Politics

There was a debate recently amongst the Republican Candidates that I would have known nothing about had my brother not posted something about it on Facebook. But he did, and I had time and I took the opportunity to read the transcript from said debate. There were a few things that struck me from the debate itself and from a few articles about the debate. Most of these people I know nothing about other than what I can remember from listening to the debate, so bear with me. I may be way off on things.

The moderating job didn't seem to be done very well. The guy even forgot that Romney came before Santorum. Thankfully, Santorum caught it and passed the spotlight to Romney, but Romney had to rub the poor PBS guy's face in it a little before continuing.

The winners and the losers seem to be determined by who got to talk the most. In the context of Proverbs, this bothers me. Romney did a lot of talking; he seems popular; from what was written, he seemed to have the easiest time communicating his ideas and thoughts - other people seemed to stumble around for words a bit - and from what I read today, he doesn't seem like he'd be terrible for our economy. However, he did a lot of talking, and I find that I can't sum him up at all. There's nothing I can say, "He is definitely for (or against) X." That makes him seem very much a politician and that makes me not trust him.

Santorum is for family. That was obvious when he said, "Families that have two- that have a husband and a wife working. . . ." He didn't want to say families that have two "parents." I wished he'd said more without mentioning Cain. He also seemed to be for cutting taxes, which sounds good to little ole me.

Ron Paul (It seems weird if I just called him Paul. . . .) seems very informed and unpopular to the point of everyone paying attention knowing that he's the "unmentionable guy." He gets included in appearance but he's not in the In Crowd. I can't remember anyone asking him a question; he got lumped in with the "Winners" by virtue of asking worthy questions; and basically was ignored (as far as I saw) in the reports on the debate. He was also the only person mentioned in the fact-checkers article that didn't say anything wrong (unlike Santorum, Romney, Cain, Perry, Bachmann, and Huntsman), if you trust the people who wrote the article.

I'd never seen Cain, nor heard him speak before, but I was very turned off to him. He had one tune, and he didn't seem to understand it very well. He seemed to want simplicity in a complex situation, and I don't think he's going to find it. I was a little surprised about him, because I'd heard a lot of talk about him, and he was nothing like what I expected. He was nit-picky and overall didn't seem very gracious. The question wasn't about the morality of beer as opposed to pizza; it was about taxing food.

In my opinion, Bachmann should get out of it. I think she's a smart, classy lady, but she didn't seem to have very much ability to say what she wanted to. She was difficult to understand and she went back and forth from being, "I'm a mother of 28" to "I'm a lawyer." On the one hand, she seemed almost too down to earth, and on the other hand she struck me as being very legally minded. Maybe it was an off day for her or maybe I just didn't get her. I don't know.

Huntsman didn't seem to be taking it seriously and therefore, I found it hard to take him seriously. He also totally spaced on the point of how (I think it was Romney) wanted to repeal Obamacare and how that worked. I liked how Santorum jumped in and explained it for him. Hehehehe.

Gingrich didn't seem to be there for himself. He seemed to be there to say, "Yeah, he's right about that. You've got that right, Bachmann. Listen to so-and-so." It was slightly confusing, and yet refreshing. He didn't seem to make any overtures for his own bid, rather boosting other candidates that he thought were correct, as well as taking shots at people like Bernanke. He seemed more interested in making sure that the people listening were getting correct information than trying to market himself. I liked it.

Perry also seemed to get a lot of talking in without saying much. He seemed focused on getting a good leader for the country, but he didn't want to share his plan for the country - which made him not seem like a leader. There were a couple of other red flags that come up with him that made me think twice.

Overall, I like Santorum for his graciousness and Ron Paul for his very "this is the way it is" take on things. I dislike Cain and Romney makes me wary, though Perry worries me even more. Gingrich, Huntsman, and Bachmann I have a hard time thinking that they're really going to do much.