Liberty Maven

Here is the list of candidates along with a performance review:

Fred Thompson – I’m not with Fred. Unlike Huckabee Fred is a bad magician. In fact he seemed to bumble up a lot of his tricks tonight. He gives vague answers to questions while claiming he’s being “clear.” This was pretty evident when he answered the question on what 3 government programs he would cut. I still don’t know what 3 he would cut. Do you? See the video below.

Rudy Giuliani – I thought his performance was pretty bad. He came off as a bickering child during the beginning exchange with Romney. He stumbled a bit on the questions on abortion and gun control. I no longer see him an the inevitable nominee. Here is the bickering exchange if you can stomach watching the children argue again.

Mitt Romney – Romney played dodge ball quite a bit. He seems like he’s trying hard to force people to like him. He seems like when he gets the touchy questions he avoids answering by saying he’d ask a third party. This is much like he did in a previous debate when he said he’d talk to lawyers to find out whether it is Constitutional for the President to declare war. Here he is again dismissing his own responsibility on gays in the military. He is the 3rd candidate to answer in the video.

Duncan Hunter – Didn’t get many questions, but spoke about his favorite issue: immigration. Also spoke of his favorite answer to the immigration problem: build a fence. Not just any fence, but a double fence. There ya go. Immigration solved. Simple. No video for this one. I’ll treat Hunter like the media does. A non-issue.

Tom Tancredo – Tancredo is my new Huckabee. I used to like Huckabee until I looked deeper. It may have something to do with Tancredo still getting no traction in the polls or that Ron Paul says he is friendly with him. Tancredo’s issue is also immigration. He’s probably the strongest opponent of illegal immigration out of everyone running for President. Unfortunately his single issue just isn’t that important to me. He and Hunter should drop out of the race pretty soon after the early state primaries. Another non-issue. No video. Although I liked his very first answer about how the other candidates were trying to “out Tancredo Tancredo”.

Mike Huckabee – He is a magician. He’s good at it too. For those less observant people out there he seems like a nice folksy compassionate Republican. The reality is he is a dangerous man. The best way to describe him is that he’s a faith healer. He lures you in with his humor, wit and promises, but in the end you leave sick. He is from the same town in Arkansas as Bill Clinton. Why does that not surprise me? Here is what some are calling one of the best lines of the debate. Notice how he uses humor to avoid answering the question? He’s certainly appealing and charismatic, but I wouldn’t trust him with my country (or my daughter for that matter).

John McCain - Desperate times have arrived for McCain. He resorts to attacking Ron Paul in an attempt to prop himself up. In answering a question on the Fair Tax he says that Ron Paul’s “brand of isolationism” is what caused World War II and allowed Hitler to come to power. I love how Ron Paul calmly lets McCain finish. Paul even smiles at him as he does it. It seems to make McCain more angry. Despite the the real truth about what caused World War II this just shows that McCain is trying to resurrect his campaign from the ashes. As McCain levied his attack I was thinking “Come on Ron, tell him that you are the candidate receiving the most donations from the military in your answer.” Ron didn’t disappoint. Watch below.

Ron Paul – I don’t think he could have done any better with the questions and time he was allotted. Ron Paul is a teacher. He has trouble explaining his positions in 30 seconds. It gets worse when he realizes that and starts talking faster. The last question Paul was asked was a question that is the media’s favorite question to ask him. What makes it really bad is it came from a Ron Paul supporter who fed the idea that the Republican party will never nominate Ron Paul as their candidate. As bad as the question was, Ron Paul’s answer was good. See below.

Overall I enjoyed the format of this debate than any of the others. In fact, I wish it was longer. There’s something very appealing about seeing the candidates answer questions posed by YouTube videos. That being said, it did seem that CNN chose to use some pretty bad questions. The space exploration one comes to mind.

One could argue that the last and first questions posed to Ron Paul were an effort to purposefully discredit him. I would argue that doing that is part of the media’s job. As long as they treat the other candidates with the same scrutiny it is fine. I think CNN has done that in this debate.