Republican debate good for Dems

Who won the Republican debate?
There were ten men in uniform dark suits. Four wore red ties. Three wore red-striped ties. The anti-cloning brigade were ironically clone-like.

At debate's end, nothing much changed. The three leaders remain the leaders and, if any of them shone more brightly in the artifice of debate context, it was Mitt Romney who was as smooth as a bowl of homogenised cream.

The shock of the debate was the revelation that three men who believe themselves equipped to be President of the United States are men who do not believe in science.
Senator Brownback, Mr. Huckabee and Representative Tancredo raised their hands when asked if anyone in the debate lineup rejected evolution. Creationists! Can one imagine putting people of this regressive mindset out there on the world stage?
Fortunately, these men don't have a chance in hell and should save themselves and everyone else a lot of time and money by pulling out of the race now.

In fact, so should most of them.

Not one of the seven outside runners stimulated any interest or excitement.

Ron Paul was expected to stand out - and in a way he did. He stood up against regulation of the Internet. He urged against going to war against Iraq. He defended "free society" by objecting to a national ID card. Paul is a libertarian, old school. He'd get rid of all taxes. He's also an obstetrician who is against abortion. Fie upon you, Doctor. Fie.

Mike Huckabee said something I liked: "The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we’re not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas, jobs that are lost by American workers, many in their 50s who for 20 and 30 years have worked to make a company rich, and then watch as a CEO takes a hundred-million-dollar bonus to jettison those American jobs somewhere else. And the worker not only loses his job, but he loses his pension.

That’s criminal. It’s wrong. And if Republicans don’t stop it, we don’t deserve to win in 2008."
However, he also refused to grade the Bush administration's handling of the War on Iraq, saying:
"I think it’s too early to give them the grade. You don’t give a student a grade in the middle of the exam. We’re still in the middle of the exam. Let’s wait and see how it turns out, then we can give the president a grade." Huh? That war is only half over?

Tom Thompson made a complete idiot of himself by saying that 3,000 US lives had been lost in Iraq and "several thousand injured". He was only 356 out in the deaths - but in the injured, I'd never have described over 24,000 as "several". He should have known better. Disgraceful.

Brownback did not impress - until he said: "Life is one of the most important issues of our day". Gee. There was a day when it wasn't?

Hunter recognised global warming and the need to find alternative energy sources was a reat opportunity and challenge for the USA. Now, where have I heard that before? Oh, Rudi!

Gilmore barely made a blip on the radar and Tom Tancredo was obsessed with keeping Mexicans in Mexico. A one issue man.

John McCain came over fairly well. He clearly had learned his lines and he gave a potted version of his stump speech looking directly into the camera. He was still making very aggressive noises re Iran.

Mitt Romney spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone that his religion did not matter and that no one cared which church one went to so long as one went to church and so long as a man of "faith" was in the White House, because America is a country of "faith". Of course he threw in mentions of his uber-happy family. And, significantly, he promised that Osama bin Laden "is going to pay, and he will die". Romney also managed to crack a few jokes, which made him the only one who reminded one of Reagan at all. For some reason, all the candidates seemed to think Reagan had been the greatest President of all time - perhaps because they were debating in the Reagan Library in the shadow of a bloody great indoor aeroplane.


If I was a Republican voter, I'd give the White House to Rudy Giuliani, I think.
He is able to define the differences betwee Shi'ites and Sunnis. He is not a Bible-thumper. He has the integrity to be the one and only pro-choice voice, dissenting among a mob of pro-life God-botherers.
He keeps reminding us how he turned around New York City and, indeed, he did, even if we're sick of hearing him say so. But he also said that the reason for his success in NYC was the excellence of the bi-partisan team he chose - 6 Republicans and 45 Democrats.
Doesn't that speak the great volume? Wouldn't it make sense just to elect the Democrats?