Election Central Debate Roundup
• Last night's debate might have been held in South Carolina, but it was just as much a fight for the votes in Michigan, Mitt Romney's native state and the sight of the next Republican primary. Romney condemned McCain: "I know that there are some people who think, as Senator McCain did — he said, you know, some jobs have left Michigan that are never coming back. I disagree. I’m going to fight for every single job. Michigan, South Carolina, every state in this country."
• McCain responded that he was simply telling the truth — implying that Romney doesn't. "One of the reasons why I won in New Hampshire is because I went there and told them the truth," he said. "And sometimes you have to tell people things they don’t want to hear along with things that they do want to hear." Jobs have gone away that aren't coming back, McCain said, but the government can help the citizens through job training and re-education programs.
• One of the most bizarre moments in this debate, or any other debate for that matter, came when Brit Hume pressed the candidates on whether they agreed with the "passive" response of the Navy ships that were confronted by Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz — the ships threatened to fire on the Iranians if they did not desist in their approach, rather than immediately fire as Hume would prefer.
• The candidates all stood by the decisions of the captains on those ships, despite Hume's repeated urging that they be stronger. Among the top-tier candidates, only McCain came even close to criticizing Hume, calling it "a bit presumptuous" to judge the captains, who trained for a very long time to reach their positions and are trusted to make those judgments.
• Ron Paul took a harder line, comparing this incident to the Gulf of Tonkin and lambasting hawks who want to start a war over it. "Of course we want caution. But I'm worried about the policy of why we're looking for a justification, now there are no weapons, actually people are looking around a for an excuse to bomb Iran. I mean, we're already, with our CIA, being involved in trying to overthrow that government, and we don't need another war. And this incident should not be thrown out of proportion to the point where we're getting ready to attack Iran over this."
• Mitt Romney then fired at Paul with what was likely a pre-rehearsed applause line: "I think Congressman Paul should not be reading as many Ahmadinejad's press releases."
• On tax policy, Fred Thompson ridiculed "the experts" who say the government will lose too much tax revenue from rate cuts. Thompson said that tax revenues are higher than they've ever been due to economic growth, and "so much for the experts." He also said there are too many "two-handed economists in Washington — on the one hand we may go into a recession, on the other hand we may not."
• John McCain was asked if the Republicans can win when Democrats are arguing that there hasn't been any reduction of troops in Iraq, and that the war has gone on too long. McCain responded rhetorically, "Can the Democrats win an election when they continue to deny the facts on the ground, that we are succeeding?"
• McCain also said that he was alone among the candidates in having always advocated for the surge. Rudy Giuliani later took issue with this, pointing out that he himself went on TV to commend it, the very night of President Bush's speech introducing the policy. McCain said ht real difference he was talking about is that he'd advocated for troop increases long before that, and had criticized Don Rumsfeld.
• Fred Thompson, knowing that he is behind in South Carolina, turned his sights on Mike Huckabee. "On the one hand you have the Reagan revolution, you have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security," Thompson said. "And the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies."
• In response to Thompson's attacks, Huckabee said he made the necessary tax and spending decisions as Arkansas governor to fix the state's dilapidated infrastructure and improve education. Comparing his situation to that of Ronald Reagan, who also raised taxes as governor of California, Huckabee said, "You know if Ronald Reagan were running tonight, there'd be ads by the Club For Growth running against him."
• Rudy Giuliani responded to John McCain's charge that his leadership of New York City on September 11, 2001, did not actually constitute meaningful foreign policy experience. Rudy said that he had experience not only from that, but even going back to a committee on terrorism in the Ford Administration, and that when he was mayor he threw Yassir Arafat out of a U.N. celebration, barred Castro from coming, and famously returned a check from a Saudi prince.
• Carl Cameron confronted Ron Paul about 9/11 Truthers supporting his campaign, asking Paul to tell them to cease their rhetoric or else leave his campaign. Paul said that while he does not believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories and his supporters ought not to, "The only thing I have control over is what I believe and what I say ... So please, can I participate in the current debate rather than picking this out?"
The comment from John McCain during the debate about how he tells the truth cracked me up since I'd just watched this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI
now.. if he wins SC - after the comments he made against the confederate flag - I'll know either the people of SC are brain dead or the election is a total fraud.
January 11, 2008 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I would give to see Ron Paul slug someone in the face.
The Fox News crowd is like a pack of starving rabid wolves. Obviously they're crapping their pants over Ron Paul, and it's a very realistic possibility that he'll run in the general and cost the GOP the election. They all know it and it's pretty blatant.
January 11, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
A report on CNN this morning stated that Giuliani's campaign has told its senior staff members to go on non-paid status during January in order to free-up money for spending in his Florida fire-wall effort.
January 11, 2008 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: "Who was the big winner in last night’s FOX News-sponsored GOP debate from South Carolina? His name was Ronald Reagan."
Somebody needs to remind these interventionist war-mongering GOP assclowns that when 241 U.S. Marines died in the 1983 Beirut terrorist attack, their iconic godlike hero Ronnie Reagan responded not with a surge, but by CUTTING AND RUNNING from Lebanon.
Maybe next time Brit Hume can ask the GOP candidates if it’s all Ronnie-baby’s fault that Jihadists learned the tacit lesson that attacking American occupiers worked and got their tails in the air, the same way they like to blame Bill Clinton’s national security “weakness” for the attacks of 9/11.
January 11, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
These guys a so hung up on Reagan's tax cut that I wish someone would tell them that Reagan rolled back 1/3 of the corporate tax cut the following year, then signed off on about six "revenue enhancements" that included a 3% increase in payroll taxes. "The Great Tax Cutter" indeed.
January 11, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the debate and think the summation above is pretty accurate, I thought the questions were softball on substance. I also don't watch Fox so this the first I saw Luntz, which I thought was pathetic. Having seen the video of the same guy, I had to wonder why there was a conclusion that Fred won the debate? I thought personally that Huckabee handled the religous attack well, and scored points and that McCain did OK also, getting a sympathetic pan from the camera as Ron Paul spoke.
But the softball questions were awful: I would have liked to have heard the question: "Well OK guys the GOP was in control for 6 full years in the House, Senate, and Executive office, why would we imagine that now the push to wean the US from foreign oil is a priority when there was more than ample time and opportunity to do more before oil hit $100/barrel?" And on a 1-10 how would you rate the effectiveness in the past 8 years of the GOP on the energy plan (if indeed there is one) and it's eeffect on the economy and national security?
I mean well who isn't for some 'vague plan always in the future' for energy independence? Where was the substance to this question beyond 'pork' to IOWA?
The dollar's decline and the economy, not to mention the capitulation of new jobs (such as new kilo-watt wind turbines) should have elicited more inquiry into focusing tax cuts to fuel efficieny instead of just some vague ass BS that was accepted as an explanation for no damn energy plan and the predicament and worsening circumstances we find ourselves in.
I mean seriously, the question should have been: "why after a solid majority in all of government should we suddenly imagine that the GOP will do anything now?"
Yeah the debate was entertaining, but FOX isn't cereberal enough and reminds me of a newspaper dumbing down their articles to a fourth grade reading level, and then presenting the perception of fact as news, and then suggesting how you should think.
Pretending that tax cuts and not our energy policy would cure a recession=deflation, and 'we are in one' see the declining compensation avergaes on Careerbuilder, monster, etc.. and then one sees why one of the most interesting responses was when Ron Paul inquired:
Why do we borrow 12 billion from China, give it to Pakistan's military, and then claim we need to protect Israel from the Islamic nuclear bomb?
It's the OIL folks, and the lack of a targeted tax cut for wind farms, solar arrays, and R&D into saw grass ethanol!
And don't imagine that this is not a national security issue, check the LMI report of DOD fuel consumption and the need to produce domestically for essentials in the US in time of dire national security.
FOX was negligent in this debate and added to the declining level of rhetoric that it decries, by avoiding to ask real damn questions.
It's a damn good thing Arnold from CA isn't allowed to run, he would have shamed all the GOP with 'results' and a 'plan.'
I was disappointed and yes a genuine GOP voter.
January 11, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you all for your comments on the debate. I just couldn't bring myself to watch it.
January 11, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anybody else tired of these endless press conferences labeled debates. I am. Could we possibly have anymore? They are all running together and they keep repeating the same garbage over, and over, and over, and over again. I vote for no more debates this election and a limit next time. This is really absurd.
January 11, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trade gap widens on surge in oil imports
Real exports fall for second straight month in November
I was NOT impressed with FAUX new's grasp of economics! Their debate clearly avoided the crucial two issues, energy and healthcare, which plague our economy.
January 11, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why doesn't Ron Paul confront Fox' and tell them to leave journalism for propagandizing the neocon conspiracy theories of Sadaam's nuclear weapons that could hit London in 45 minutes and all the rest of thier BS that has made them and their buddies rich over the blood of another millions bodies. And it was the Jersey girls, the grieving widows of 911 victims who had to demonstrate and beg for 400 days to get a hearing. And even Hamilton and Kean are outraged at the lies and coverups (i.e. CIA waterboarding tapes, phoney NORAD time lines) contained / ommitted in that report.
How about confronting Fox' with the fact that their corporate boared included the author of the Patriot Act (Viet Dinh), a Rothschild banker (Andrew Knight), (can you say counterfeiter / theif / monetary desttruction / stock market / housing bubble/ ) and former collectivist educator Rod Paige ... all of these people represent entrenched global corporatist interests in dumbing down, ripping off, and controlling the average person.
January 11, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"How about confronting Fox' with the fact that their corporate boared included the author of the Patriot Act (Viet Dinh), a Rothschild banker (Andrew Knight), (can you say counterfeiter / theif / monetary desttruction / stock market / housing bubble/ ) and former collectivist educator Rod Paige ... all of these people represent entrenched global corporatist interests in dumbing down, ripping off, and controlling the average person."
It's comments like these that demonstrate the bankruptcy of a certain american left: that strand of naive conspiratorial anticapitalism, which is always ready to support foreign despots and other caudillos as long as they're anti-US, and see crooked nose 'Rothschild bankers' behind every downtick in their retirement portfolios. Please. Grow up. Or rather, go away quickly grandpa. Your revolution's over.
January 11, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a damn good thing Arnold from CA isn't allowed to run, he would have shamed all the GOP with 'results' and a 'plan.'
Are you serious? Arnold is destroying Cal.
January 11, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it interesting that Cialis chose to advertise during one of the breaks. Do they believe that many watchers suffer from erectile dysfunction? At least those in the audience who cheered the idea of a strong military response to Iran certainly wouldnt admit such a problem.
January 11, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of debates..NBC has just uninvited Kucinich. Thanks Corporate Media...you asshats want to control the agenda as usual.
http://tinyurl.com/3xrjsm
January 11, 2008 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The discourteous treatment of Ron Paul and his supporters at the recent Republican debate in South Carolina was disturbing. The moderators and other candidates were disrespectful and condescending. The ridicule of the media elite and other candidates at first made me angry, but now I just feel pity. What happened to the big tent? Fox News resented having to include Ron Paul in the debate, and it appears Dr. Paul’s fellow candidates felt the same. Their arrogance betrays them. How dare this man and his supporters compel them to treat him as an equal. Instead of welcoming a variety of opinions and views, particularly one that stands in such contrast to their own, they decide to laugh at Ron Paul and insult his supporters. A matter of fact Fox News so hated Ron Paul that when they re-aired the debate they cut out one of his best moments.
You would think a party as desperate to win as they most certainly are, considering they have lost their majorities in the US House and Senate would welcome Ron Paul. He has attracted the support of many independents, Democrats, and people who until this point have been non-participants in the electoral process. Instead, in their shortsightedness they prefer to insult and alienate. Their behavior tells me all I need to know about their character, or more accurately, the lack thereof.
January 12, 2008 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink