Many will work harder ( more incentive to earn more ) , and they will spend more ( GST/PST ) .
We just need to stop punishing people for working. Also a little fee to see a doctor ( $10 ? ) wouldn't hurt either. Tommy Douglas actually supportted a small fee, just to stop abuse of the system.
I would make sure gas taxes pay for roads like they should, and I would raise sin taxes to pay for health care, education , and military. I think the GST could go up to 10% .
PST should pay for education. And that's it.
GST could pay for health care , debt reduction and military.
And this way , the rich pay more tax ( because they spend more ) and the poor pay less ( because they have less to spend) .
I would also scrap GST rebates
( they are stupid ) and can you imagine the money we would save by not processing and mailing out income tax refund cheques and GST and national day care benefits ?
Watch Canada boom if we were a little more Libertarian, which is what Liberal used to be.
By
Anonymous, at 10:54 p.m.
I would rather pay 20% GST then pay 50% income tax.
20% or 50% ???
I think I would like to pay 20 %.
By
Anonymous, at 10:55 p.m.
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