Paul & Hunter Out Of Debates

Curt – I disagree with basing the debates on polling numbers. The polls are nothing more than the media’s way of running the Primary campaigns. And stories on polls are nothing more than the mass media and political pundits not wanting to talk about substance and policy and instead saying “see, see! the people say X, so this candidate must be popular!”

I call BS.

I want an end to polls. Since that won’t happen, I want an end to those of us who take our country seriously taking polls seriously. We should have learned the lesson after the exit polls in the 2004 election were used to try to sway that election. The same thing is happening now. The mass media is putting out polls to try to sway the “we need to support the popular candidate, not the best candidate based on my principles” group of voters.

Just look at how the polls have gone back and forth the last couple months, based on the latest media pushed story about any one of the candidates. First Rudy was ahead, then Fred got a bounce, then they pushed Huckabee out of nowhere, then Mitt was ahead, etc etc etc. Anyone who has been paying attention to politics and is a principled person should not be shifting their allegiance so easily based on whatever story (whether of substance or whether of hats and fire in the belly nonsense) the media and certain political pundits want to push.

The only voters in this campaign I really have any respect for anymore are the Ron Paul supporters, because they, aside from all their looney tactics, have not allowed polls to dampen their support for their candidate.

Supporters of other candidates could learn a lot from Ron Paul supporters in that sense. Instead of seeing this ridiculous hyperventilating every single god forsaken day whenever the lastest poll comes out.

Are we the Party of Bill Clinton who make all our decisions based on polls? I know I am not. I make my decisions and vote based on principles and values. It is high time people started ignoring the polls and started writing about substance.

All of this poll watching by Republican voters is really starting to grate on me, because it is coming from the same Republican voters who said the polls on the war effort were meaningless and we should ignore them. How about those people take their own advice here as well.

Polls are meaningless. They are the mass media’s way of running the elections. Stop paying attention to them and take a lesson from the Ron Paul supporters and put your full support behind your candidate until the end.

I know we disagree on this issue, Curt and that’s fine.

I agree with you about having a debate of substance. But even widdling down the candidates does not make for a debate of substance. When the topics and questions are not of substance, then it won’t matter if there are 10 candidates or 2.

The problem is the debate questions and the format, not the number of candidates, in my opinion. Change the debate format to a roundtable discussion of say 4 main topics and allow the candidates to roundtable discuss things for 15 minutes for each topic.

Something needs to change, Curt and if we continue to accept the status quo of our mass media pushing their agenda and directing each of these debates based on whom they want to demonize and whom they want to support, we are going to continue to have an ignorant populace voting for candidates who are getting away with not addressing important issues.

This is one of the major reasons that I like what Fred Thompson is doing with this campaign. He is not playing the game, but instead of focusing on policy. But, look what’s going on. Because of that, he is attacked as lazy, not having fire in the belly, etc. Well, I want my political candidates to be more like Fred and less with the stupid political ads and and attack ads and meaningless soundbite answer debates.

You and others will probably say that we have to campaign based on the reality of today’s political climate. I disagree. I want leaders who will lead the people, not politicians who will campaign down to the ignorance of the people. I see Fred doing the leading and I support him because of it.

It’s actually unknowable without a lot of study to what degree polls influence a candidate popularity, and as a side consequence, further polls. I also read everything I can about Fred’s strategy based on his concept of social contract without misleading anyone, and entering the race relatively late, and in general how he deals with things and the media, and I can’t make up my mind as to whether it makes sense or not. Those of us who believe in Fred also believe that he is a wise man and an honest man. When a wise and honest man, even today, says that his strategy is the right one to every question about it, that it’s a kind of a test: if he is both wise and honest than he is destined to win. When he starts raising expectation about how he will finish in Iowa, if he is wise and honest you have to believe that he knows something others don’t. If this is just a tactic, than he is not that honest. If he believes in something that will soon be demonstrated to be false than he is not very wise. Therefore there is nothing to worry about it, kind of. Because even a not totally wise Fred is better than the rest of the field, but to me it’s comforting to know that if he is really good than he is going to win.

And this is an interesting article from/about the guy who asked the latest question about whether Fred really wants to run for President that started the latest cycle of “I’m misquoted/He has no fire in the belly”:

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2RhN2UwMWRlMjRjOThjNDM3NGMxMzFmMzFkNGY2MTA=

“But, the networks who put on the debate unfortunately get to decide how its conducted. It’s up to the candidates to demand something different but if they can’t agree then it stays status quo.”

Unfortunately, Curt, in the 2008 campaign, we have allowed the mass media to take the debate format from bad to worse, with their introduction of the YouTube debates.

The candidates can only do so much, as they would ALL have to agree to not attend silly debates such as these. But when a few accept the invitation, then the others have to accept for fear of looking bad politically.

I say that it is up to us, the 300+ million citizens of this nation to demand better from our politicians.

As I said before, I like that Fred is not jumping through hoops and playing all these same political games. He is trying to do it the right way by focusing on policy and message, instead of 30 second empty soundbite political messages that say pretty much nothing.

I am a fan of Rush Limbaugh and one of his main messages is that an informed voting public is a better voting public. I believe most of the politicians want to keep the voting public ignorant and uninformed, because then they can give empty rhetoric on issues and continue the status quo of lousy politics. Personally, I want a more informed public, so that they stop falling for the agenda driven media lies and start holding our elected “leaders” to account on legislation, spending bills, etc.

This is not going to happen if we all continue to accept the status quo of American politics and status quo of soundbite campaigning.