Well, I was a bit depressed -- it happens -- on Wednesday evening after a couple of meetings in Concord earlier in the day, so I was looking for a bit of entertainment. It was cold so I decided to stay in after I put the lights on my Christmas tree that's out on my deck.
You can imagine my happiness when I turned on the Florida Republican Debate. I found amusement, humor, and ohhhh so much comedy. I'm not sure whether the candidates or the obviously mostly-Republican and quite temperamental and sometimes obnoxious audience had me chuckling the most.
From my viewpoint, none of these men should be President. It's kind of disgraceful that some of them got as far as Mayor, Governor, or to Congress. Ron Paul, and a couple of times John McCain, were the only ones with a degree of credibility and courage, although each was off-the-mark when describing their hopes for America's future. At least Ron Paul "gets it" when it comes to the Iraq War.
This debate reminded me again how lucky those of us who are Democrats are by having a set of Presidential candidates who stand the proverbial head-and-shoulders above their Republican counterparts. We who are Democrats might disagree on the edges about different positions, such as whether one candidate's health care plan has more or better components than another. But we're rich with the depth of our choices. About health care and those other ideas, remember that all such "plans" are only talking points right now, since once the plan is introduced into Congress all bets are off and the process of legislative law-making begins. So, a few "details" put aside, all the Democratic candidates look so good compared with any of the Republicans. Of course, I'm a little biased in saying that.
I especially liked to see how the Republicans can fight and argue over even the most subtle of differences they have, with one candidate or another pulling right out of thin air what another candidate might believe, only to have another candidate prove he was "massaging the truth" a bit. In politics, there are often shades of gray, but the Republicans seem to be playing with shades of truth.
If anyone won the Republican debate, I thought it was Ron Paul and John McCain -- in that they sounded somewhat better than the others, or perhaps I should say they sounded not as bad as the others. The rest sounded like a losing high school debate team. Actually, I'm not sure about that -- even a losing high school debate team has some class.
I can just visualize the debates next Fall before the November General Election with Hillary Clinton taking on one of these wiz-balls. She'll clean his clock. For that matter, any of the other potential Democratic Presidential nominees would do the same.
As a Democrat I like to say we can't lose this one. The future of our country depends on it.
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