FOX News Hosts Republican Presidential Debate

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The folks at FOX News really ought to take a bow. The job that they did in comparison to the pathetic attempt at a debate that MSNBC put out a few weeks ago couldn’t be further apart. On MSNBC, the “spotlight” trended towards the moderators and the MSNBC group (this is true of both the Republican and Democratic debates on that horrible channel). With the Republican debate on FOX News tonight, the spotlight was clearly on the candidates and if you don’t believe that, then ask Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul!

Not only did Ron Paul show why he’s just not a good candidate for a national party, but Rudy got a chance to shine on his strong point (terrorism), but not before he was beaten up by moderator Chris Wallace about other issues. I also enjoyed the question that asked Tommy Thompson which three departments he would eliminate from the federal government to curb spending. At first, he didn’t answer the question, but they went immediately back to him and asked him to choose one department that he would ax upon inauguration. Great job by the moderators of making a candidate answer a question!

The Giuliani-Paul interaction will be covered ad nauseum on every website out there so all I will add to my previous comment is that Paul is a goof and time spent on him during these debates is really wasted time. In terms of who used their time well, I thought that McCain and Romney could have spent a few less minutes busting on each other and a little more time focusing on topical issues at hand. That being said, I still think that Mitt Romney came out looking pretty good at the end of this debate with Giuliani coming in a strong second.

Something really needs to be said about the awkward position that these Republican candidates are in, though. On the one hand, they are tasked with winning the nomination for the current party which holds the Presidency. However, on the back of that hand is the fact that the vast majority of America (and a few of those include Republicans) are not happy with President Bush! Former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell (who I think is a great political thinker) tried to make this point at the end of FOX News’ coverage.

The reason that I bring this up is because all the Democratic candidates have to do is point at George Bush and say is, “I’ll do the opposite of what that guy is doing,” and they’d win a head-to-head poll against the sitting President. However, the Republicans actually have to put forth a different platform that adheres to the same basic ideals of the sitting President and find a way to get a majority of America to say, “Alright. This Bush guy goofed up while he was in office - let’s see if you can do a better job.”

Ain’t that a bitch!

I have to say this before I go, though - how great was, “We have a Congress who spends money like John Edwards at a beauty shoppe!”

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 11:59 pm and is filed under United States Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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