I agree with the others who say that Chris Matthews was annoying as a host. Karl Rove as an employee? What does a Mormon do about Bishops out of control? Whatever, Chris.
On the little guys, it was interesting, I watched it while scanning the news and doing some other things. It was a little bit of multitasking,but also a little on purpose to see if any of the little guys would or could capture and hold my attention. None of them did except for Ron Paul. My hearts with him, but the America of today is nowhere near ready for a libertarian of his stripe, but I'm glad he's around.
As for the rest, sorry to say, that none of them really stood out. Around the blogosphere the word is that Huckabee did well, and I would disagree, because from what I saw, they all did well, but what they needed to do was break out of the herd and really capture and seize an audience. Hard to do with thirty second answers, but that was the order of the day.
Giuliani, what can I say? He had the highest expectations, but he was not on his game, not at all. We had a few glimpses of the glib talking mayor, but far too seldom. He absolutely gutted himself with an answer on abortion that seemed to indicate that a judge of his may find that Roe vs. Wade is good law. That's not the deal he needs to make. If he would agree to appoint judges to overturn Roe, he would get wide latitude on other issues, but absent that, he's in trouble. This is such elementary politics that I'm surprised that Giuliani flubbed it. But he did. He gave several answers guaranteed to anger the religious right. Giuliani needs to do some fence mending very, very soon. He came into the debate riding high, but ended up creating severe doubts about his candidacy that did not exist previously. That's how you lose.McCain: Did well, better than I expected. He had some nice lines that will make great sound bites later. Following Osama to "the gates of hell" was one of them. But still, what he needed to do was convince people like me that he could challenge the best the Democrats will offer and easily defeat them. Despite huge effort to the contrary he came across a bit old, tired, and strident.
Romney: Big winner of the debate. Smooth answers on just about everything. Had a great soundbite when Matthews asked him about Catholic Bishops. "They can do what they want" he said incredulously to the silly question. But on the rest he was always consistently on his game. Also has a flip-flop on abortion to contend with, but he seemed to have a much better grasp on what the GOP voter needs to hear on this issue. Much better than Giuliani. Of all the candidates, I would say that only Romney really benefited from this debate, he will be seen in somewhat of a new light and that's why I'm calling him the winner. Whether that will translate into anything real, time will tell.
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Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 3)
31. it was pretty apparent the libs running the debate where not giving rudy the same air as mitt romney,,,,, the left would rather play up romney because the dems would have a better shot beating him ,,rather than facing rudy or mccain
dominic at 3:27PM on May 5th 2007
32. chris matthews is an idiot
dominic at 3:27PM on May 5th 2007
33. I will not support any pro-choice Democrat or Republican for President. In God's eyes that is murder and just because a couple lacks zipper control is still not grounds to eliminate a child that just is in the way. Very sad.
jordan at 8:39PM on May 5th 2007
34. NOT EVERYTHING THAT SHINES IS GOLD. AND NOT EVERYONE WHO PLAYS "SMART" POLITICIAN IS SO.
GIULLIANI IS EXTENDING HIS CAMPAIGN OF DECEIT OUTSIDE NY CITY SINCE FOR ONE THING HIS TERMS AS MAYOR EXPIRED AND FOR THE OTHER MOST PEOPLE IN NY DON'T TRUST HIM AND ARE WELL-ACQUAINTED WITH HIS FLIP FLOPS.
NOW HE WANTS TO EXPORT HIS CAMPAIGN TO PLACES WHERE THEY STILL SEE HIM AS THE 911 HERO HE NEVER WAS. ANY MAYOR WOULD HAVE STOOD THERE AND SUPPORTED HIS CITY AS HE DID. HE DID NOT DO ANY MAGIC. IN FACT HE TURNED DISGRACEFUL CLOSING FIRE HOUSES FOR MONEY AND LEAVING SCORES OF STILL MOURNING FIRE FIGHTERS WITHOUT A JOB, DESPITE THE FACT AFTER 911 MORE FIRE FIGHTERS ARE NEEDED GIVEN THE TERROR THREAT.
John at 12:56AM on May 7th 2007
35. I watched the debate and I agree with some who have written here that Romney was the most intelligent and answered questions well. Time for a change from the old school...they have had their day and things are not that good so we need a good healthy change and I am for Romney
Marie Elena at 9:20AM on May 7th 2007
36. ONLY THING GUILINI(WHATEVER) KNOWS IS NEW YORK. HE NEEDS TO STAY THERE. GLAD I'M NOT REPUK-POOR BUNCH OF CANDIDATES.
JACKIE at 9:25AM on May 8th 2007
37. #12, "Vote your rights to create your own
family when you are financially and
emotionally mature, with an involved
spouse. 18 years of your life will be
consumed raising a human being." This 'vote' requires no vote in the senate. You exercise this 'right' every time you decide to have sex. By choosing wisely on the front-end, you will presumably be less compelled to rally society and our elected offiacials to excuse your poor judgement.
amadaus64 at 12:18PM on May 7th 2007
38. #12, "Vote your rights to create your own
family when you are financially and
emotionally mature, with an involved
spouse. 18 years of your life will be
consumed raising a human being." This 'vote' requires no vote in the senate. You exercise this 'right' every time you decide to have sex. By choosing wisely on the front-end, you will presumably be less compelled to rally society and our elected offiacials to excuse your poor judgement.
meg at 12:22PM on May 7th 2007
39. Darlene,
you say the schools are deteriorating since Prayer and the 10 commandments left the schools. I assume and I hope you are joking. If the schools are crumbling it is beacuse your people do not give 1 damn about education. You pay millions to professional basketball and baseball players. Your people honor Paris Hilton and the American Idol singers. You elect a moron to be President of your country where it is now not safe for any American to go almost anywhere in the world. Your people have decided to go half way around the world and kill brown people and not give 1 damn for the 3500 US americans and the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis that have been killed. You and every one like you should be ashamed of yourselves for the deaths of every US American and every Iraqi citizen that has occured. Your people also do not care about educating the inner city peoples of your country, and that is why your schools are crumbling, not beacuse they took out 10 human written rules to live by. As for prayer if you are religious go to your church or place of service. I bet you are like most of those people who think it is all right for Christianity to be in the schools, but what about the Muslims, buddhists, the Jews, and all the other religions.
Darlene please stop the hate and keep your religion to yourself. Remember the Pharisees..Jesus called them Hippocrites and he was damn right.
Best wishes
John
John at 3:28PM on May 8th 2007
40. Your for Ron Paul and you think romney won? your out of your mind, Ron Paul was the winner in that debate he was the only real republican there. He was definitely the stand out candidate, all the rest were the same.
Aaron at 4:49PM on May 8th 2007
41. To post #14. You've got to be kidding? I looked at mormonconspiracy.com... So what? Their church wants a better public image? They send out missionaries? They'd like others to join their faith? That makes this a conspiracy? You would compare their university to a military academy? Have you ever been to BYU? Have you ever lived next to a mormon? I hope everybody that follows this thread will go to that website. Any reasonable person, especially one who knows Mormons, will find the reeking paranoia absolutely disgusting.
J.R. at 6:51PM on May 8th 2007
42. Who was running, Reagan? Without a cue card Reagan couldn't talk, just like Bush. Remember him during press conferences? Wake up, he was a trained actor. OMG, the prospect of having any of the Republicans as President is downright scary. Its like they are living in a WWII movie. They don't have a clue of the complexity of the Iraq civil war we created. The same old drum pounding nonsense. They think we can "win" by sending in the first Army. Don't they get it?
John S. at 1:00AM on May 9th 2007
43. When are you folks going to wake up and realize that making ABORTION such a big issue in politics is such a waste of time? Do you not care about homeland security, terrorism, the War in Iraq that we should never have been in, and crisis management for the NEXT terrorist attack? I am so tired of the GOP voters concentrating on WASTED, domestic issues. I lived in NYC during 9/11 and had a direct impact with loss of a family member, one of the 343 firefighters. I'm a diehard liberal in many ways, but Rudy has my vote in 2008 if he makes it through...I'm more concerned about the future of my country, the safety of my country from people who want to kill us, than I am about gay marriage and abortion. WAKE UP and realize what the debates should be focused on and what the issues really are that will affect us for the rest of our lives, with the wrong decision by the voters in 2008.
azlawgirl at 3:35AM on Jun 2nd 2007
44. Saying Ron Paul has no chance is like shooting yourself in the foot. If you can't feel good about the candidate, why vote?
Perhaps you prefer slavery as opposed to freedom.
Just because you think others are doing a thing more than another doesn't mean you should do it. Many people vote Democrat but it doesn't mean you should.
You aren't going to get a different result if you keep doing the same thing. If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you do it?
The media is curiously ignoring the fact that Paul won the Zogby poll in the first debate...all the other candidates are socialists, in my view.
Jennifer at 11:41PM on May 15th 2007