fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Some random thoughts, having watched the whole thing.
CNN is totally biased and underhanded. They planted a Hillary Steering Campaign staffer (Retired General Keith Kerr) to ask the question about gays in the military. Then they let the guy speechify for about 5 minutes. It was disgusting pandering and I muted the whole segment. I watched to see the candidates speak, not some activist Hillary shill. CNN got caught afterwards by Bill Bennett, who exposed the guy's affiliation on the air, and Anderson Cooper tried to dodge the issue by saying if only he had known, they would have exposed that information...yeah right.
Anderson Cooper does not know how to moderate a debate. He repeatedly fumbled the titles of the candidates and let them run on and on, often over his pathetic attempts to move on to another question. His calling of "time" was routinely ignored. From another perspective, it serves him right for stacking the questions in the first place.
Rudy Giuliani will say anything to get elected. He's proud of having run the 3rd largest government in America (NYC), but he's all for controlling spending and smaller government. He said "I aggressively enforced all gun laws in my city" and he's pro 2nd Amendment. This went on and on. Seems he wants to be all things to all people. He's not to be trusted.
Romney is the only guy who admitted he made a mistake earlier in his career on abortion. He admitted this on the heels of a Fred Thompson ad that showed him speaking in favor of abortion being legal. He's changed his mind and that's that. FWIW, Reagan was also pro-choice at one time.
The Fred Thompson ad was pretty good.
McCain talks tough on Iraq and spending. The problem with him is that he talks tough on everything. IMO he's just too mean to be president. I've seen him in the Abramoff hearings; the guy's a total a-hole. I don't trust him either. Especially since he hates the 1st and 2nd Amendments (and Christians).
McCain and Rudy admitted they don't own guns.
Duncan Hunter was fairly good. He seems to have a good grasp on foreign issues. I don't know his stance on the tax system and his answers to gun questions centered around hunting. Not so good. The 2nd Amendment doesn't mention hunting.
Ron Paul was unfairly treated. He was asked an obviously biased conspiracy question (which he handled expertly) but was only given 4.2% of the airtime, much less than Tancredo or Hunter, both of whom trail Paul in the polls. He did fumble part of an Iraq surge question and I think he was trying to answer with too much information. As much as I like Paul, come on dude, don't try making every question about bringing the troops home. We get it already. He did make a good point about cutting taxes being only half the story - cutting spending is the other half. (Rudy - "Yeah, that's me too!")
Huckabee had the best line of the night - when asked about the death penalty, "What would Jesus do," he answered, "Jesus was too smart to run for public office." Even Rudy (on camera) had to applaud that. Huck is very slick in his answers. He does window dress his tax record, but his stance on the FairTax and 2A is very compelling. He did get smacked pretty good by Romney when Huck answered a question about granting college benefits to illegal alien students who had grown up (illegally) in our school system and academically qualified for scholarships. Romney essentially said that it was a specious argument, and it sounds good, but you're talking about using taxpayer money to give tuition breaks to illegals. That was a shrewd comment and an important moment. I think it might have been better if somebody whose name was not Romney had made that point though, like maybe Ron Paul or Tancredo.
Tancredo was great. He also smacked Huckabee for endorsing spending more tax money on the space program. In his opinion we spend too much tax money on too many things and he's right. He wants to build the fence (like you didn't know). (Hunter: I already built a fence!) (Rudy: Yeah, that's me, too!)
I thought Thompson had good answers. I liked him again, his weak campaign notwithstanding. He says all the right things and his record doesn't have any MAJOR flaws. He just doesn't carry the passion and he's still a big government guy. If he supported the FairTax I'd be all over him.
CNN tried to make this debate too much about themselves. It was infuriating and embarrassing. Much can be made about the incompetence and egotism of the people who screened the youtube video questions. They were going for style and titillation over substance. And the Nick Anderson video question mocking VP Cheney was despicable. CNN is a disgrace.
CNN is totally biased and underhanded. They planted a Hillary Steering Campaign staffer (Retired General Keith Kerr) to ask the question about gays in the military. Then they let the guy speechify for about 5 minutes. It was disgusting pandering and I muted the whole segment. I watched to see the candidates speak, not some activist Hillary shill. CNN got caught afterwards by Bill Bennett, who exposed the guy's affiliation on the air, and Anderson Cooper tried to dodge the issue by saying if only he had known, they would have exposed that information...yeah right.
Anderson Cooper does not know how to moderate a debate. He repeatedly fumbled the titles of the candidates and let them run on and on, often over his pathetic attempts to move on to another question. His calling of "time" was routinely ignored. From another perspective, it serves him right for stacking the questions in the first place.
Rudy Giuliani will say anything to get elected. He's proud of having run the 3rd largest government in America (NYC), but he's all for controlling spending and smaller government. He said "I aggressively enforced all gun laws in my city" and he's pro 2nd Amendment. This went on and on. Seems he wants to be all things to all people. He's not to be trusted.
Romney is the only guy who admitted he made a mistake earlier in his career on abortion. He admitted this on the heels of a Fred Thompson ad that showed him speaking in favor of abortion being legal. He's changed his mind and that's that. FWIW, Reagan was also pro-choice at one time.
The Fred Thompson ad was pretty good.
McCain talks tough on Iraq and spending. The problem with him is that he talks tough on everything. IMO he's just too mean to be president. I've seen him in the Abramoff hearings; the guy's a total a-hole. I don't trust him either. Especially since he hates the 1st and 2nd Amendments (and Christians).
McCain and Rudy admitted they don't own guns.
Duncan Hunter was fairly good. He seems to have a good grasp on foreign issues. I don't know his stance on the tax system and his answers to gun questions centered around hunting. Not so good. The 2nd Amendment doesn't mention hunting.
Ron Paul was unfairly treated. He was asked an obviously biased conspiracy question (which he handled expertly) but was only given 4.2% of the airtime, much less than Tancredo or Hunter, both of whom trail Paul in the polls. He did fumble part of an Iraq surge question and I think he was trying to answer with too much information. As much as I like Paul, come on dude, don't try making every question about bringing the troops home. We get it already. He did make a good point about cutting taxes being only half the story - cutting spending is the other half. (Rudy - "Yeah, that's me too!")
Huckabee had the best line of the night - when asked about the death penalty, "What would Jesus do," he answered, "Jesus was too smart to run for public office." Even Rudy (on camera) had to applaud that. Huck is very slick in his answers. He does window dress his tax record, but his stance on the FairTax and 2A is very compelling. He did get smacked pretty good by Romney when Huck answered a question about granting college benefits to illegal alien students who had grown up (illegally) in our school system and academically qualified for scholarships. Romney essentially said that it was a specious argument, and it sounds good, but you're talking about using taxpayer money to give tuition breaks to illegals. That was a shrewd comment and an important moment. I think it might have been better if somebody whose name was not Romney had made that point though, like maybe Ron Paul or Tancredo.
Tancredo was great. He also smacked Huckabee for endorsing spending more tax money on the space program. In his opinion we spend too much tax money on too many things and he's right. He wants to build the fence (like you didn't know). (Hunter: I already built a fence!) (Rudy: Yeah, that's me, too!)
I thought Thompson had good answers. I liked him again, his weak campaign notwithstanding. He says all the right things and his record doesn't have any MAJOR flaws. He just doesn't carry the passion and he's still a big government guy. If he supported the FairTax I'd be all over him.
CNN tried to make this debate too much about themselves. It was infuriating and embarrassing. Much can be made about the incompetence and egotism of the people who screened the youtube video questions. They were going for style and titillation over substance. And the Nick Anderson video question mocking VP Cheney was despicable. CNN is a disgrace.
