I knew I was going to watch last night’s Republican presidential hopefuls debate purely for comedic purposes, and of course it did not disappoint. I knew it wasn’t going to be Lincoln-Douglas or even Kennedy-Nixon, but the show–I use the word with purpose–did hook me for the full two hours.
I didn’t learn anything about the candidates last night that I didn’t already know, and I hope most citizen-voters felt that way. For God’s sake, don’t make this the event through which you learn about the candidates. Perhaps there were two takeaways for viewers last night, or really maybe three. Number one, Jeb Bush is quite tall; that probably makes up for his “women’s health” “flap” from the other day. Number two, people know who John Kasich is; I thought he was great last night, though let’s face it, he did have the homecourt advantage. And a third thing voters may have learned from last night’s debate? Fox News commentators are not going to go easy on Republican candidates. Actually, they will do the opposite. They will spit venom and act more as accusers than moderators. Seriously, did it not seem as though every question last night was some form of candidate so-and-so, we’ve found out about the following mistakes and judged you to be a terrible person… could you expand upon that a bit, please?
In a less-politically correct era there was a quick answer to these types of questions: “I’ve also stopped beating my wife.” Unfortunately you can’t say that anymore because most people hear only the wife-beating part and miss the retort to bad logic and a leading or loaded question. Ted Cruz said something to this effect some months ago and was raked over the coals for it, but I was hoping at least one of these guys would take the bait. Or I was hoping for one candidate to say, “This is a farce and a waste of time. G’night, everybody!”
And please let Fox News commentators moderate the Democratic debates as well. God damn that would be fun to watch.
