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Well, Ruffini who thinks he’s so far above Freepers was the lead advocate for this youtube debate to happen. Congratulations Ruffini, on your success. LOL

As if Freepers couldn’t predict this would happen.

I didn’t watch what I knew would be a train wreck, but everything I’ve heard from it has just made me more disgusted with politics in general. My contempt for the media cannot get lower, at this point if they don’t show a person simulating sex or a murder I’m impressed.

But my contempt for many candidates can. And so can my contempt for anyone that can still justify support for Huckabee, Rudy and Romney at this point. If the sideshow of Rudy and Romney accurately zinging each other for being liberals wasn’t bad enough, Huckabee’s pure liberalism on everything but abortion and the Bible being the Word of God was. The last two positions are good, everything else is Clinton + bush on steriods.

And, damn, those three are actually making Mccain seem tolerable. That’s how bad they really are.

You are so right. That was my conclusion as well.

Mitt had a miserable night. He sounded like a weasely politician. "I have 2 guns - well, they're actually my son's." "I'll consult with advisors on waterboarding." "I believe the Bible is the Word of God (that wasn't the question - rigged as it was)."

The only question he answered firmly was his attack on Rudy about sanctuary cities. But then Rudy was immediately able to undermine any credibility on immigration that Mitt had just appeared to project.

And don't get me started on Huckabee. He answered exactly 2 questions well. One was merely a word-for-word repeat of Duncan Hunter's response to the planted gay general question. (When the general's mike went out I wish ANY of the candidates would have said "Anderson, will you please get off the gay general?") The other good Huckabee response was on the Bible question. It was a great ecumenical response to a thorny theological question.

Based on that performance, I wholeheartedly support Mike Huckabee for First Chaplain. But his compassionate conservative response on immigration was horrible. I'm sure that some illegal alien children might work hard to achieve academically. So what! They shouldn't be allowed to compete for scholarships that would otherwise go to Americans. I even resent using tax dollars to educate illegal aliens in public schools to begin with!

Rudy was even worse on immigration. "I was helping to combat crime in NYC by allowing illegals to attend school and receive health care." How? You're fighting crime by condoning other illegal activiy?

Rudy had many other bad moments in the debate. In fact, the entire night was a series of flailing poor answers by Rudy. Especially on 2nd Amendment rights and immigration, but even the softball Red Sox question elicited a weak response. I'm not a Rudy fan, but I have never seen Giuliani look so weak and ineffective.

McCain had some moments. I diagree with his position on waterboarding, but it appeared earnest. Other than that, he mainly appeared old and out of touch.

Ron Paul was out of touch with reality, period. Somebody please show this nutjob and his nutjob supporters to the door. Please!

The best performances of the night belonged to Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson and Tom Tancredo. Tancredo was pigeonholed into immigration issues, but answered his pet issue extremely well. Hunter showed more depth and had only a minor nuance stumble (I disliked his melancholy pandering rememberances of his father - sorry, I don't really care).

I think Thompson had some great answers and was allowed to show greater depth than Hunter, but I thought he had a few weak hacks at some breaking balls he should have hammered. I thought his answers on the Confederate flag and the plant abortion question were just OK - not great - and Fred should own all state's rights questions. But I especially loved his responses on guns - "I'm not telling you where I keep my guns" - and his defense of the office of the Vice President.

However, the biggest winners of the night were the Democrat candidates. Not only did they got to plant questions in a Republican debate, CNN intentionally selected questions to paint all Republicans (candidates and voters) as redneck, gun-toting, Bible-thumping, racist homophobes. That tarring won't directly hurt Republicans in primaries, we're smart enough to shrug off the liberal bias in the media's projection of who we are.

What disppoints me is that all of the smoke & mirrors of the Democrat plants and the irrelevant "God, Guns & Gays" stereotype in the contrived CNN debate will serve to obfuscate and diminish the negative impact of truly putrid performances of RINOs Rudy, Mitt & Huckabee. They were awful last night and will do great harm to our party and nation if they are not revealed to Republican primary/caucus voters.