Sorry friends, had a long day that started early. But I did want to get a few thoughts down tonight before I go to bed.
First, the debate last night was a three ring circus--the moderators were immoderate, and the candidates were swinging for the fences at the chance to knock the liberal media. Clearly, the clowns from CNBC deserved it (who watches this channel?) But just as clearly, we need to understand that this is the playing field we (conservatives) have to negotiate. The media is liberal, and they are going to pull crap like this.
BUT--we don't have to enable it. I put most of the blame for last night squarely on the Republican National Committee. It strikes me as ludicrous to think that we couldn't hold our own, Party sponsored debates with moderators that we select. The TV stations would crawl over broken glass to show them. Instead, we allow clowns from NBC to pull the crap they pulled last night.
Second, I want debates to happen without audiences. Although my boy (Marco Rubio--donate today!) seems to get a lot of audience love--I just find the cheering (and jeering) to be unseemly. Additionally, I have a few new rules I'd like to see implemented:
1. Moderators ask a question. Then they must remain silent for the next 90 seconds while the respondent answers.
2. Respondent has 90 seconds to answer. At the end of the 90 seconds, the microphone goes dead.
3. If the respondent mentions anyone else on stage by name or strong inference, those candidates get 60 seconds of followup. Again, microphones go dead at the end of time.
Lets face it friends, Marco won the debate. Again.
Ted Cruz did wonderfully also. As did Chris Christie. He who shall not be named was quiet, but body slammed Kasich when he went on the attack.
Ben Carson was his usual smooth self--but he was not telling the truth on the supplement company he represented. We'll see if this bites at him.
Carly did fine, but not great.
Rand was flat.
Jeb was a disaster.
Huckabee does not belong there.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
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2 comments:
Squawk Box is actually the only TV news I watch. I was actually surprised and disappointed by how these guys behaved. Harwood is a predictable liberal, but Becky Quick usually works pretty hard to be balanced, as these people go. They made some sort of bad tactical choice before going in there, above and beyond their usual predilections. Regardless, I don't agree about the microphone going dark. It should not be the job of the moderators to exercise power over the participants. Let's watch the participants sort it out. Instead, I'd run a little digital clock on the television screen, so the *audience* knows when somebody is going over. The American instincts toward fair play will hurt candidates who abuse their time regularly, and that will be punishment enough.
It's been suggested that their behavior was instigated from on high otherwise they would have acted more in character. I must admit, I haven't watched two seconds of CNBC in years so I'm not familiar with these people. But Harwood was so over the top, so nasty and insulting, it seems to me he must have been given marching orders. Regardless, as Dennis Miller said they made their bones last night. They are now "made men" and unless they do something silly like ask Hillary about Benghazi they have jobs for life.
Now, who "won" the debate? I'm not sure to be honest. Trump killed 'em in the post debate polling so he certainly didn't hurt himself. Cruz finally did what every true conservative has been dying to happen, he called out liberals to their faces and made it stick. Say what you will, the man is brilliant. Rubio looked good as per usual. Christie helped himself almost as much a Cruz. But this one can be defined by the losers, Bush and Kasich. Both did themselves a lot of damage.
I'm not worried about Kasich, he will just fade away. In fact the only reason he was on stage was as Bush's understudy in case of implosion (which he did). The poor country clubbers are probably going nuts, they had their #1 and #2 go down in flames in the same debate! You will recall that Marco was a teaparty guy when he was first elected. He ran WITHOUT the backing of the party bigwigs, so they aren't that trusting of him anyway. Now he may be their only choice.
At this point the big question is what kind of mischief will Bush cause on his way out, what with all that money? He's a loser with not a chance of winning anything, but he's got a lot of cash. He could cause a lot of problems if he throws a tantrum. We'll see.
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