GOP Presidential Debate - Discussion Thread

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That would be pretty funny. I do hope Paul does well tonight.

I'm setting the over/under for number of times Reagan's name gets mentioned tonight at 65.

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I wonder if Matthews will grandstand, forgetting that it's not his show.

I'm thinking Tancredo is the most likely to go Zell Miller on him.

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I wonder if Matthews will grandstand, forgetting that it's not his show.

I'm thinking Tancredo is the most likely to go Zell Miller on him.

Did any of you see MSNBC's post-debate coverage last week, when Matthews was interviewing Mike Gravel, and Gravel made some comment to Matthews about how "you in the media aren't doing your job", and as Matthews was moving onto the next question he said "you got a little zing against me in your answer", and Gravel interjected "well, you deserve it"?

Matthews (for the third time): "Where have you been for 35 years?"
Gravel: "Hiding under a rock (start of Matthews' laughter) cause I'm so disgusted with Congress."

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Ronald Reagan has a bigass Soviet flag in his presidential library.

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I liked the video that was just shown of all the candidates walking through the library; it was nice to see them interacting with each other, although you do have to wonder what they were saying.

"I'm going to kick your ass tonight!"

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Is it me or do I sense more excitement buzzing around tonight's GOP debates than the Dem debates of last week? 

Here is my prediction:  ratings for the GOP debate will be alot greater than for the Dem debates.   just another early warning sign that 2008 will not be a Democratic year

I'm thinking that part of it is that a lot of people are wondering what the Republican hopefuls' opinion on the current President is. With the Dems, we all knew ahead of time. You're going to get a lot more argument on this point with the Republicans. If Bush gets thrown under a bus tonight (very unlikely), one could make the argument that he's a lame duck with 20 months left in his term. If everyone champions him tonight, we'll know that the Republican Party, despite misgivings, are still steadfast in support of the President's policies in Iraq.

Plus, Republicans are not as tied together as the Democrats are, there are a lot more different opinions on stage tonight.

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If Bush gets thrown under a bus tonight (very unlikely), one could make the argument that he's a lame duck with 20 months left in his term.

Ummm, where have you been? He's been a lame duck since mid-2005.

I meant among Republicans, as those are the people on view tonight.

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Matthews going after Huckabee.

Brownback invoking the spirit of Joe Lieberman.

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Tancredo is very jittery.

Yeah I noticed that too.


Matthews hits out at the debaters picking their questions.

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OH GOD... Romney is pushing his new found respect for life hard

Are you surprised?

Props to McCain on volunteering to talk on immigration after Tancredo.

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I feel like we have talked about a lot of issues and we're only 55 minutes in. Matthews is doing a better job than Williams on enforcing time restraints and moving quickly.

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Paul flubbed his last question... not that it really matters.

Paul is more a curiosity than anything, kinda like Kucinich in 04

Forza libertarians!

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Who the f*** asked the question on the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. Props to Giuliani for knowing history but doesn't Politico.com screen questions?

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Paul is doing awful.

Considering that most of us on here know what you get from Ron Paul, to a really informed audience, he's done okay, but to the general public he needed to seem stronger. In a way, at least in speaking style, he seems milquetoast IMO. When all is said and done, a long-shot like Gravel will have done more to advance their campaign than a long-shot like Paul.

It's sad in a way, being bombastic is the only way to get noticed.

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Wow... Romney is such a heel

In the wrestling sense?

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I will take my stab at ranking these folks tonight:

1 ) Brownback
2 ) Gillmore
3 ) Rudy
4 ) Romney
5 ) Thompson
6 ) Hunter
7 ) Huckabee
8 ) Tancredo
9 ) McCain
10) Paul

I honestly can't come up with a ranking to differentiate between them.


-Romney was the classical politician trying to be all things to everyone.

-I'm biased about Paul cause he represents my views the most, I thought he did a good job, but like I said I'm biased.

-Tancredo did not strike me as the hardcore conservative that I thought he was. I thought Brownback and Huckabee stood out more as conservatives.

-McCain, Paul, and Giuliani I think struck me as the most distinct in their views compared to the other candidates.

-I forgot Duncan Hunter and Gilmore was there.


Of the Big Three candidates for the Republicans, if I pick one of them in a primary, I'd still pick McCain.

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Wow... Romney is such a heel

In the wrestling sense?

yeah

Now that you mention it, it makes sense in a way. That means if he's the nominee, it'll be easy to paint him as the bad guy to voters.

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And here may be the most important thing I noticed....
-I did not see a President on that stage tonight.

Do you support Fred Thompson's entry into the race more or less now?

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So when do the democrats stand in front of Brit Hume? 

Chris Matthews voted for Bush twice. Nice try though.

He's definitely a left-leaning independent though, I'd say.

I remember when Matthews was on The Daily Show being interviewed by Jon Stewart. (It's on the Indecision 2004 DVD set.) Stewart brought up that Kerry came on his show once.  Matthews asked Stewart if Stewart knew what Kerry's position on the war was. Matthews then said that he told Kerry to say what his position was on the war and make up his mind, quote "to make this election about something" unquote. I thought it was an odd comment for a journalist to make. It was a genuine statement, not some kind of cast-off laugh response.

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I'd vote for most Democrats over Romney.

I won't say I'll vote for a Democrat, I'll vote third party though.

When will politicians from Massachusetts realize that no one in the rest of the country wants them for President? Ted Kennedy, Dukakis, Tsongas, Kerry, now Romney.

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I think live analysis is better than post-analysis because post-analysis always gets skewed toward one viewpoint. So here's a montage of blog posts from msnbc.com's First Read for a live view:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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"John McCain won. Let's not dance around this."

The comments all say that mcCain did really bad.

"Duncan Hunter boosted his profile."

"Hunter did very well. McCain came across badly. The others were non-entitites."

Read this, top post at this time. http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/who_won_who_lost_first_take#comment