All the candidates did well. Even Huckabee didn't sound like a religious crackpot, describing a candidate with the negative characteristics everyone is taking for Trump, "of course I am describing Hillary Clinton." Jeb Bush sounded competent and capable, listening to him you'd imagine Florida example of stability and not the meth lab we keep hearing it to be. Seems to me all the candidates save for Chris Cristie came across very well. Clear winner: Carly Fiorina who wasn't even in it. She out-shined in the earlier happy hour debate for the outlier candidates ahead of Perry and ahead of Jindal by a very broad margin. It appears Trunp forfeited some of his shine. His supporters are reporting changing their minds after seeing Trump in line with the others.
The three FOX moderators did well too.
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If there's one point where some are disagreeing, it's the moderators, who seem to have been out to score a few points of their own.
Cruz has a funny voice. It's high.
The candidates mention Reagan a lot. I started counting then became distracted by watering all the balcony plants and adding filtered water to the aquarium. This lionization is a bit disturbing.
Walker is the personality that I prefer for president, one that disappears and is not heard of for the most part save for important matters. Cruz is closest to ultimate candidate. Fiorina is attractive as candidate too.
The surgeon and Kasich are too "we gotta come together and be united as a country" and that ain't gonna happen. This country is dee-vie-did. Schizophrenic to put it mildly, the national personality disorder is much greater than mere schizophrenia more akin to grand hystérie. And it always will be. United? United in our desire to destroy each others hopes and dreams for each other's imagined futures, united in our desire to see our own other halves gravely disappointed, wounded and discouraged. For decades. That's how united, so talk of coming together is ridiculous unless it means come together to choke each other with our bare hands. Best to keep a distance.
"That's how united, so talk of coming together is ridiculous unless it means come together to choke each other with our bare hands. Best to keep a distance"
LOL. I always write off any Republican who talks about "uniting the country" or "reaching across the Aisle" or "putting aside partisanship" . Last time I looked it wasn't the conservatives or the R's that were "dividing" the country. Every R POTUS candidate since Nixon - with the except of Reagan - wanted to "reach across the aisle" and look where its gotten us.
I think they all did well too. So there was no thinning the herd.
These debates are worthless. We have too many candidates on stage and the moderators - elected by no one - have too much power to decide what's discussed.
This is better than 2012, when we had Chris Matthews asking the R's whether they believed in Evolution or the Bible - but not by much.
If you want informative debates, put 2 or 4 of them on stage, give each candidate a certain amount of time to talk. People talk about 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. Well, Lincoln didn't have to give a 2 minutes answer to loaded questions Like "Why do you hate the South?" - nor did he have to deal with a "Moderator" in the pocket of Douglas.
Its all academic anyway. Its going to Bush unless Trump can stop him, which he won't.
Hello President Hillary!
As I've told you all before. This is the process. This is how sausage is made and Trump doesn't like seeing how it's made it appears. He made no friends and dulled his shine because he's his own worst enemy. He was out of his element and it showed, so now we get to see how the winnowing process happens. I'm still a walker and fiorina fan, but he was ho hum. I wish Fiorina was there, she would have destroyed them all.
I had the Red Sox vs Yankees game on. Fox picked a bad day to do their debate.
My brother had the debate on in the living room, I caught some of it between innings.
My favorites (Walker and Fiorina) did fine. These debates can be useful if the candidates are really expressing their opinion and therefor their differences. I don't know how honest they are about that. They won't say what they think if they think it will hurt them, but some clear differences were made clear, especially with Christie and Paul.
I will vote for the candidate that I believe will do the most for the country using conservative and libertarian values. I will choose based on their history, and the debates. The value of a debate is figuring out who can win, because the campaign is how you do that. Their history is how they will work, and that's the real issue the other four years.
First, I thought the 9:00 PM moderators failed to ask enough questions of Ben Carson. I will try to find a count of questions directed to whom shortly.
Next, I'm likely to do as bagoh20 says above in the end. Finally, Walker sounds good, but he's a politician and I'm inclined to want a non-politician for a change...Carson/Fiorina or Fiorina/Carson would be fine by me. Call me naive...but the usual pols don't interest me much. My time in DOD made me averse to the status quo inflated bureaucracy which is what pols usually revert to once in office.
Republicans have an impressive lineup. Not the clown show I was expecting. I was 100% wrong in my expectation. I still think Carley did best of all. Cruz is closest to t-party principles and energy, and Carley is right there solidly too.
Kaisc, the Ohio guy, makes me a bit ill. He does well. Seems reasonable. "I took Ohio twice and blah blah." Both Jeb and Rubio talk about their experience in Florida as if Florida is shining example of conservative principles in action. Jeb blows off Common Core resistance with dismissiveness, "all that can be determined by the states. Just make sure to have high standards." He takes too much of Big Government activity in areas it doesn't belong as normal. He's just so F'n wrong for the time.
His ascension to candidacy is like a horrible misalignment of stars and planets starting with the moment of his birth to that woman in that family at that moment in time, and everything devolved from that blessed birth, the lad's entire upbringing geared toward politics of some fashion and ever aiming at the presidency of United States that would bring him to this spot on this stage at this time. You look at Bush and see a man whose entire existence is prearranged and the blob that went along the prearranged track with zero detours of his own making. It's impossible to see an individual without seeing the entire family standing right there with portraits of Senators and state representatives covering the walls behind them. Articles all over the place about Chelsea Clinton seeming a princess are more genuinely applied to Jeb Bush. But he did very well for himself in the debate. There was little to object to minus all the pre-loaded objections.
Chris Christie comes off as technocrat with all the answers. He also comes off as N.J. east-coast Democrat-politics hide-bound. The guy reeks. An authoritarian, ugh, and Big Government guy. Plus, and this is a big thing, he cannot, does not, control his own body weight, an important indicator of self-control and management abilities. It does. I think. It means you haven't managed your own body weight. It's fine to be fat, just fine. but people are unwilling to entrust management to people who don't manage themselves first. Same with smoking. And drinking. And the whole heroine thing way back then can really hold a guy back from positions of trust. It's seen as weakness. Even he did well with the debates.
I like Walker because: 1) he's shown he can win a purple public, and 2) he's the one politician on that stage that has actually done something about what I see as the biggest problem facing our nation fiscally and otherwise: public employee unions. He did what was previously believed impossible, and afterward people still think it's impossible.
Fiorina is the perfect weapon in the campaign, and you have to win or nothing else matters.
Fiorina/Walker would be OK too.
I'm certain that Rubio/Fiorina or vise versa can win easily. I think almost anybody can beat Hillary with Fiorina, except Trump. I don't think he can win the general, and he may kill it for all Republicans.
Although I like Cruz, and Carson as men and conservatives, I don't think they can win over enough lefties and moderates.
I'm not a doctor, but I've been known to play one on a Friday night. Some of my best doctor stuff was separating some twins once. I put them back together and separated them and repeated it over and over. It was some of my best work.
Hey bagoh20 ... we're not talking about your triple play romps :-) with twins or otherwise...but good for you anyway!
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