In the run-up to, and during, the 2008 primaries, the Democrats had about 19 debates. I think the Republicans had a few less than that, but I can’t remember with certainty. What I do remember is that the Republican debates were a bit of a freak show. On the far end, Tom Tancredo was so crazy that the others frequently rolled their eyes at his ravings. Rudy Guiliani evoked 9/11 so often that Joe Biden quipped that his entire vocabulary consisted of a noun, a verb, and 9/11. Fred Thompson appeared to be asleep half the time. Mike Huckabee kept arriving on the arm of Chuck Norris. John McCain just appeared irritable. And all of them competed to see how frequently they could mention Ronald Reagan’s name. The low point came during a CNN/You Tube debate. Here’s a first hand account of how that went:
On stage, while our section of the audience was whispering like bored high school students, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were attacking each other for being too soft on illegal immigrants. If I recall the exchange correctly, it went something like this:
Mitt: “Nyah, nyah, you ran a sanctuary city, nyah nyah nyah.”
Rudy: “Did not, and you’re nothing but a big old boobie-head.”
Tom Tancredo: “I’m meaner to illegal immigrants than both of you put together, yuck, yuck, yuck.”
Rudy: “Mitt hires illegals to work on his house. He has a sanctuary mansion, heh, heh, heh.”
John McCain: “Hey, kids, isn’t this a nuanced issue that deserves serious consideration, not silly yammer?”
Maybe these weren’t the exact words, but I believe I caught the substance of the conversation correctly: it was flat-out, grade-school name-calling — until mean old Mr. McCain, the playground monitor, broke up the argument.
This nonsense is supposed to help us choose a president? Oy!
Obviously, the YouTube debate was focused on the younger generation, but the slate of old, white, pissed-off Latino-hating fools had no appeal to the younger generation. The post-debate spin was a distraction about how some of the videos had been supplied by Democratic plants. That’s how badly the candidates performed.
Is next year going to be any different? I can see it now:
Mitt: “Nyah, nyah, you voted for the bank bailout, nyah nyah nyah.”
Thune: “Did not, and you created ObamaCare in Massachusetts.”
Santorum: “I’m meaner to illegal immigrants than both of you put together, yuck, yuck, yuck.”
Palin: “Pawlenty accepted Stimulus Funds.”
Pawlenty: “Yeah, but I called it a Band-Aid that is not going to solve the problem”
Santorum: Sha’aria!! Ground Zero Mosque!!
In other words, a complete friggin’ nightmare and disgrace.
And when they actually talk policy, it will have no relationship to anything that might resemble arithmetic. In their world, the health care bill will cost money rather than save it. Huge tax cuts will balance the budget rather than sending the deficit into freefall.
Kinda puts this in perspective:
“In 2006, due to his rock-star status campaigning for other Democrats, political observers could already sense that Obama would be a BIG deal if he ran for president. Ditto Hillary Clinton, whose march to Senate re-election was attracting plenty of buzz. Right now, the only Republican outside of Palin who’s even approaching the same buzz that Obama and Clinton received in ’06 is someone who has said he won’t run: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. There are A LOT of 2012 GOPers traveling the country (Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Santorum, etc), and none is even close to getting real buzz in the base of the party right now.”
With Palin attracting the approval of less than half of registered Republicans, she’s not so much a star either. Yet, one of these clowns has to win the nomination. Right?
