In fact, here it is on YouTube already.
As for the rest of the debate, and the participants thereof, I agree completely with fellow 'Stump' blogger David Knowles that the format and the moderators were much better. No punches were pulled with the questions.
John McCain: Did better than last time, and seemed a little calmer. No "gates of hell" type references this time. But he did claim to have never supported amnesty, which has a lot of us scratching our heads, remembering an immigration bill with his name on it last year. And the other sponsor was Kennedy. A point other debaters didn't fail to bring up.
Mitt Romney: His slickness didn't come off as well this time. Probably because Rudy and John did better. Didn't hurt himself, but didn't help either. He's stuck near 10% and he needs to break out. I saw nothing here that will help him do that.
Rudy: Much, much better, approaching the type of confidence in these forums that he usually has but did not display in the last debate. Got the best line of the evening in the aforementioned smackdown. Still, when the dust settles, his answers on abortion amounted to I support it, but want to reduce it. Which amounts to the "safe, legal, and rare" rhetoric of all Democrats. Not good, Rudy still has a huge abortion problem that he did not have in March.
The rest: While most did not distinguish themselves very well. Ron Paul is extremely whiny and hard to listen to. Comes off as a hard core libertarian, which I like, but will give hard core libertarianism a bad name, which I don't like. Mike Huckabee got the Edwards line off well with a great response, good for a second tier candidate and everyone will connect that with him, which is PR gold.
But the poll on Instapundit indicates that most of us are waiting for Fred.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 4)
1. Yes the debate was awesome, the democrats would have a hard with that one unless they had a script and 5 years to preapre. On immigration why and i mean why have more laws put into place, The government has not enfoced the ones we have know. So why make more they all say they would enforce immigraion reform and enforce it, but we have heard that many times before and yet still not much enforcement.
http://www.todaypolitics.blogspot.com/
bloggershaven at 10:21AM on May 16th 2007
2. NixGuy is either a moron, or an establishment shill. Ron Paul is the only candidate that is qualified to be President. All one needs to do is look at his voting record for the last 19 years. NixGuy says he has a "whinny voice" Here is a clue stupid: LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAYS! He has trounced the establishment lackeys twice in as many debates. ALL polls show he won the first debate by 30% and now the polls for this debate show he won by 40%. Juliani got spanked again. McCain is useless. The corporate-owned media is running scared that the people actually want a canidate that is not already bought and paid for. Vote for Ron Paul, if you want America back from the corporate borg. www.ronpaul.com and 1-800-ronpaul
David Peddy at 10:27AM on May 16th 2007
3. "well deserved" ?
Why don't you show Ron Paul's follow up in the exchange?
aaaahhh, freedom of speach in America ...
Matthew at 10:30AM on May 16th 2007
4. Ron Paul's statement that the American people are more vulnerable to terrorists over in Iraq and that over 3,400 American men and woman have died make sense. Guiliani wasn't listening to him.
concerned at 10:35AM on May 16th 2007
5. Ron Paul's statements about 9/11 and the Iraq war were so refreshing and stated what a lot of people think about the state of the "War on Terror." Why isn't anybody, including Guiliani, listening???
nfh at 9:12AM on May 17th 2007
6. Ron Paul must win, lets get away from the foolishness of washington
roy serbert at 10:52AM on May 16th 2007
7. Ron Paul won the debate by a mile. I'am surprised he is a repub from Texas.
Guiliani's making bldg 7 the hdq of the crisis center for New York, should have been brought to light by Paul, and equated with Bush's blunder of invading a soverign country that did us no harm.
Frank at 10:54AM on May 16th 2007
8. Nixguy, is what is wrong with this country.
Paul, won hands down. His reply slapped back very truthfully. There was tremendous termoil amongst the mediators and their controllers in the pit. It is as though historical refference is dis allowed. It was a transparent attempt to get a negative sound bite from Paul. He is smarter than the rest of you. He is a doctor you know. You people are going to hell, if I have to take you with my hand wrapped around your skinny neck. You guys need a boat or something so you can find a way out of the country. There will be Hell, to pay Nixguy. You are infinately smug and arrogant to even begin to believe Americans, can't see the game you are playing. My advice for you is to leave.
carter lee at 10:54AM on May 16th 2007
9. I am a life-long Republican who voted for Bush (TWICE!) and a Fox News junkie, but Ron Paul has captured my attention and earned my vote. He is the only guy on the stage speaking from conviction and steadfastness. All the other Republican candidates are flip-floppers on a variet of issues. Ron Paul is right about why we were attacked. He isn't using that the justify the attacks or conjure up sympathy for the terrorists. He's simply saying the same thing that great Americans have said for a couple of hundred years...America would be safer if we didn't play world police and invade other countries who aren't attacking us. Ron Paul would have no problem dealing with a real threat to our security, but right now the greatest threat to America is the stealing of our civil liberties through manipulation and fearmongering.
Jason at 10:58AM on May 16th 2007
10. It is troubling that Giuliani's retort to Ron Paul is being celebrated on cable news, because it was a despicable distortion of Paul's point. I'm left wing and not a Ron Paul supporter, but it's getting to the point you can't rationally discuss issues any more. Sending our military to the Arabian peninsula for the first Gulf War was absolutely one of the factors that mobilized Islamic extremists aganist the US. It is thus certainly plausible that 9/11 would not have occurred had we not gotten involved (and I'm not arguing that we shouldn't have). Paul was not saying that it was an immediate cause, but that it was one of the factors that caused Al Qaeda to attack us. Giuliani was way out of line, and astute observers should be taking him to task for it.
Scott at 11:03AM on May 16th 2007
11. Ron Paul won THIS debate too. MSNBC showed 30% were for Ronpaul from this debate. He won the last debate by a land slide. 89% voted for Ron Paul from that one.
The Mainstream media is looking for something- "ANYTHING" to try and get Ron Paul out of the Presidential picture. Not showing Ron Paul's follow up to Gulliani's ranting- Ranting that DID NOT address what Paul said is careful "scripting" to try and make the sell-out Gulliani look good.
There was no slap by Gulliani in this debate, although Gulliani needs to be slapped for ignoring the plights of firefighters who told him they heard bombs going off "before" the twin towers collapsed.
This is an unjust war that was UNprovoked and we have indeed invaded another country and hit FIRST. Not one American would welcome foriegn troops in OUR streets. Not one American would stand for seeing innocent men, women, and children being killed in OUR streets by foriegn troops. Yet our government wants us to think another country would be fine with seeing over a million civillians killed in the name of a war that was started over non-existent WMD against a country that had NO connections to 9/11?
Just as Ron Paul said we have over 3400 DEAD American soldiers because or brilliant leadership decided to place OUR people on THEIR land and start a war. Which indeed placed OUR military at a serious disadvantage of trying to fight in THEIR territory. THAT was the point Ron Paul made and Gulliani did not get it, nor has the dim witted mainstream media gotten it when they obviously think the public will just believe nonsense like Gulliani will ever be able to "slap" Ron Paul in ANY debate.
If Ron Paul is just given the right to just have ALL his words heard in these debates he will indeed surface the voctor because he is the ONLY candidate -REP or DEM that actually stands FOR the people.
Paul Won at 11:08AM on May 16th 2007
12. With all do-respect to all of the candidates, so far only one candidate out of both the republican and democrats camps, in my opinion, have what it takes to be a real leader of people. Before you can lead a country as great as ours you must first be able to communicate to the people. It is not a perfect world and no one expects total perfection however we do expect our elected body to represent our interests. The candidate who can gap the bridge between big business and the general voting public will win this election. Who will it be?
Mike at 11:06AM on May 16th 2007
13. Amen, Scott. Dr. Paul's answer was based on fact. Western countries invented Iraq in 1920 by assembling people who hated each other and forcing our will upon them. America forcibly changed regimes there...we installed Saddam, after all, and paid him to do what he did. We trained his enemies to become our enemies, and then we act surprised by the outcome?
Andrew Horning at 11:07AM on May 16th 2007
14. The war-mongering media as usual is busy trying to discredit the "We the people" candidate and is trying to sway the American people with it's unbalanced and unfair representations of the candidates. The "We the corporations" candidates do not believe in the Constitution and are therefore anti-American by definition. Shame on aol for such bias.."
Republican at 11:07AM on May 16th 2007
15. Ron Paul has my attention as a caring and thoughtful democrat.i care about my country but do not like at all where it has been heading for the last 10 years. RON PAUL might be able to change things for the better. i think we have hit an all time low for this country. hell we had better leadership during the great depression.
please sign the petition.
the link below is to a petition to Tucker Carlson. he has a widely viewed show on MSNBC and in the 1988 election voted and endorsed Ron Paul. This petition is for the purpose of showing him that we want him to give Dr.Paul more media coverage and hopefully endorse him as he did before. i will also write the link so that you may repost it and help get the word out. thank you for your time.
this is the address for the purpose of reposting:
http://www.petitiononline.com/RonPaulA/petition.html
Dispot at 11:13AM on May 16th 2007