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Republican Debates: Round 8 (Repeat on MSNBC at 9 PM ET)
Elki
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
Location: Dearborn, Michigan.
Network: CNBC / MSNBC
Date and time: October 9, 4:00 PM ET (CNBC) / 9:00 PM ET (MSNBC)
Candidates:
Sam Brownback
Rudy Giuliani
Mike Huckabee
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Fred Thompson
Moderators: Maria Bartiromo and Chris Matthews
Webstream: www.msnbc.com? Who knows
Try not to fill this with off-topic chatter before the debate starts.
Network: CNBC / MSNBC
Date and time: October 9, 4:00 PM ET (CNBC) / 9:00 PM ET (MSNBC)
Candidates:
Sam Brownback
Rudy Giuliani
Mike Huckabee
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Fred Thompson
Moderators: Maria Bartiromo and Chris Matthews
Webstream: www.msnbc.com? Who knows
Try not to fill this with off-topic chatter before the debate starts.
Elki on
0
Posts
You know, if they don't play the music on him and say that's all the time we have for that after 10 mins of talking right after Rudy can talk for 20-30mins.
That was just assholey.
Shit, you're right. Updated.
It sucks being a minor candidate groupie.
Jesus, suck it up.
Well, MSNBC is going to run a repeat of it like you had so you might want to put both of 'em up for those sad SOB's who have to work for a living. You enviable bastards.
No, Elki, you have it all wrong. The fact that Ron Paul can't in is part of his luster. Why? Because as long as he can't win, he also can't be disproven. And as long as he can't be disproven, the Paul Savants can continue to pretend they have some sort of moral high ground, and how the world would be so much better if they had their way on anything.
If Ron Paul had a chance of winning, then these same people would be forced to actually think critically about what he had to say.
It's akin to having Rush Limbaugh moderate the next Democrat debate.
Sometime after the Iraq invasion and Matthews contracting malaria on his trip to Africa he just simply lost all self control, and the parody of him on Saturday Night Live became much too realistic to be funny anymore.
I haven't been watching any of the debates, Republican or Democrat, but I already know where I stand and have for years, even prior to the 2000 election and then 9/11, so I don't really need to watch them.
I figure in the end it's going to be Giuliani or Romney versus Clinton or on a very very wide shot Obama, and I'll vote with my heart on that matter when that election comes.
Where I live, Kentucky, our primaries won't have any real say in who becomes the nominee for either party so that election is sorta pointless for me anyway and that's the way it's been the almost 10 years I've been able to vote.
edit: As for the Ron Paul issue:
I don't mind Ron Paul being there. All he does is prove a very valid point: Republicans can have diversity of opinion and debate, Democrats apparently cannot. Republicans can have an extremely far right anti war candidate in their party and allow him to run for office. Democrats kick opposing opinions out ala joe Lieberman.
Pretty profound distinction there, in my mind. Shine on Ron Paul (who I wouldn't vote for) shine on.
He made Romney and Rudy look like apologist jackasses last time so I rather like him.
The Republicans allow an anti war candidate to come to their debates.
Do you really see diversity of opinion on the primary issue of the day in the Democrat party? Do you see that party allowing someone pro the war to come into their debates and yell at them about how evil it is to be running a campaign on the premise that "we win if America loses?" Effectively being the opposite of Ron Paul in their debates?
I do not.
I don't really want to "argue" about the issue, so if this line of questioning comes across as harsh, I apologize, as I am not intending to come across as attacking, but rather putting the question in terms that I hope are simple in order to get my point across clearly.
I mean, if losing a primary is a sign of a party's intolerance of a certain viewpoint I think Republican intolerance of anti-war Ron Paul will be established in a few months.
Lieberman didn't just lose a primary, in my opinion. He was thrown out over one single issue. He was a former Democrat vice Presidential candidate. But for a few hundred votes in Florida, he would have BEEN VP for most likely 8 years. The stance he took on the war was the same stance he would have had had he BEEN Vice President. Also, he had many many many YEARS of senatorial water carrying for the Democrat party.
Fundamentally speaking, the framing of the Presidential campaign of 04, the Congressional campaigns of 06 and now, apparently, the 08 Presidential elections are about one issue: Pull out of Iraq or Stay in Iraq.
Leiberman supports staying and that apparently is anathema to the Democrat party. They were the ones who kicked him out, it was at the point that people like Chris Dodd, a personal friend of Lieberman, wouldn't support/endorse his friend of 20 some odd years on television, and actively campaigned against him in some cases.
All over the war.
Now you've said that I cannot conclude that because Leiberman lost his Democratic Primary in 06 that the Dems in 08 wouldn't allow a Pro War candidate to campaign for the Dem nomination. To that I ask one simple, very clear question: If that is the case, where is the Democrat Pro War candidate at the debates?
The answer is clear: I don't have to conclude anything, it's evident on it's face by the fact that there isn't one single pro war Dem candidate running.
As for the second half of your statement, I wouldn't say that losing the primary was the evidence needed in Lieberman's case, but rather the evidence is in the complete venom that was being spilled at him from around the "blogosphere" as the Washington tv people call it, and the way the left wing online groups were funneling in gobs of money against Lieberman and also swamped the state with their workers to actively campaign against him.
Republicans just aren't doing that with Paul. They are letting him run, he is receiving from his grass roots online contributors enough money to be competitive with McCain, and the right wing radio people and conservative Christian groups aren't funneling money against Paul and trying to specifically take him down, so there is definitely a difference.
As to "where is the Democratic pro-war candidate?" I don't think I understand. Are you saying that if Mr. Paul had chosen not to run on the Republican side it would be evidence that the Republican Party was intolerant of his view on the war?
As to the difference in the party's reactions to the two candidates - Joe Lieberman was an incumbent in a senate race while Ron Paul is a challenger in a presidential race. You'll find that movements to get rid of incumbents who are assumed to win are generally higher energy affairs than movements to get rid of challengers who everyone assumes will not win. Why invest the energy if Paul isn't going to get anywhere anyway?
Looking objectively, nothing about our invasion of Iraq was okay. He didn't have WMDs, he wasn't a haven for terrorists plotting against the US, and he wasn't the biggest jerk dictator/oppressor out there. We went into a stable if messed up country and destablised it. And in the process messed up any and all progress we'd made in Afghanistan.
Running a Pro-War cantidate right now is just running someone with a complete disconnect with Reality.
Now that's not quite fair. A decent part of the country supports remaining in Iraq and another decent section wants withdrawl but only if it is conditional on things not falling apart. It isn't outside the political mainstream.
Just outside the media mainstream. And some people only rely on that for their news.
Not really. It's been widely reported that the "surge" is working in Iraq. I don't think you can say the media has some kind of hegemonic consensus on policy prescriptions for the war.
Very true. Some outlets are a lot more selective in what they do not present though. Sometimes to the point where it is comical and insulting.
I have thought critically about it, and while I don't agree with him on most issues the idea of restoring constitutional boundaries and basic freedoms in this country is so central to my current ideals that I am willing to let him go batshit insane on everything else. I view it as a price for restoring my freedoms. I would almost certainly vote for him if he won the nomination. That coming as a Democrat who has publically endorsed Obama across my district.
There's a lot of spin from all sides here, be it pro or anti war, but from a legitmate point of asking the american people "do you want to permanently leave large numbers of US troops in Iraq", I'm pretty sure we're at the point where most people would say no without hesitation.
This may be from my views being from Medical Command and Ze East Coast, but I can't find anyone who still thinks we should have invaded, or that we should be there in any capacity beyond "fixing the mess we made"
Pretty much exactly how I feel as someone who leans more Democrat than Republican.
Though I don't really think he is going to go 'batshit insane' on things. Sure, I am not a fan of some social issues and viewpoints he has being conservative on abortions and gayrights, but he isn't someone who would push for federal legislation or Constitutional amendments on these issues.
If that's the case, then why are there ANY Republican candidates. They're all pro the war (except Ron Paul)
Without getting into the greater context (and much more mundane and, frankly, already fought over a million times) of the reasoning of the Iraq War and whether it was right to go there or not (all moot at this point in the debate after so many years there), there's definitely some good military reasons to remain in Iraq as has always been planned, most importantly because in our current positions Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf, with our allies Pakistan, Turkey (tentative but mostly allies) and Israel, we pretty much have Iran chained down if it ever tries to do anything, surrounded on all sides by enough air to surface targettable ammunition to reduce the country to the Stone Age were they to try to achieve some of the actions they've been rhetorically spewing the past 20 years.
That seems to be a pretty realistic reason to want to remain in some force in Iraq, that and not wanting Iraq to dissolve into true chaos. Pretty realistic and sane reasoning, from this side of the pc monitor.
In reply to Shinto:
The voters kicked him out, and that's pretty much my point. The Democrat party went to Connecticut and actively ran against him, their supporters in the left wing fringes brought in money and men and actively campaigned against him. After he has carried the parties water on bills, on positions, for many long years, all because of one issue.
I'm sorry but that, to me, is just not right, and it was definitely a sign of intolerance in the party that proclaims itself loudly as the party of tolerance of difference of views.
A typical ploy of the left is to point out Republican hypocrisy such as Larry Craig as a recent example, to say "Look, he's supposed to be a family values guy and he's hitting on men in a bathroom stall", yet it isn't fair to point at the party of "tolerance, fairness and belief in freedom of opinion" and say "They took one issue they disagreed with with a man who was in their house drinking their kool aid for 20 + years and because of that one issue, they threw him out on his ass and disowned him"?
As to the second part of your statement:
Mr. Paul did choose to run, and has gotten money and backing from the right and been allowed to go on TV and state his opnions, apparently loudly and with force enough to be noticed. The Dems don't even have a pro war candidate TO choose to run, even if Lieberman tried to run, he's no longer part of the Democrat party because they booted him out and he would have to run as third party.
So what I am saying is there is no diversity of opinion, and that no one on that side of the fence is even willing to TRY to run because they know that the Media Matters, MoveOn.Org types will actively campaign against them.
And they wouldn't be campaigning against that pro war Democrat because he had any chance of winning (in today's party there's no way a pro war Dem could hope to win a nomination, but the sheer fact that Paul is making money equal to McCain is proof that the right wing can at least consider the possibility), they would be running against him because he is a Democrat pro war candidate, which is not allowed. It is Verboten in the party structure.
You cannot be a Democrat and be Pro the War in the Democrat Party today, the left wing organizations that you have to pay your dues to in order to even get money to try to get the nomination will be out there in your personal life searching out, finding, any skeletons they can leak to the media in order to discredit and destroy your campaign, and they'll be doing it actively, and if they can't find a skeleton, they'll call up George Soros for some money and go talk to Media Matters and have them create it out of whole cloth.
As for dissolving into chaos in Iraq, that's Our Freaking Fault. And all we're trying to do is make one province of it not be a hellhole. We've pretty much given up on securing the whole freaking country in hopes that if we secure this piece, everything else will turn up roses.
As for Iran, if they've been spewing rhetoric for 20 years, what makes us think they're suddenly going to take action, exactly? Why didn't we go after Iran instead of stressing out our military attacking someone who hadn't been spewing rhetoric that's suddenly dangerous? How is it not blatantly obvious that we're simply being told to fear someone else now?
And what's with the Right's amazing Cheney-esque view of Soros? Just like Cheney isn't the root of all right wing evil, Soros is not some evil mastermind behind everything that happens on the Left.
That line of logic just doesn't work.
If I say I am a conservative and Pro the war in Iraq, does that not put me in line politically with my party? If the party is made up of members, and the members beliefs define the party line, are their beliefs and the party line not one in the same?
Republicans, as a whole, want to be in Iraq as long as the perception is that we're winning. Therefore, the Republican party line is Pro the War. The Democrats do not want to be in Iraq, whether the perception is winning or losing they believe the entire thing was a farce, a distraction, and a lie to seize oil, power, wealth, fame whatever, therefore the Democrat party line is (as the women say) "PULL OUT NOW"
There is nothing to confuse, the Party cannot exist in conflict with it's members views, as it's members views are what define the party, therefore the Party Line and the party members' beliefs are the head and the tail of a coin, not an apple and an orange.
Some Democrats supported him. In the end they were in a minority at the polls.
The Democratic Party, as represented by the leadership in congress and the DNC, did not campaign on either side in the primary and only embraced Mr. Lamont when he had become their parties nominee for a senate seat, at the behest of the majority of Democrats in Connecticut.
It's hard to say what you mean by "the party" within the context of an inter-party contest. Obviously factions of the party were engaged in a fight with eachother while some stood neutral and others didn't even care about this particular senate primary. Is your argument that the majority of Democrats in Connecticut should have voted for a candidate that they felt didn't reflect their views on the issues of the day out of some kind of loyalty to a long serving encumbent?
And the Republicans would not have a anti-war candidate to choose from if Mr. Paul had decided that he wanted to run instead of spending time with his family. 10% of Democrats support the war in Iraq, which is 8% more than Republicans who support Ron Paul. I fail to see where this is a product of the conspiracy of the Democratic establishment rather than happenstance.
Nah, I don't think so. Candidates like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton certainly haven't been so intimidated by those groups that they fall into line with whatever they say. In a primary people campaign against you. It's what happens.
No, Ron Paul getting money from a few thousand donors is not evidence that the "right wing" of some 50 or 60 million voting Americans thinks one thing or another. The polls which place Mr. Paul somewhere between 0% and 2% are a better indication, but even there you have to wonder about how well informed the public being polled is concering his candidacy.
No, you can but you will lose elections because of that issue. Much as Ron Paul will shortly be losing elections because of his positions and background.