Also surprised you have no comment yet on the gay general planted by the Clintons. But maybe that’s a whole separate post.

I know BB, bad timing. Today is my long day at work, just did one shift and heading out to do another so I just put together a quick post on the news.

It was gratifying to hear Rush say this morning that while he doesn’t provide endorsements it suddenly hit him during the debate that Fred is the only true conservative.

If the Republicans don’t coalesce behind Fred, then we truly want a court jester for a king. If an experienced actor isn’t a good enough crowd pleaser because he choses not to smile all the time like an idiot or endorse constitutional amendments to please the Evangelicals, or looks older than an acceptable male model for a high-end publication, we all deserve what we’ll get: a tall, youngish-looking, aggressive liberal flip-flopper (Republican or Democrat), a VERY aggressive liberal flip-flopper, a good-looking religious liberal, a female Socialist flip-flopper, or a “clean and articulate” Socialist empty suite. In other words, we all want a smiley, good looking liberal (or worse) flip-flopper, is that it???

While the republican candidates have now wandered into “hostile” territory more than once, the fact that wussie democrats can’t appear on a Fox News venue speaks volumes about the their own backbones/spinelessness to face tough questions. CNN’s “personal faith” question that most of the candidates answered adequately will never be asked at a democrat debate because of the fear that they will alienate a strong contingent of their secular progressives that despise the fact that this nation was founded and developed on Christian principals. While many (even here at Flopping Aces) may care to debate this, the fact that an enormous block of voters across this nation believe in these principals cannot be ignored.

I would love to see the democrats squirm with even a generic question like “where do you stand on your personal faith principals when guiding your daily lives?”.

Many will be looking forward to the day when the democrats (or the finalist) will be in a venue where they will have to answer the “tough” questions that may not be scripted like “what are your specific plans to protect this nation from being attacked again?” OR “do you plan to abolish the Patriot Act if elected?” OR “where do you stand on sancuary cities?” OR “can you promise to not raise taxes, if elected?” All of these are VALID questions, (IMHO)

Also surprised you have no comment yet on the gay general planted by the Clintons. But maybe that’s a whole separate post.

My rankings for the debate:
Top two: McCain and Thompson
Did OK: Giuliani, Tancredo
No change (or should I say no air time): Paul, Hunter
Losers: Huckabee, Romney

More detailed impressions:
Thompson: good, solid answers, and some of the better laugh lines of the night. Looking a lot more comfortable. I think his ad choice was fine - a little risky maybe but I think it made a point for him.
McCain: it’s clear from some of his answers that McCain is motivated by a vision of America as a great and noble country, needing only inspiration and leadership to solve even the most difficult problems. In that sense, McCain is a lot like JFK (and no, that’s not an unmitigated compliment). It’s unfortunate that the McCain on the stage last night isn’t the same McCain you get back in the real world.
Giuliani: got dinged by Romney in their exchange on immigration (I think he got slightly the worse of it, though neither of them ended up looking good). Also took a hit on his second amendment position - I’m glad that finally came up. I think it’s interesting that people accuse him of wrapping himself in 9/11 when a more accurate accusation would be that he wraps himself in NYC crime statistics.
Tancredo: seemed more relaxed. Did well, I think, on every question (not that many) that came his way. Excellent answer on the ‘Mars program’ question (much better than Huck).
Hunter: pinstriped suit made him look a little mobbed up, or maybe just anachronistic. Spent a lot of time talking about family and tradition.
Paul: lots of ‘gotcha’ questions for Paul. Only one to actually answer the question about which three government agencies he’d abolish. Had a decent moment (in reply to McCain) when he pointed out that Washington hadn’t changed him. But I doubt he won or lost any supporters here.
Romney: scored points early on against both Giuliani and McCain, and I thought he was doing very well. Then he got a series of tough questions and turned into the Waffle King. Romney has the problem that he’s decided that he needs to lie in order to get elected, *but he’s not a good liar*.
Also, he was much more disciplined than the other guys about always looking at the camera; but later on that tendency made him have several ‘deer in the headlights’ moments (while answering tough questions).
Huckabee: very few straight answers from Huck. OK, some of the questions didn’t deserve straight answers (’as to the death penalty… WWJD? Huh? Huh?’). But his response to Fred’s ad was a non-answer. He couldn’t really name a federal agency to abolish (OK, he named the IRS, but since he’d replace it with a national sales tax agency that’s not a net gain). I couldn’t parse his answer to the Mars program question. He got dinged by Romney on aid to illegal immigrants. I’m surprised anyone ranks him as winner of the debate.

But that is my opinion.

I’m a veteran of the U.S. Air Force active duty (4yrs) and I currently serve as a traditional guardsman in the Air National Guard. All military personnel upon enlistment take the oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” A vote for Rep. Paul does just that. Ron Paul has my support.

There is an obvious media bias and it is sad. Rep. Paul is the one candidate of the crowd who has substantially differing views and he was not given much of a chance to articulate those views. Much time was given to marginal issues and small differences between other candidates’ positions on the issues. I suspect many special interest groups have much to lose if a President Paul had a chance to use his veto pen. This is reflected in the lack of time given to Rep. Paul.