Debate #4

I got to watch this one as I didn't work, it was interesting and slightly less terrifying than the previous ones as the questions were mostly restricted to economic stuff, so we didn't have to hear about how Huckabee wants to kill all gay people or something. For reference, we had two debates and here were the lineups:

Undercard

Bobby Jindal, Governor or Louisiana child of immigrants and opponent of the policies that allow him to be the man he is today

Rick Santorum, somehow still relevant despite his name becoming a synonym for and unappealing frothy substance related to anal sex

Chris Christie, demoted to the kiddie table, very proud of firing people, wishes he was in a 1920s gangster film

Mike Huckabee, wants to kill everyone except for straight, white, men and women, may be okay with keeping some minorities around as servants, one of his sons probably tortured and killed a dog

Main Event

Donald Trump, billionaire and somehow a serious candidate

Ben Carson, neurosurgeon and paid shill for a product called Mannatech

John Ellis Bush, not the frontrunner, doesn't seem to want to be here

Marco Rubio, the new establishment pick, very sweaty

Ted Cruz, a butter sculpture come to life, personally responsible for the last government shutdown

Carly Fiorina, ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, thinks she is good at anything, may actually be a reptoid

Rand Paul, token Libertarian, one day hopes to hear his father say he loves him

John Kasich, Governor of Ohio and token nearly sane person, has no chance in the primary or general as he is the most boring white conservative ever.

Undercard report

The candidates were all pretty united on the idea of cutting taxes, most of them think Hillary Clinton is the devil, substantive differences were few.

Highlights included Bobby Jindal attacking Chris Christy at every opportunity and for no reason, for his part, Chris Christy wants to declare cyber war on China and fly Air Force One over their islands in the South China Sea, presumably in an effort to martyr himself, he spent most of the time pivoting from every question to attack Clinton.

Santorum was completely deranged, did not string together a coherent sentence through the entire event and then gave out the most distressing howl when describing the Democrats as "Strong". I literally think he was on uppers of some variety.

Huckabee was probably the clear winner in my mind, his ideas are all reprehensible, but he did the best job of making them sound like they were good ideas and managed to do so without sounding like the genocidal madman he and his co-candidates usually sound like, except for the wanting to put refugees in camps bit anyway.

Christie came in second, he did fine and I appreciated his refusal to get into an argument with Jindal, but he didn't do anything really standout and I don't hink his poll numbers go up again.

Jindal was third, his supporters were probably happy that he was so critical of Christy and honestly, anyone who was gonna jump ship from him probably has already.

Santorum shouldn't have been there in the first place, he was utterly insane and probably should have been in bed.

Main Event report

This was a weird one, for the most part it showcased the complete ignorance of and/or disdain for the truth on economic issues from all parties, they were patently uncomfortable when having to address an issue they couldn't turn into an attack on ISIS or China, such as the bank bailout or actually defending their tax plans. The other part was being very picky about when they got to talk, it appears that if their name was mentioned or if a plan of theirs was discussed, they felt they should get more time, they argued and talked over each other, and Trump got a big boo for telling Fiorina to shut up essentially.
Everyone agreed that Dodd-Frank is the single greatest reason for the slow recovery, and some would say the recession, and is additionally responsible for the failure of hundreds of local banks. They all agreed that ISIS should be blown up and shot, though they did vary on how much that should be don, Fiorina and Carson pretty much want to glass the Middle East, Paul simply wants to kill anyone who approaches the USA.

I'll give my individual talks in order of most to least successful.

Rand Paul was the clear winner in my mind, he did an excellent job of setting himself apart from the pack, pushed his views clearly and landed the best hit on Trump all night when he informed him that China was not a participant in the TPP, which caused the moderator to come in on Trumps defense.

Marco Rubio took second, he managed to avoid sweating and drinking lots of water, which was good for him. he gave a tax plan that was slightly more workable than the others, though still not actually sane or useful, mostly he avoided hurting himself, which was something of an accomplishment.

Hard pick for third, but I got to give it to JEB! He showed a bit of life here and while it won't actually help him in the polls, I don't think he embarrassed himself too much, which is the best you can hope for with Bush.

Cruz is a solid fourth I guess, though he was insane and gave us a truly strange moment when he suggested that the immigration crisis would have been dealt with sooner if bankers were immigrating in an taking banking jobs, also he had a 2012 Rick Perry moment where he forgot what department he would cut from the federal government.

I am gonna go with Fiorina for fifth, though she is a terrible person and has a bizarre obsession with rebuilding the sixth fleet and returning us to a 50s era Cold War status with Russia, I think she has finally worn out her welcome with the base, and Donald Trump exists to fill the "heartless oligarch" role on the campaign and is much more charismatic.

Speaking of, today was not a good day for the Donald, sixth might be a little generous and I think he loses a couple points to Rubio after this, but it's still a win for him because I think Carson falls more.

John Kasich scrapes seventh place because his slightly more moderate views, while more palatable to the general public, are completely uninteresting to the GOP base.

Ben Carson comes in dead last, he spoke the least, seemed uninterested in getting more time, and clearly had no idea what he was talking about, he showed no knowledge of international or domestic finances, and while most of the other candidates were probably knowingly lying about the causes of the financial crises, Carson very much seemed like he didn't know at all and was simply making things up, which is par for the course with him, he also showed no energy at all, barely bothering to open his eyes when giving his answers.


So yeah, nothing specifically new, and Fox was playing damage control with Carson when I turned the TV off, the commentators where saying he won handily, which was batshit insane but if it gets traction he goes up to probably fourth or so.

We'll see in the next few days.