January 30th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I’m watching the Republican debate right now at the Reagan library.
I realize that Romney and McCain are the front runners, but the extent that Huckabee and Paul are being slighted (and in Paul’s case lied to as far as opportunity to speak) is really disappointing.
Paul should have cited the decisions where Justice O’Connor wasn’t conservative, such as the Michigan decision that allowed Affirmative Action. He probably would have were he not cut off by the moderator.
McCain is relying on his membership in the Reagan revolution to look conservative, and that isn’t working. He does get points for talking about government spending.
Huckabee gets points for explaining a benefit of states’ rights: to let states experiment in their solutions.
Romney did well in mentioning the 60% of the budget spent on entitlements. That is really the elephant (sorry, Republicans 
) in the room, even more than the war expenditures that Paul focuses on.
McCain blew the Romney quote issue on timetables, but Romney looked like he’s whining when he questions the timing right before the Florida election. Good job by Paul smacking McCain and Romney on who said what.
Huckabee looked classy in agreeing with Paul on not keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years while disagreeing with him on the time to pull troops out.
Romney answered the Vladimir Putin question the best because he could actually cite bad things Putin had done, such as stopping the free press.
McCain’s military experience vs. Romney’s private sector and gubernatorial experience. Paul and Huckabee again get cut off.
Paul: the President isn’t supposed to manage the economy. He finally gets time to discuss the monetary system, but then goes back to the war.
Huckabee: Washington doesn’t understand how states work but states understand how Washington works. Interesting. Governors don’t get to specialize like legislators do, he says. Then he goes on an anti-Romney populist rant. Ugh.
Would Ronald Reagan endorse the candidates? Would Reagan appreciate McCain sticking with those principles where they differ? Good quote from Paul on Reagan, the gold standard, and inflation. Nice turn by Huckabee to endorse Reagan.
PowerLine has more.
January 31st, 2008 at 7:47 am
HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT ABOUT JUSTICE O’CONNOR!!! DON”T YOU REALIZE THAT REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS ONLY NOMINATE UBER-CONSERVATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL ROBOTS TO THE COURT!?!?!?!
WOULD KERRY BEEN BETTER?????
Come on Dan, get in step….you’re missing a few beats there…
[/sarcasm]
January 31st, 2008 at 7:47 am
oh yeah… forgot this:
>!<
January 31st, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hmmm…
McCain, I find absolutely gratting. I read somewhere that his platform is only about 4% different from Hillary Clinton’s. And I find that not a little unnerving.
Paul, I like his positions on strict constitutional interpretation, but I also thing he is half-nutty on other stuff.
Huckabee, I just can’t decide if I like him or not. I want to like the openly Christian side of him, but his political history leaves me somewhat underwhelmed.
Romney, looks really good to me right now. Good, as in the lesser of the evils. I really never thought I would come to the point of seeing him as my candidate of choice. But there is still a long time between now and the final election.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I am becoming a McCain guy. I was never far away but I’m in his camp for sure. I think that the electorate is tired of recycling Bush-Clinton-Bush. I think that Obama has much more electorate appeal than Clinton at this point. Obama’s endorsement by the Kennedys doesn’t mean a thing to me. That new frontier garbage sent me and a lot of others off to Viet-Nam which was a much nastier war than this one is.
I don’t care about Republican purity. Cain stands for some very good things about America: service to the country. I think that he has a sense of history and knows that things are not as simple as the headliners propose.
Mitt Romney is the subject of endless jokes on Letterman about how he appears: as the closer at a car dealership, as the funeral director, as the guy who . . . . and on and on.
Running against the Supreme Court is a futile thing. Leave the constitutional interpretation stuff out of the election equation.
Vote for McCain.
January 31st, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Strict constitutional interpretation stuff is Paul’s whole shtick. I honestly don’t know what you mean by “other stuff.”
January 31st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I don’t care about Republican purity. Cain stands for some very good things about America: service to the country. I think that he has a sense of history and knows that things are not as simple as the headliners propose.
He stands for some very good things, but you can only name one?
Running against the Supreme Court is a futile thing. Leave the constitutional interpretation stuff out of the election equation.
Ok, the whole appointing judges thing is silly, but constitutional interpretation is THE fundamental question of the election. It is the highest law of the land, and McCain has taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution twice; once as a soldier, and once as a Senator/Congressman. His record at taking that oath seriously in the later is sorely lacking and as such he is unfit to be President.
Ron Paul is the only one up on that stage who says what he believes, and has the consistent record to back it up. And he is the only up there with virtually unimpeachable moral character.