Republican YouTube Debate

Well, if you missed the debate, you didn’t miss much. While I didn’t live blog it, I did watch the whole thing (and managed to stay awake). I didn’t see any surprises and there really was nothing new. A quick review of what I remember from left to right as they were on the stage.

Tancredo was happy that the others were talking about finally enforcing the borders. I think he’s happy and feels he has won because many of the candidates are finally talking about actually having national borders. Of course Hunter is the only one who really has done anything about borders. Wouldn’t it be neat to have a president we could nickname “Tank?”

Huckabee continued to be consistent — socially conservative, financially more liberal than anyone else. He promised to spend more money every chance he got. He really scares me. He denied raising taxes, sort of, after being shown a clip that had him saying that he was okay with raising taxes. Nice guy, but someone needs to tell Chuck Norris that this guy is a HUGE government guy.

Romney worked hard on perfecting the art of waffling. He smiled a lot and looked very, very slick. He evaded many answer, but also promised to continue big government spending. I think the press enjoying him arguing with Rudy. I still simply cannot vote for this guy — he is also a big government controlling politician. But he does seem better than Rudy.

Rudy, I think, looked bad (and not just because I can’t vote for him). He kept talking, over and over again, about what he had done with New York. When Romney hit him a few times, it became more clear that he appears to be in over his head. He knows what he did in New York that worked, and he seemed to imply that what he did there he would do for America — not really realizing that America is quite a bit bigger than just New York. And he continued to never actually answer ANY question asked of him. Hey Rudy — you ran a sanctuary city, no matter how many times you deny it.

Thompson looked tall. After the opening, the cameras were very careful to never show Thompson standing next to Rudy. And Thompson appeared to be going after the audience demographic — he started almost every answer off with an attempt at a joke and really looked like he was just going for total entertainment value. He had some decent answers, but again, really didn’t seem to focus on issues as he wanted to entertain.

McCain was in a war, did you know that? And he’s talked to the troops constantly. In fact, I think he had some active duty members backstage to talk to. That’s pretty much all he said. Over and over again. I think he really got slammed by Paul when McCain said that “we never lost a battle in Vietnam,” and Paul quoted some other guy who said, basically, “yeah, and how’d that work out for you?”

Paul was next — I think he was placed next to McCain this time so they’d fight for the entertainment value, and they did. Paul stayed on his usual themes and did quite well. Tancredo told Paul that he just didn’t think getting out of the Middle East would do any good — but know what? In the past 60 years, it simply hasn’t been tried. We have had troops deployed all over the planet. No one can say what would happen if we brought our troops home simply because it’s never been tried. And Paul really schooled McCain when he had to again explain the difference between “isolationist” and “non-interventionist.” There’s a big difference and I think Paul might have the right idea here.

Hunter was on the far right, but he didn’t get to talk much. That’s too bad because he really does have a lot of good things to say. He promised that he would build the fence that Bush is too chicken to build, creating a border on the southern edge of this country. That would be a very good thing. I could actually vote for Hunter, but he’s really having trouble getting traction, and this debate just didn’t help him any.

So there you have it, Ogre’s 2-hour debate wrap up in 5 minutes!

Update: Peter Porcupine has another quick review up.