Is this the debate discussion thread? I was wondering where everyone else was.
I posted in the wrong one.
I didn't take notes during this debate because frankly, I'm suffering from debate fatigue. But these are some things I was thinking about.
1.
Michele Bachmann sounds like a Congress person/lawyer not an executive. What is she going to do AFTER she takes the fight to Barack Obama? Who is she going to "fight" after inauguration day? Fighting is not a President's job. The President calls the shots. No evidence in her background that she is capable of calling the shots so she obfuscates that lack of executive experience with being combative and critical. I think I'd vote for her as a Congress person if she lived in my state district, though. Go home, Michelle, and run for Governor and after a term I'll reconsider. It's easy to be critical when you have never had to make executive decisions, yourself but you are spunky.
2. That brings me to
Rick Santorum. I'm impressed with what he did when he was on Capitol Hill and I believe he is a good person but like Bachmann, he is also a lawyer and talks like a Senator not an executive. You can be a great Senator but that doesn't mean you can run things. The way a Senator/lawyer handles problems is not the same way an executive has to react to big problems.
3. For all of the big solutions/big ideas talk, the only candidates that have actually presented "big" solutions/ideas are
Rick Perry (part time Congress, term limits for justices, first with the flat tax, first with the energy jobs) and
Herman Cain (9-9-9, gone but not forgotten).
Ron Paul gets a shout out for having different/unique ideas but I'm not hearing big solutions from him (I think because he has no executive experience he's not used to handling problems, only assessing and criticizing). I haven't heard any from
Mitt Romney (still boring - what is it 59 points?)... or
Newt Gingrich (who talks about it the most but actually says the least (along with Romney that says the same old/same old stuff everybody is saying) on substance. With Newt, he's been around long enough to rest on past actions but it's a lot easier to do it as a consultant, professor, analsyt, author, documentarian, congressman than it is to follow through on those ideas with implementation actions. Technically, Freddie Mac execs had the tough job in that transaction, not Gingrich.
4. They wanted
Ron Paul to sound crazy on national defense. It was pretty obvious what they were up to, there. The thing with Paul is he never says anything different. So, for a debate that was supposed to ask different questions, that only applied if your name wasn't Ron Paul. I happen to think Ron Paul is crazy on National defense but I like debate shenanigans from cable news networks even less.
5. Despite the hype from Fox News as this being the "most important" debate, it wasn't actually the best one. In my opinion, that award goes to a Fox News colleague,
Mike Huckabee (who didn't call his a debate) with a shout out to
Sawyer/Snuffleupagus. Too much time was spent on December 15 making the candidates talk about political strategy. That's only important to the news media, politicians and political junkies like us, not the rank and file voters.
6.
"Who is your favorite Supreme Court Justice?" is right up there with "If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be?" What did they expect the REPUBLICAN candidates to say? I vote that the second dumbest question in the all of the debates.
7. On the other hand, the other Supreme Court questions (
Kelly) and answers were very good and unique, maybe the best of all of the debates.
Neil Cavuto (first timer) did not embarrass himself, either. I still think the Fox Business Channel (Demand It!) should have conducted one of the Fox debates. I don't like snide Chris Wallace or his snotty Sunday panel so I can't be fair with him.
8. I can't remember anything
Jon Huntsman said but apparently neither could the person responsible for the Fox News screen scroll, post-debate. Unless my eyes were deceiving me, his name was missing from the list of candidates who debated in the screen scroll.
9.
Frank Luntz (post debate) is biased, in my opinion. He's not the only one shilling for Romney but his shilling is the most egregiously obvious.
10. Did
Bret Baier assemble a panel of Iowans on his 6:00P show or was it the same old elitist hacks from DC? After Cavuto and The Five, I was watching a Bones re-run on TNT during Baier's show and only tuned in during the commercials on TNT. I saw the one regular but the other two panelists were not Iowa locals. However, I do not know if Baier also talked to Iowans and I just missed it which would be too bad because I really wanted to hear their take, not the DC bubble boys. You know, I was watching some show on Fox News this week and they acknowledge we're annoyed with the Republican media (that would be them plus others in print and web).
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More than likely it was was a "Go F yourself Ron" smirk from Hannity with Ron replying with the "Shove that nerf football up your a** douchebag" teeth smile.
