Politics and Culture

In level of pathos-drenched rhetoric and intellectual sophistication, comparing a Democrat debate to a Republican one is like comparing Britney Spears to Frank Sinatra, Charles in Charge with The Sopranos, or a Yugo to a BMW. Nothing in this debate was as stupid as the typical Kucinich ("No human being is illegal."), Richardson ("Tell Mexico to give their people jobs."), or Obama (Pick one.) statement (I'll criticize Hillary as soon as she says something. You can go here and here for Democrat debate analysis). The Republican field also spared us the "Well, I've got a program just for you" mentality of our Democrat brothers and sisters.

Besides the awkward and useless opening song and the creepy Bible guy, the youtube aspect of the debate wasn't too bad.

Follow up:

On to it, then:

Giuliani:

Good: Giuliani showed off his sense of humor with the Yankees answer (although, sports questions are easy to joke about) amongst others and demonstrated why he'll win: He's simply the most compelling person. He speaks well and has a head full of specific examples and remedies. His Bible and abortion answers were perfect. His statement that we should be offending terrorists and that Americans are smart enough to know the difference between good and dangerous Muslims was direct and common-sensical.

Bad and Ugly: Giuliani didn't make a gaffe; he planned an attack that was not only unbecoming a gentleman, but pointless and Bob Mulholland demagogic. He told Romney that he lacked credibility on illegal immigration because his landscaper hired an illegal alien (here). It's completely unreasonable for anyone to expect that a governor will walk down the steps to check his gardeners' credentials. It made Giuliani look cheap, unserious, and dumb. Although not completely analogous, Giuliani's accusation reminded me of Bob Kerry's "Lesbian" campaign-sinker during one of Kerry's debates with Bush.

I roll my eyes when Giuliani reminds us about his record, but maybe I've watched too many of these. He did confront the issue well by noting that he has a great pre-9/11 record.

Romney:

Good: He stood up a little more strongly to McCain who seems to have it in for him (If you remember the last debate, McCain kind of punked him.). As always, Romney showed himself a smart man with ready answers.

Bad: He lacks Giuliani's charisma and can't help but come off as too polished (what can he do: mess up his hair? curse?). His abortion change-of-heart still comes off as a little insincere despite having practiced it a million times.

Sometimes, Romney dodges questions for no reason. His Bible interpretation answer was unnecessarily vague. He did it again with the "gays in the military" question. He thinks gays should serve in the military, but only in times of peace. Huh?

McCain:

Good: McCain doesn't suffer fools. Like a man with nothing to lose, he regularly chastises his competitors. He did it to Paul on Iraq and Romney on torture. Both times, the attacks seemed more of a service to the nation than a political move. McCain got the better of his victims in both exchanges. His illegal alien answer took the high road and, again, came from a man who wants to solve problems more than win the presidency.

Bad: He seemed tired at times.

Thompson:

Good: After Giuliani attacked Romney on hiring illegal aliens, Thompson left Giuliani speechless by criticizing Giuliani's own hiring decisions (because of the Kerik scandal). His answers were all wonderful and correct.

Bad: Sorry, but Thompson came off as inconsequential. The energy level dipped noticeably whenever he spoke.

Paul:

Good: I generally agree with his drift on domestic issues.

Bad: If you notice, Paul never talks about specifics. Like a true ideologue, everything he says is general and philosophical.

"What about this program?"

Paul: "We shouldn't have programs."

"What about this country that wants nuclear weapons?"

Paul: "We shouldn't be in other countries."

As his rivals pointed out: If Paul thinks that Islamic radicals are just mad because we meddle in their affairs (go out of our way to defeat their tyrants), he's a naive fool.

Tancredo:

Good: Not too bad. Solid, smart answers. His Bible answer was a little forced and beside the point.

Bad: Nothing really. See Thompson.

Hunter:

Good: Hunter's best line was: "I don't apologize for America" (To avoid jingoistic extremism, we should when we do wrong, but the way.).

Bad: Hunter gave a rather bizarre answer to Hillary's planted "gays in the military" question. Instead of pointing out the impractical aspects of having gays in the military or deferring to generals or something, Hunter said that we shouldn't have gays in the military because most of the soldiers are conservative. This could be viewed as honest. The statement can also be used to paint conservatives as intolerant.