Posted by
Steve on Thursday, November 29, 2007 12:38:33 PM
The Republican Presidential hopefuls held another debate last night. This one was different in that most of the questions came from a pool of questions submitted through “You Tube”. Those are video questions from “real” people. CNN moderated the debate and selected the questions after vetting them to make sure no ringers get in.
CNN did a very poor job of vetting the questions. Most of the questions were from Democrat activists. The activists were either paid or volunteer staff for the three main contenders for the Democrat nomination for President. This seems fishy to me. CNN had two to three months to check out these people and could not find out whether they worked for Democrats. The internet conservatives spent minutes and found out who they worked for. CNN today is saying that they did not know that some of them were activists.
This is wrong. Republicans do not submit questions for Democrat debates. Democrats should not submit questions for Republican debates. As a result, the debate focused on Democrat issues, not Republican ones. When they got near Republican issues, they were phrased in such a way as to make the Republicans look bad. CNN should have been able to tell a biased question from a real question. They seem to be unable to tell the difference. It is probably because in their mind the Democrat biased questions were the real ones and the real questions were the biased ones. That is probably why there were so many biased questions and so few real questions.
There were a few good things that came out in the debate. There are signs that the Giuliani campaign is having trouble. Rudy Giuliani accused Mitt Romney of hiring illegal aliens. Mitt Romney fired back that he ran large companies. He had people that did the hiring and firing. They could have made mistakes and hired illegal aliens. But, his record as Governor shows his true intent with regard to illegal aliens. He stood tough against giving benefits to illegal aliens while Governor of Massachusetts. Rudy mildly came back with providing a sanctuary mansion where illegal aliens could live in peace with everyone. Rudy really shot himself in the foot with that one.
Another good moment in the debate came with Ron Paul and John McCain. Ron Paul had gone off about the war against Islamo-Fascism being illegal. John McCain came back with a comment that he was tired of having Ron Paul tear down our brave men and women in uniform. They are out there defending our freedom and deserve our praise. John McCain got some good points on that one.
Ron Paul was made to look like a fringe candidate by CNN. He had to stand there for a long time while others answered questions. Then when he did get a question, it was a silly one. All candidates deserve our respect and honor. Even though I think that Ron Paul’s campaign is hurting the Republican Party, I think he deserves our respect.
Who won the debate? Overall, I think that Mitt Romney came off the best. He tried to connect with voters by referring to how they would deal with things. That connection goes a long way to winning debates. The others had strong points and weak points. Rudy had to be the second best, but he was weak on immigration. He also showed his colors by not criticizing Mike Huckabee. He criticized almost everyone else. That shows that a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for Rudy Giuliani. It also shows that Mike Huckabee is trying to be Rudy Giuliani’s Vice-Presidential candidate.
Mike Huckabee seems to have stopped trying to win the Presidential nomination. He is acting like Richardson in the Democrat ranks. Both are criticizing everyone except for the person that they want to run with. The results to me are very telling. I hope that those that support Mike Huckabee see what he is doing. If I can see it, others must be able to see it. But, when you support someone you do tend to be blind and deaf when it comes to criticizing your candidate. I must confess that I do the same myself.