GOP Debate V

[Vander]

I thought this was a decent debate. It seemed to bring out some nuanced differences in their various policies. More so, at least, since the last national security debate.

Rubio was in mixing it up, connected with some punches, whiffed on some punches, dodged some punches, got hit with some punches. He seems to have emerged as the sole establishment/neo-con candidate. Jeb! sooooo wants to be Rubio.

Trump was the most awesome spectacular human being in the history of history. I Thought he did an able rope-a-dope. I mean the greatest rope-a-dope in the universe. We should all be embarrassed and ashamed of ourselves that this guy has such a sizable following. (mmm liberal derision)

Cruz will be the obvious beneficiary of the Trump yard sale. He's like Trump, but his speech is sharper. Cutting. He seems to be a polished, well spoken advocate for the crazy. It's an interesting, mosaic kind of crazy. Like, you have all these little interesting bits of kooky, and then you pull back and see the bigger batsh!t crazy picture.

Christie did ok I guess. I didn't like his line dismissing the somewhat nuanced (and pretty illuminating!) arguments going on around him. They're talkers, you see. He's a doer. The 'Prosecutor September 11' schtick doesn't go over with me, but it probably works for the target audience.

Jeb! is the most bland, cookie cutter politician I've ever seen. At least when standing with that group. He's a Honda Civic surrounded by Hot Hatches. While others around him were scoring on policy, he was trying to score on "tone." Calling out Trump played right into Trump's hands. Bush: "Trump's the Chaos Candidate!" Trump: "Jeb!'s a loser, heh." I mean, Jeb! just isn't equipped to fight the way he's trying to fight. He's was ice skating. They were playing hockey.

Kasich was like Jeb!, but more authentic. He was basically saying the same things as Jeb!, but he sold it better. Not that that matters. This center right Republican might as well be Noam Chomsky to the modern Republican party.

Paul, I thought, made good arguments against a lot of the insanity flying around on stage. I found myself agreeing with much of what he was saying. But then, he was the only candidate on stage not campaigning to shoot down Russian planes, so the bar was pretty low. He also had a solid defense of civil rights, but again, the bar was kind of low with Rubio wanting to deny habeas corpus to citizens when the government says they're terrorists.

Fiorina quoted Thatcher. Cause she's a woman, get it? She didn't make much of an impression on me. I don't think the topic was beneficial to her, be we can probably move her over to the "suspending my campaign watch" column.

Carson is on his way out as well. Mod: "Who do you side with in the policy debate you just heard?" Carson: "You'll have to ask them." What? No.

I didn't see the early debate.

[callmeslick]

I am STILL attempting to assimilate the fact that Trump, in essence, endorsed the entire Democrat argument around foreign adventures. When he blurted out that had we not peed away 4 trillion on two wars and spent it on infrastructure and R and D we'd have been far better off, I almost fell from my chair. He got booed, subsequently, so I guess the audience caught that, too.

[woodchip]

Too bad the Dems don't have any worthwhile debates with actual moderators.

[callmeslick]

Too bad the Dems don't have any worthwhile debates with actual moderators.

actually, they have, to date, been far more aware of nuance, and have laid out some economic and foreign policy plans. Hell, Cruz seemed in one response to be unaware that ISIS recruits sign up to die("when I'm President, they will know that joining ISIS is a death sentence). Such naivite won't serve us well. Not one person on that stage last night showed the depth of thinking to be President, frankly. They did a great job, collectively, of convincing the public why none of them deserve the job.

[callmeslick]

other observations:
Fiorina made the best point of the entire night, gave others the chance to agree with her and show actual knowledge, when she stated that technology has moved a long way since 2002, but we haven't updated out approach to electronic surveillance. The poor woman must have been in pain hearing Trump and others blabber about 'their internet' and such.

Christie and others are actually standing on stage urging for the start of WWIII with the Russians, by declaring a 'no-fly' zone in territory we weren't even asked to have a presence in. Nice. At least, Rand Paul called them on that.

Moderators did a perfectly acceptable job in this round.

[callmeslick]

worthwhile addition to any discussion of the debate......fact check:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... li=BBnb7Kz

[callmeslick]

oh, and it appears that Cruz revealed classified information.......and, the Twitter winner of the night was:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... gop-debate



feel the Bern!

[Tunnelcat]

I am STILL attempting to assimilate the fact that Trump, in essence, endorsed the entire Democrat argument around foreign adventures. When he blurted out that had we not peed away 4 trillion on two wars and spent it on infrastructure and R and D we'd have been far better off, I almost fell from my chair. He got booed, subsequently, so I guess the audience caught that, too.

Republicans don't like to be reminded of their guy's mistakes. That's called "unprincipled".

[Nightshade]

oh, and it appears that Cruz revealed classified information.......and, the Twitter winner of the night was:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... gop-debate



feel the Bern!

Of course, a democrat revealing classified information is no big deal right?

[Ferno]

Don't feed the troll!