well I watched the debate last night (yes my comments on this thread before were before I had actually seen it :)).
My thoughts were more against Romney and Rudy and Huckbee than anything. They gave politician, rehearsed answers, trying to touch ‘all bases’, being as vague and as liberal as possible. Obviously they put a lot of ‘preparation’ into the debate and it showed, and for the worse.
My favorite was actually Thompson, I thought he gave pretty good knock down conservative answers, non pandering and didn’t display any of the ‘oldness’ or ‘weakness’ people talked about in this thread. He is probaly the only alternative I would vote for (although not campaign for), besides Paul.
Brownback, and Trancredo, I liked personally, which is interesting because I’m not a fan of Trancredo’s immigration stance, but I still found his other views, although not articulated particularly well to be refrshing. Brownback is off on foreign policy, but gave some good views on some other subject.
Duncan, with his ‘communist china’ (drink) and seeming protectionism, and other stances didn’t seem like a small gov conservative, more like a football player. McCain, couldn’t really pin him down, he seemed sincere, but liberal as in ‘just not getting it liberal’. lol
Paul, obviously, regardless of the debate, I support the most because of his past record and present positions on repealing American socialism, I thought underperformed. To be honest I thought he would excell in an economics debate as he has the best domestic economics voting record of any candidate on the stage, bar none, period, end of story, it’s not even close. Yet, first he only got to speak like 3 times, certainly the least of any candidate and the times he did speak he sounded more like a democrat. One would not have known he was the most conservative domestic candidate on the stage. At the end interview Lary Kudow basically had to pull it out of him how he would abolish half the fed gov. Why isn’t he proud of this, why doesn’t he say this the first time they ask him a question? Why doesn’t he talk about how he wants to abolish the IRS?
His views on foreign policy are good and he should defend them, not talk about them in ways that get him lumped with far left foreign policy, using words like ‘military industrial complex’ and he even mentioned ‘medical industrial comlex’, which is interesting but deserves explanation, not just being thrown out there.
So, that’s my 2 cents, somewhat dissapointed, maybe we’ll see better next time. :)
oh and btw, how come no candidate took the unions to task? Paul and some of the others did a little bit, but didn’t elaborate.
I thought the extent of Paul's answer on unions was something like "I believe in the right of the people to unionize..." not exactly taking them to task.
Mr. Paul: The right to unionize should be a basic right of any group.
Mr. Paul: You should be able to organize. You should have no privileges, no special benefits legislated to benefit the unions, but you should never deny any working group to organize and negotiate for the best set of standards of working conditions.
That was his entire answer to the question.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119196048730753698.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
“So, that’s my 2 cents, somewhat dissapointed, maybe we’ll see better next time. :)”
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As I said, it’s early yet. I’m sure there will be another dozen more debates...ok, maybe I’m exaggerating, but there will be some opportunity to do better. I’m trying my best to keep the faith...I just hope our candidates don’t disappoint. The thought of another 4 years of Clinton (or 4 years of any of the other Democrat/socialist candidates) is enough to make me ill.