GOP Debate

Unfortunately, I missed almost all of the Democrat Debate on Sunday. However, I did catch the GOP one which was almost more interesting and definitely more stomach turning. At any rate, here are my thoughts:

1. I am continually shocked that we live in a world (or I used to) in which a candidates views on evolution are important. I was stunned by Huckabee´s, "If you want to believe you came from a monkey, feel free...God made us in his image," diatribe. Questions like that should be irrelevant, sadly, my country has its fair number of fools that prefer to ignore science when it suits them (see Warming, Global).

2. Tommy Thompson is a veritable bull dog. I love that guy. He has no chance in hell to be the President and I wouldn´t vote for him, but I hope he doesn´t go away just yet. He employs the "uzi" style of argument, spitting out whatever comes to mind, quick as possible.

3. I love that little guy (Paul I think) who is the hard core libertarian, except he really blew it on the Gays in the Military question. A libertarian would have said that sexual orientation is not the government´s business and the policy of kicking out gays because of what they are is stupid.

4. Of course, the whole host of 10 candidates just blew it on Gays in the Military. I believe 6 of the 10 clearly misrepresented the current policy (saying that only conduct can result in punishment, clearly false - being "out" means you get kicked out) and Guiliani blew whatever shot he had to win moderate votes when he defended the current administration´s recent decision to kick gay translators out. So much for being strong on national security.

5. The media seriously needs to stop saying that Guiliani is "strong on national security". There is absolutely no evidence to support that claim. Especially when his national security platform is essentially George Bush squared.

6. The GOP has absolutely no answer to the war in Iraq. Of course, I´m not convinced anyone does. But one of the differences between the Dems and GOPs at this point is that the Dems are presenting actual policy suggestions (more on this tomorrow) while the GOPs are just repeating tag lines about the war on terror and winning in Iraq.

7. The immigration debate is popular but non-sensesical. Basically a bunch of scared white men worried about not being able to communicate in English and proposing that the solution is to enforce the law we currently have (oh so easy, that one). Guiliani blew it again on this one. He had the opportunity to make a strong case against an English-Only country. He could have said, "I was the mayor of NY. We have every language in the world. But we still speak English and we didn´t need an English-Only policy." etc.

8. The question of using nukes to stop Iranian proliferation was entirely frightening. These people actually think, or have the seeds of thought, that it would be better to launch a nuclear attack against Iran than deal with a nuclearized Iran. I´m sorry, but so far, history has been pretty stout. Deterrence works. Not to mention that Iran doesn´t have delivery technology capable of reaching the US. I was shocked by the answers I heard because these candidates, many of whom make appeals to Reagan´s memory, clearly have no idea what the fuck they´re talking about and it´s frightening to think we could have a foreign policy based on such ignorance (oh, wait...).

9. Tancredo is clearly the biggest a-hole of the bunch. Complaining in a national debate about having to push 1 for english. Get a life.

10. Someone wake up Brownback. Oh, wait. Just tell him not to squint all the time. He looks like a beetle.

11. Gilmore was very strong when he talked about the "Commonwealth of Virginia" with his little southern accent. But when he shifted to different topics, he pretty much fell apart.

12. Duncan Hunter said he would use nukes "carefully". Not sure what that means.

13. McCain came off as old and feeble. This is the second time I´ve made this point but he looks like he´s primed for the retirement home, not the White House. CNN was looking for big moments and pointed to McCain´s interaction with the first voter about loss of life as that moment but I found the whole thing to be a bit sad. Didn´t really have much impact as far as I was concerned.

14. Romney apparently fell in love with Guiliani since the last debate. Even when Guiliani outright ripped off Romney´s rhetoric about needing an energy policy equivalent to the Apollo program (more on this tomorrow), Romney just buttered up and kissed Guiliani´s ass. Looks like he´s angling for the VP job at the moment.

15. The big GOP response to Iraq as of last night was that the war wasn´t a bad idea, it was just mismanaged. That´s like saying New Coke wasn´t a bad idea, it was just poorly marketed. These guys are never going to learn.

16. These guys are done and should never be seen again: Tancredo, Hunter, Gilmore, Brownback, and Huckabee. They never had a shot in the first place and the longer they stick around, the worse they make the GOP look. On second thought...