Posted on 01/06/2008 4:03:39 PM PST by CounterCounterCulture
Republican Presidential Candidate Debate #14 – Milford, New Hampshire 01/06/08 - Official Discussion Thread
Fox News Channel; Roundtable format
Candidates the gatekeepers are allowing to participating:
Yes. I'm hearing his answer to immigration again right now- He said the most with the least amount of time, of all the candidates.
“The only 2 people who can do that (get independents etc.) are McCain and Rudy. Which would you prefer? I like Rudy.”
I could support either man. I trust both of them in re: the War, which is the most important issue to me right now.
I don’t know that I agree with your premise. Fred’s a well know Hollywood actor. People in general must like him or he wouldn’t get all those well paid and highly visible roles. He is not weird, or nasty, or shrill, in other words, has not obvious personality flaws. I think he’s likeable.
Imagine him in a debate with Hilary; I think he’d come across as a far more mature and intelligent person. Men would FLOCK to him. In a debate with Obama; I think he’d come out as the far more mature and reasonable. I think he could win.
Yep...it’s sad..the whole thing.
We all know now that Fred is the ‘only true conservative on the ballot’ , (other than Hunter).I have sent Thompson lots of money now and fear he will give it to McCain if he drops out.
Between McCain and Rudy.....Rudy has my vote..and if the powers that be want to toss me out for saying it..go right ahead. “I hear the diggers waiting..they are leaning on their spades”...lol
Rudy has actually LEAD...McCain has always followed the Democrats when his ass was against the glass. Rudy told a bunch of Islamist moneymen to ‘shove it’ when this country needed to hear bravery from our leaders after 911....and there are MANY, who have not forgotten Rudy’s bravery and leadership! (EVEN IN MISSISSIPPI)
You guys want to make this about abortion, guns and borders?
Go right ahead. We will soon find ourselves where we did after Bill Clintoon came into office.....8 years of gun grabbing, pro abortion, and open border nutters in the judiciary, the state department,the FBI and the CIA.
Not to mention 8 years of tearing our military to shreads, giving our most valuable secrets to China,Russia, or anyone else that would promote the Clintons and democrats.
I forgot..we also LOST the senate and the house in 2006 when we tried to get tough on ‘immigration’ and were lead off the cliff by a bunch of ‘my way or the highway’ types.
Wake up folks. Do you want to win this election for the democrats again...or do we want to win one for the gipper?
Yes..I said ‘Gipper’...and I have every right to say it...I too am a TRUE CONSERVATIVE!!
I wish more candidates would follow Fred in critizing Mexico when illegal immigration is brought up!
ok thanks Happy New Year
He does this all the time. Yet, the dumb NH focus group said he was rambling. Rambling!
Why .. FGS .. isn’t this being reported or questioned?
ROMNEY: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.The Fred/Mitt interchange went on a ways further, but this is enough to make my points without cluttering this thread.
THOMPSON(1): I beg your pardon? I didn't know you were going to admit that. You like mandates.
ROMNEY: Let me -- let me -- oh, absolutely. Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred, which is this. If it weren't...
THOMPSON(2): The ones you come up with.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMNEY(3): Here's my view: If somebody -- if somebody can afford insurance and decides not to buy it, and then they get sick, they ought to pay their own way, as opposed to expect the government to pay their way.
ROMNEY: And that's an American principle. That's a principle of personal responsibility.
So, I said this: If you can afford to buy insurance, then buy it. You don't have to, if you don't want to buy it, but then you got to put enough money aside that you can pay your own way, because what we're not going to do is say, as we saw more and more people...
(1) Mitt was debating his health care ideas with Fred. By the first line I cited he had three options: a) try to hedge and have the Fred do the same thing to Mitt that Mitt did to Huck tonight and that Fred did to Rudy last night. b) deny mandates and have Fred break the record for the fewest words needed to end a presidential candidacy. Mitt surprised everyone, even Fred, by c) his response, and then asked a chance to defend it.
(2) Fred doesn't stay surprised long! But Mitt has merely taken a flesh wound and can attempt to fight on. Fred could have killed him had he tried a) or b).
(3)Mitt now attempts to defend his plan. He didn't do quite as good a job as I would have wished, but managed to survive the encounter. Check out a transcript if you want the rest of the interplay. Maybe it is harder to think with Fred looming over him. I wish he could have mentioned two more points:
First, under the status quo there already was a mandate. The free riders were mandated to receive free care at hospitals and ERs and the rest of us were forced to pay for them both directly through taxpayer subsidies to hospitals and ERs and through higher prices for paying customers, just as shoplifting raises prices for those who pay.
Second, Mitt's original plan offered one more option, an option to not buy insurance, but rather to maintain something like an escrow account against potential future medical expenses. I don't recall the precise details, but was reassured by another freeper last night I was generally correct on this. So he didn't intend to force everyone to spend on insurance, he wanted them to either buy insurance or have mandatory savings for it. So they can't stiff the hospitals, ERs and doctors. I'm a doctor and I get stiffed by way too many free riders. Often they have good jobs and insurance and still stiff me. For those who couldn't afford insurance or "escrow" options the state would subsidize their insurance. Responsible freepers who were healthy and wanted to self insure could; they'd essentially only be mandated to maintain sufficient liquidity in their investments and to pay their bills. Alas the legislature took out the "escrow" option and also restored most of the "shall cover" mandates that make insurance expensive.
I admit that when I first heard of his plan a couple years ago (well before I'd heard he was running for President) my initial reaction to the word "mandate" was probably the same as the initial reaction of many here. My second thought was confusion, on learning the Heritage Foundation had designed the plan. The words "Heritage" and "mandate" didn't fit together in my mind. From all that I've read on the history of plan and Mitt's discussions of it since his candidacy I believe he is primarily looking at health care from a free market standpoint and that he believed the final MA plan was the best he could get past his very liberal legislature. Mitt, at least on the stump, does say he's not pushing the specific final MA plan on all the states, but rather wants to push the states to find their own free market solutions via federalism.
But Fred looks really tired and comes across with not alot of energy. I don’t know if that’s going to cut it. I like Huckabees platform alot and the taxes that he raised were pretty small. His sales tax increase was one cent and he says the income tax rate was the same when he left office as when he went in. The fairtax would be a huge benefit to all of us and would return us more towards our founding as a country as far as taxation. The income tax is a horrible power over all of our paychecks.
Its a political 3rd rail. retiree’s on SS arent going to vote to have their checks cut.
It’s been reported. Most of the country just doesn’t give a crap.
No, we lost because of overspending and the perception that we were losing Iraq. In regards to illegal immigration, we lost because of McCainmnesty and because of moderate democrats who were elected because they acted like they would be tough on illegal immigration.
So you’re voting liberal?
Listening to his closing statement again, he said, when he's run for office, he's won. Even in a state Bill Clinton won. Good points. I liked him from the start, but, I can also say, that the more I hear him, the more I like him.
Hi StarFan, how are you? :o)
Thanks for that info... just checked out a few minutes of the CNN/WMUR debate. We missed parts of the RAT debate last night, but from what I've heard of it: Far less SUBSTANCE and specifics than we heard during the GOP debate.
I just loved the FNC debate with Chris Wallace tonight. Finally, a calm, substantive debate without that loon Ron Paul. FNC's post-debate shows were great, as usual: Brit Hume, Frank Luntz, Dick Morris, Sean and Alan.
We were at Varick's sports bar in Manchester, NH last night at a Mitt Romney debate-watching / post-debate party (Mitt, his wife Ann and two of their sons made an appearance after the debate there). We are not necessarily Mitt supporters, but Zelig and I and our friends wanted to get in on some of the "action" going on around town last night, and ended up there, as it wasn't too far from our hotel. (McCain had a post-debate party at a bar across town, but we chose to go to Mitt's party.)
During the GOP debate, you could have heard a pin drop in that bar... people were watching with rapt attention. A strange sight to see in a sports bar!
We were in Nashua-Manchester-Hollis-Milford, NH area for only about 24 hours, so I certainly don't qualify as any NH primary "expert", but here are some of our impressions during our brief stay there...
We saw on the streets (outside various venues) huge crowds for Obama, Hillary and McCain. The crowds for Obama and Hillary were so big that they caused some serious traffic jams (ie you'd be stuck for an hour or more if you timed it wrong.)
Edwards, Paul, Romney, Huckabee and Rudy seemed to mostly stick to smaller venues, including house parties. Didn't see/hear anything about any Thompson appearances. Here's a partial list of NH primary activities:
We saw large crowds everywhere of enthusiastic young people wearing Obama buttons... Just about every person we came into contact with was wearing some kind of political button.
Everywhere there were high, high snowbanks with every conceivable political lawn sign sticking out of them... (Wow, did NH get a lot of snow recently!) Of course the media were everywhere, with C-SPAN being a big presence of course. Streets clogged with media trucks, campaign buses and super-sized snowbanks didn't mix well. Parking and traffic were a problem at times.
Zelig and I and our friends were wearing anti-Hillary buttons (her face with a line thru it). It astounded me how many people came up to us exclaiming how they loved the buttons and that they felt the same way about Hillary. These were Republicans and Democrats! (I'm pretty sure the Democrats were Obama supporters) I knew Hillary had high negatives among the Republican and conservative ranks, but I admit I had no idea how many people within her own party also despise her. I'm hopeful that she may be "done" soon, but worried about what GOP candidate can beat Obama.
As you've already heard, most of the pundits agree that Obama and McCain (yikes) will probably take NH. I think Romney might be able to overtake McCain after tonight's FNC debate though. We'll soon find out...
Thanks for the report. I wish I could have been there.
It's called "staying on message." It is, or at least can be, a good thing.
It was Paul Weyrich, not Heritage Itself, but it’s founder.
My apologies. 40 Lashes for me.
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