The Republican Debate: A Little Late to Comment, Maybe?

School intervened to keep me from commenting as much as I would have liked on the Republican debate (as well as from watching the Democratic debate - ARRGGH!), but here are some observations and questions for the Republicans.

1. Alan Keyes: What the hell was he doing there? I took a look at the transcript, and he was an even bigger idiot than I had realized just reading the commentary. His solution to our bad schools: God. I am religious, but I realize that we don't need to bring religion into the schools, we just need to give them adequate funding and pay the teachers in such a way that it isn't such a "public service" to teach, and young college graduates have an actual incentive to go into teaching. Additionally, he seemed to use his time as an excuse to rail against the "ruling elites" and their "political cliques." Dr. Paul may be a maverick, but at least he isn't contradictory. Keyes wants to "restore the Constitution," but he also wants to bring religion into schools, which is unconstitutional.

2. Rudy Giuliani vs. the Law of Demand: Now, I haven't even finished my Econ class yet, but one thing that we have covered is the Law of Demand, and so one thing that did not make sense is when Mayor Giuliani said that if millions more Americans bought their own health insurance, that we'd "see the price come all the way down." Correct me if I'm wrong, but my general impression is that when demand rises, so does price. Maybe the insurance market operates in some perverse Opposite-World, but that seems slightly unlikely. Check your facts, Mayor.

3. Fred Thompson and Tax Cuts: This seems to be an attempt to make sure that people associate him with "conservatism," but Fred Thompson sees absolutely nothing wrong with the '01 and '03 tax cuts. He wants to save those poor rich people (what an oxymoron!) from the ravishing grasp of the greedy poor people who pay no taxes. To me, it makes sense to have the people who can afford to pay high taxes, pay high taxes.

4. No Sacrifice At All? Really?: Apparently, most of the Republicans think that we don't need to sacrifice anything in order to reduce our national debt. Interesting. So they'll just wave their magic wands, and the debt will vanish, just like that? But I thought that magic came from the devil...

5. Who Knows What Alan Keyes's Position is on Global Warming?: Most of all, who cares? It isn't as if he is an actual candidate. But it is irritating that he just blathered about elites taking "the people's sovereignty" without saying anything about the question that the moderator asked him. It even sounded like he was accusing the moderator of being an "elite" herself.

6. Speaking of the Moderator: I have some small criticism of Ms. Washburn. I think that she didn't control the debate quite well enough. She wasn't assertive enough in the crowd of prima donnas that is the Republican field of candidates. Maybe then we could have gotten some more stuff in the time allowed.

That's all I have for the Republican debate, and I will be back when I can get the transcript for the Democratic debate.

The Republican Debate...Snore...

Unfortunately, I couldn't watch the Republican debate, since I was in school (curse you, Economics!), but I have taken a look at some of the reports from people he did, and the fairly universal reaction seems to have been: BORING! No big hissy fits, no big gaffes, no big new positions, just a canned rehash of prior issues.

One thing really coming under criticism is the decision to allow Alan Keyes to participate in the debate, while Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich will not be in the Democratic debate tomorrow. By all accounts, Keyes is a divisive, rude jerk. Perhaps his reputation for making controversial remarks led the organizers to include him in order to maybe spark some controversy, but from what I've heard, if that were their strategy, it failed. Miserably.

One person who did seem to shine was Mike Huckabee, and his status as the new man-to-beat seems just as secure as before, coming off as a better candidate, in some ways. He said that he would be careful about what he says in the future, which is generally a good idea for politicians in general. His "first year goal" was much more realistic than Giuliani's or Romney's, as well as being more constitutional than Fred Thompson's proclamation that if Congress didn't cooperate with him, then he would just "go over [their] head[s] to the American people." If by this Mr. Thompson means that he would bypass Congress to get laws made, well, there is a reason that Congress is part of the legislative branch, from the Latin word for law, Mr Thompson. Congress makes the laws. Not the president. And there are no ballot initiatives for the whole nation.

In a word, stultifying.