GOP Debate: Fright Night II
The ten presidential candidates of the GOP have finished their latest debate – this time in New Hampshire—and once again, as the case last time, the winner is…The Democrats.
If the DNC had enough good sense, they’d bankroll the Republican Presidential Debates as a weekly, roving, televised Chautauqua. I mean, what more could a Democratic campaign ever ask for than what was seen Tuesday night on CNN? Every major (and almost every minor) Republican contender elbowing each other aside to chide President Bush while simultaneously and unreservedly endorsing his most unpopular policies. An authentic twofer – for the other party, that is.
Here’s a taste of the Bush-bashing:
"I would certainly not send him to the United Nations" to represent America, candidate and former Bush cabinet secretary Tommy Thompson said.
 Rep. Tom Tancredo, the candidate of the anti-immigration Know-nothing faction of the party suggested, if elected, ex-President Bush would “never darken the door of the White House.â€
John McCain repeatedly insisted that the administration had “mismanaged†the war in Iraq.
Rudy Giuliani arguing that the immigration bill supported by Bush is a “typical Washington mess.†And so on and so on.
And yet, every candidate except the fringy libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (about as popular in the GOP establishment as Michael Moore), rushed to fully endorse not only the initial invasion of Iraq but also the continuing and continuing and continuing war. Not one suggested any serious departure from the current course. Not now or nor somewhere down the ever-bloodier road.
I’m not a Republican so I’m no position to judge which candidate came closest to appealing to the party base but none of them made any effort to speak to the some 70% of the American population that by now has had enough of the war.
Nor did any of the other issues focused on by the contenders seem to have much, if any, potential positive appeal to independents, swing voters and the sort of moderate suburban Republicans who are often the decisive constituencies in deciding a national election.
Indeed, the first hour of the debate rather obsessively centered on which candidate was more zealously in favor of tactical nuclear war against Iran (a toss-up), most in favor of the longest and highest wall on the border (Duncan Hunter), most willing to pardon Scooter Libby (Tom Tancredo) and who was the most ardent among all the creationists (Mike Huckabee who re-assured us we were, in fact, not descended from monkeys).
I know that New Hampshire voters are infamously quirky but, somehow, I doubt that any of the above are among their election promise priorities.
Bottom line: This debate was but empty prelude. The real election – starting in the fall—is going to be about the war and one or another of these guys is gonna have to change his tune to really break out.
Meanwhile, my favorite moments of the debate:
Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York no less, vigorously pandering to the xenophobic Know-nothings by inventing a series of manufactured flaws in the pending immigration bill.
Mitt Romney, in response to a barbed question from the audience, unsuccessfully struggling to explain why, on the one hand he supports an Official English law that would ban ballots printed in a foreign language while, on the other hand, he is currently running campaign ads in Spanish. Hijole!
John McCain waxing temporarily eloquent in defending not only the immigration bill but also the contribution of Latino immigrants while the entire rest of the field opposed him.
Ron Paul saying the moral question of our time was America returning to its constitutional roots and eschewing the doctrine of pre-emptive tactical nuclear war advocated earlier from the same stage he was standing on.
This was great TV. My TiVo wants to know the next time this circus is scheduled to perform.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Again thanks for watching this so I didn’t have to. I was afraid you were holed up with Carl Bernstein’s book, shirking your journalistic responsibilities.
You forgot to mention the guy who apparently ran away with the debate, according to the “talk clock” graphic up on Chris Dodd’s website – Wolf Blitzer clocked in with nearly 20 minutes of talk time. That was a full seven minutes more than “major candidate” McCain, who managed to edge closer to the white-bearded blowhard than any of the other candidates.
June 5th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I was actually nodding off during this fandango.
Shhh …
Incidentally, the Fox News folks are actually much better than the CNN or MSNBC personnel.
Too bad they fucked up so royally in the aftermath of the nitwit harridan Ann Coulter’s anti-John Edwards excrescence.
Thereby making it impossible for the Democratic leadership to do what it wanted to do.
June 5th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
(From the NYT transcript, available online) – Q: Knowing everything you know right now, was it a mistake for us to invade Iraq?
MR. ROMNEY: Well, the question is kind of a non sequitur, if you will, and what I mean by that — or a null set. And that is that if you’re saying let’s turn back the clock, and Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein, therefore, not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn’t be in the conflict we’re in. But he didn’t do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in. I supported the president’s decision based on what we knew at that time. (end clip)
This is incredible. Can anyone actually aspire to be President and remain ignorant of simple facts, i.e. that a UN weapons inspection team was in Iraq just prior to the U.S. invasion. One can debate, presumably, whether the inspections were perceived as effective, but this is just plain fucking ignorance. I guess you can be as stupid as you wannabe if you aspire to being a GOPer Prez.
Also this:
Rep. Tom Tancredo: We have to stop all legal immigration except for the — for people coming into this country as family members, immediate family members, and/or refugees. Are we willing to actually say that and say enough — is it — we have got to actually begin the process of assimilating people who have come in this great wave of immigration. The process of assimilation is not going on. And how long? How long will it take us for that — for us to catch up with the millions of people who have come here, both legally and illegally, and assimilate them? I’ll tell you this. It’ll take this long: until we no longer have to press 1 for English and 2 for any other language. (Applause.)
These guys are grotesque caricatures…Fright nite, indeed.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I’m wondering how the media would have pounced, incidentally, if John Kerry or Al Gore had used (incorrectly) the obscure term “null set” as stock evasion in a presidential debate. Romney doesn’t deserve to survive this debate as a serious candidate, “null set” and his monumental flip-flopping aside – but he undoubtedly will.
Woody complained in another thread that the questions were stupid, but the GOP candidates seem to have risen to the occasion and produced some unbelievably stupid answers.
And, Bill, what is your evidence that FOX News personnel are better than CNN and MSNBC ? Granted, that’s a remarkably low bar, but the relatively few times I’ve watched FOX I’ve been struck by their utter stupidity and lack of professionalism. That crap show with Brit Hume, Little Wallace, Little Kristol and Juan Williams is about as absurd as allegedly serious newstalk gets, unless you want to scrape the Hannity, O’Reilly bottom of the barrel. John Gibson is a total fool. Their gaggle of generic blondes are preposterous. What’s left that I’m missing ?
I will grant you that CNN Headline News has the biggest douchebag in the history of broadcast tlevision – Glenn Beck – but overall I’m having trouble grasping your pronouncement on relative merits. (Of course, bottom line is that they all suck beyond belief. Don’t really know why I would want to defend these jerks, other than a visceral loathing of FOX’s news style.)
June 6th, 2007 at 4:22 am
The best argument that Fox would have been better is that we haven’t seen Fox yet. The best moment in the Dems debate was when they finaly said “No, we won’t answer”, to a stupid “gotcha” type question on weather to use first strike nukes..that Blitzer wanted to answer with a show of hands!
I would also argue that Rudy’s big “9-11″ moment in the Fox Debate was pure set up, manufactured to give the then front runner a big moment he needed. Allthough a brillent commentator on “Hardball” told us the next night that “Rudy owns 9-11!”, the public seems to be wising up to Rudy’s whoring of Sept. 11.
The best reason for the Dems not to do Fox is the station’s ugly toleration of some pretty ugly racism. Catch O’Reilly talking
the other night talking to McCain about preserving White America? Still, they should probably set firm rules and go and do it, chiding Republican Pravda all the way.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:58 am
If I had been on the stage last night, I would have flat-out told the media panelists just how stupid their questions were, and I would have switched the topics, instead, to my message and something actually useful. CNN has no claim of superiority over other news organizations. Enough with these “debates.”
June 6th, 2007 at 5:11 am
Bad news
Retired anchor Shaw laments effects of Fox on his beloved CNN
I wouldn’t blame FOX for CNN’s style issues, but welcome, Bernie, to what I’ve been saying since television news became big time.
Let’s have one “debate” where politicians ask journalists questions instead of the other way around.
June 6th, 2007 at 7:06 am
“This was great TV.”
Only if your idea of great tv is ten men standing on a stage for 2 hours saying absolutely nothing.
June 6th, 2007 at 7:50 am
In Canada, there’s often debates where there’s simply a journalist in the room moderating (time’s up, etc.) and the politicians let er rip. Thats a better format, in my opinion.
Of course in Canada its like “the dear gentleman from North Bay is wrong wrong wrong.”
June 6th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Woody, I don’t know what your complaining about.. When McCain was asked what he would do if (when, of course) the serge doesn’t work… he started blathering about Hillary, totally ignoring the question, just as you would have wanted.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:38 am
It was a boring debate. I kept checking my watch during it.
June 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Actually, my favorite moment was when Rudy started to answer the question of those Catholics opposed to his abortion stand when the proceedings were interrupted by lighting and thunder!
Jerry Falwell just couldn’t keep his yap shut!
June 6th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Guess the GOP dosn’t want to have Bush have a post Presidential role. Unlike the Dems and Bill Clinton.
Sorry, Marc.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Bush won’t have as much of a post Presidential role as Jimmy Carter, only because Carter won’t keep his mouth shut and stop bashing our country abroad.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Bush can’t go abroad. He’ll fall afoul of the Pinochet Rules and end up in the Hague!
June 6th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Carter doesn’t bash America, he bashes Bush. It’s telling, Woody, that you’ve brainwashed yourself into not being able to acknowledge the difference.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
And the worst thing about Fox News Channel is Lou Dobbs.
Before Fox’s rise, Dobbs was content to competently excrete conventional palaver on stock prices and economic data points.
Now that his teeth are stained with Bill O’Reilly’s ratings dust, Dobbs is doomed to drool coded racism in a futile play for the Bubba audience O’Reilly has tucked securely in the sweaty folds of his “manhood.”
June 6th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I couldn’t believe the utter B.S. that Romney, Giuliani, and (I believe) all of the other candidates tried to feed to the audience regarding the issue of gays serving openly in the military. Every candidate not only support Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but Giuliani and Romney had the gall to say that it was not “an issue involving orientation.” They claimed it was a matter of keeping BOTH Heterosexuality AND Homosexuality out of the military!
Join the military! Become a celibate! No wives or husbands allowed!…YEAH, right guys.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
My only surprise (and it was only mild) was to find out how reactionary Ron Paul actually is.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
And damn Wolf Blitzer that he didn’t call McCain, Brownback, Hunter, Tancredo, and Paul for their votes in congress for those Bush budgets of the last few years (after all, the candidates were nearly unanimous in their assessment that “big spending” cost Republicans power in 2006…)
June 6th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
As a kid I went to the neighborhood park to see James Brown perform, with twenty plus people on stage, (background singers, horn section, two percussionists,) and they all performed perfectly choreographed dances with each number. The males wore gold lame’ suits that shined radiantly under the spot lights. The ladies dressed in red. It was a great show, filled with excitement, passion, and as close to rock and roll that was available at the time.
The republican debate was nothing like the show above, except for one similarity; the ten suits were perfectly choreographed. Welcome to the world of Stepford Republicans. Any cognizance of the real world was wiped away as soon as the first republican candidate opened his mouth. Out from their gaping orifices a smell most foul and alien filled the building. It was the smell of disrespect that the candidates had for their audience as they lied to their faces and danced around issues that unbelievably some participants thought were important.
The debate’s audience needs to be a little quicker next time to avoid the feces the candidates spewed in its general direction. We are witnessing the day of the loony tunes candidates, where the voters need to decide which lunatic is least likely to blow-up the world and/or destroy the economy.
June 6th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Exciting News!!!
June 6th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
“I’m not a Republican so I’m no position to judge which candidate came closest to appealing to the party base but none of them made any effort to speak to the some 70% of the American population that by now has had enough of the war.”
Umm…Marc. Hate to break it to you, but NEITHER have the democratic candidates (except Kucinich, who has the MSM lining up to mock him, since he’s an actual progressive).
June 8th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
“And yet, every candidate except the fringy libertarian Rep. Ron Paul…rushed to fully endorse not only the initial invasion of Iraq but also the continuing and continuing and continuing war.”
“I’m not a Republican…but none of them made any effort to speak to the some 70% of the American population that by now has had enough of the war.”
Huh? With all due respect Mr. Cooper, you’d think these two sentences were written by two different people. You are welcome to marginalize him as is fashionable, but I think Mr. Paul has distinguished himself among both Democrats and Republicans as one of the wise few who recognized the folly of this war.
Someone also tossed out the term ‘reactionary,’ which is a curious thing. The word itself is really devoid of much meaning, since it is so reliant upon the context it is being used. If a company (or country) embarks on an unsuccessful product (or policy), those who call on a ‘return to basics’ or a ‘focus on our core competencies’ would not be called reactionary, but prudent. If by reactionary, you truly mean a return to precepts of the US Constitution, than I would think most Americans would be proud to be labeled as such. And I’m pretty sure Rep. Paul would be too. Thanks for the compliment! http://www.ronpaul2008.com
June 9th, 2007 at 5:39 am
“Huh? With all due respect Mr. Cooper, you’d think these two sentences were written by two different people.”
Nope Chris. Same person with priorities. Paul speaks against the amnesty amalgam. This automatically triggers a discredit credit from Marc, regardless of party, politics, country of origin, race, color, creed, or blood type.