Random thoughts on most things from A. M. Craig.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Poor Form

I'm watching the Republican debate right now, and I feel like they are
all making some bad moves. They are talking like kids in the Principal's
office. "Mitt said he wants to pull the troops outta' I-raq", "Nuh-uh,
John made that up!", "Okay, okay boys, I need you both to stop bickering
and just tell me what happened." I think if one of the candidates
debated like a proper gentleman, for lack of a better word, they would
come off sooo much better than their peers. That's what I'll do when I
run for office, mark my words. I'll try, at least.

5 comments:

Angela said...

I agree. It was pretty bad. And if John McCain says the word "timetables" ever again, I think I might have to ralph.

Emily said...

I thought Ron Paul made a good point after their little exchange. "Why are we debating technicalities when. . ."

austinmcraig said...

He did, and I think it's a sad state of affairs when the apparent dissident is the one that sounds the most mature.

Richard said...

from an email on the subject I sent to my brothers the next morning...

Two caveats:

(1)I tuned in late and only saw the last 40 minutes
(2)This is the first debate I have watched (consequently the first time I have seen anything more than sound bites from most of the candidates)

My observations about last night:

Romney: I thought the nit-picking fights with McCain were a pointless waste of time, and didn’t show either of them in a positive light. Romney should have mentioned the “time table” incident once and then moved on. He kind of strikes me as if he figured out a strategic void in the field of candidates and is trying to fill that void rather than take positions that he really believes in. In that way, he comes across as slightly disingenuous. Bush’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster in my opinion and, bewilderingly, Romney seems to be strongly aligning himself with Bush. With the lowest presidential approval ratings in history, I don’t know why anyone would want to do that. He made a valid point that Americans favor governors over senators for president. I hear he is mesmerizing in person.

McCain: He might be able to beat Hillary Clinton. I don’t think he can beat Obama. I recently listened to an audio book excerpt of his book Hard Call from iTunes. Surprisingly, he is a deeply religious man; something that doesn’t seem to be very widely known about him. He looks unnaturally good for a fair-skinned 71-year-old man. Becky thinks he has had a face-lift.

Huckabee: This was my first exposure to Mike Huckabee and I liked him much more than I thought I would. He was very calm and articulate. I liked what he had to say about the struggles that states face from unfunded federal mandates. I didn’t know that he had been governor for so long. Maybe if he dropped out and Romney immediately named him as his VP running mate they could pull together some synergies. The longer he stays in the more votes he pulls away from Romney.

Paul: Here was the shocker for me…except for his completely wacky comment about returning to the gold standard I liked everything Ron Paul had to say. I completely agreed with his opposition to pre-emptive war, his Constitutional interpretation that Congress has to declare war (rather than the undeclared wars we keep fighting), and that fact that the President has actually very little to do with the US economy. He was the only one who seemed to be talking about ideas, concepts, and principles instead of focusing so much on himself. No matter who you are, it is unsavory when you stand in front of an audience and tell everyone how great you are, a la Romney & McCain.

I wish the process focused more on why you are a better choice than the Democratic option rather than members of the same party tearing each other apart.

D Smith said...

Unfortunately, this is the plight of the republican party, little nit picky fights about things that are pretty irrelevant (of which I am guilty of). Ideologically I'm very conservative. However, I have a hard time aligning myself with people who, either are evangelistic Christian fundamentalists (I believe one step removed from Islamic fundamentalists.) or are so pro military they'd kill there mom if they thought it was in the "best interest of the country." I have quite a few Ideas on why the republican party is that way if anyone is, if anyone is interested I'll ramble on for hours to them on the subject.