1st GOP Debate

[Dan H]

I didn't see anybody in that debate who I think can seriously win a Presidential election.

SHOCKER! The reincarnation of JFK could be running on the GOP ticket and most of the people on this message board wouldn't vote for him because he was a Republican.

[Indy]

I didn't see anybody in that debate who I think can seriously win a Presidential election.

SHOCKER! The reincarnation of JFK could be running on the GOP ticket and most of the people on this message board wouldn't vote for him because he was a Republican.

I think you misread his comment. He didn't say anything about who he would vote for.

[Dan H]

All right then, Mori, if you knew the guy you voted for would win, which of the 17 would you vote for?

Same for you, Indy.

[Indy]

All right then, Mori, if you knew the guy you voted for would win, which of the 17 would you vote for?

Same for you, Indy.

I only watched the first debate, so I can't speak to the people in the 2nd. And honestly, I didn't see enough of anyone for me to give them my permission to run the country for 4 years. It was like a speed interview where they didn't have to answer questions. Who would hire anyone with that much of a discussion?

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone on the other side that I would vote for yet either. This is a long process, and we have a lot of vetting to do. Unfortunately, the way our corrupt system works, it will ultimately end up being a fight between the two highest spenders, neither of which are likely what is best for the country.

[Indy]

Who would you vote for from the other side of the aisle?

[Nodack]

I didn't see anybody in that debate who I think can seriously win a Presidential election.

SHOCKER! The reincarnation of JFK could be running on the GOP ticket and most of the people on this message board wouldn't vote for him because he was a Republican.

And likewise the reincarnation of Reagan could run as a Democrat and most Repiblicans wouldn't consider voting for him because of the D next to his name.

The Republican candidates minus Trump all swore to support whoever wins the nomination in order to be unified as a party. The Republican Party has been pretty unified in their hatred of the Democrat party and Obama. Republicans are expected to vote for candidates in their party just like Democrats are.

I refuse to vote Republican because of the combined Republican record in the past decade and their treatment of Obama since elected.

I'm sure Republicans refuse to vote Democrat because of their own reasons such as Obama isn't from the U.S., hates America, doubled the debt, Obamacare etc.

Don't get too upset that people vote along party lines. We are trained and expected to vote along party lines. I still don't consider myself a Democrat. I consider myself a Moderate.

If you asked me who I would vote for from the GOP debate if I had to choose one it would be difficult, since I don't know all of them that well. One of them that caught my attention briefly was I believe Huckabee, who said he wanted to unite the country because it is so divided and a divided country cannot succeed. I agreed with his sentiment, but then I remembered Obama making the same pledge to unite the country and that didn't happen in no small part thanks to Republicans that made a pack to appose any and everything Obama did and declare open warfare on him. The only way Obama would unite them to his cause was over their dead bodies. I liked the sentiment at first, but then my pessimistic side translated it to mean that if a Republican was elected President that they would expect Democrats to rubber stamp everything the Republicans wanted to do and if a Democrat was elected they would go back to apposing everything they wanted to do.

[Dan H]

Who would you vote for from the other side of the aisle?

I'm kind of intrigued by Bernie Sanders, actually. If it's Bush*-Sanders I may have to go for Bernie.

* or Huckabee, or Kasich, or Christie . . . .

One of them that caught my attention briefly was I believe Huckabee, who said he wanted to unite the country because it is so divided and a divided country cannot succeed. I agreed with his sentiment, but then I remembered Obama making the same pledge to unite the country and that didn't happen in no small part thanks to Republicans that made a pack to appose any and everything Obama did and declare open warfare on him.

That's pretty funny, actually, given how much you've gone on about your disdain for religious people. I'm Christian and I'd honestly be afraid that Huck would try to start pushing a theocracy. The guy is a loon.

[Ghost]

I didn't see the debate, and from what I've read I didn't miss much. Dan, why Sanders? Unlike Obama, who has been exceptionally moderate, Sanders is legitimately far left. I am really intrigued.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Nodack]

Most of my friends and family are religious. I love them. I have a disdain for religion and think people are misled, but I don't have a disdain of religious people.

I don't know Huckabee. I just caught his 60 second sound bite and he talked about uniting the country. Like I said p, I liked the message, but didn't believe it.

[Dan H]

Several reasons.

Unlike Obama, Jeb(!), and yes, Hillary, Sanders is not beholden to Wall Street. Will he want to jack up capital gains taxes? Maybe, and I'm okay with it. He also wants to break up the too-big-too-fail banks.

He's opposed to stuff like the TPP, which seems with the research I've done to be bad for American workers. Free trade is good if both sides are working on a level playing field; he seems to get that.

If the trend of rising college costs continue to go the way they are my kids will never be able to afford to go to college without taking on life-altering loads of debt. Sanders is the only candidate who's even talking about that problem.

Are there things I disagree with him about? Yeah. I don't think a $15 an hour minimum wage is feasible. Maybe corporations like McDonald's could afford it, but it's going to be killer for small businesses and their employees.

Vermont is pretty libertarian on individual rights. And while Sanders does have some of the typical Democrat anti-gun positions to his name, he's pro-gun enough that the anti-gun left is dubbing him crazy. From my view it makes sense because he's been around a culture of responsible gun ownership, unlike a guy like say, Chuck Schumer, who lives in New York City and probably doesn't know half a dozen people who aren't his bodyguards who like to shoot.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... e-nra.html

[Mori Chu]

All right then, Mori, if you knew the guy you voted for would win, which of the 17 would you vote for?

Well I'll be honest and say that I don't think I could support any candidate who claimed to represent the current Republican party. I think the GOP has honestly become bad for the country. It scares me how far they've been willing to go to obstruct President Obama. It seems like the singular goal of the party is to fight with him and try to discredit him and his presidency.

I also don't think I can support the Republicans because they have so many policies that I feel are becoming increasingly out of touch with modern life and reality. Things like:

- anti-gay, anti-gay-marriage
- anti-abortion
- anti-poor, pro-top-1%
- pro-huge-corporation
- lowering taxes until the country goes deeper and deeper into debt
- the overarching love of the military and desire to keep increasing military spending
- pro-war, pro being a "bully" in international politics, not working for peace or working with the UN and other orgs; would rather just invade our "enemies", viewing international relations in black-and-white, thinking of entire countries / religions as being "evil"
- anti-Muslim
- pro-gun (this is a less important issue to me but I'll list it)
- pro-church (I'm not against religion, but I'm against it being part of politics, part of school, part of education)
- anti-education, anti-evolution, pro-Christian-science
- anti-environment, pro-use up all the oil
- anti-health care, "you're on your own"
- anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant
- anti-women

...

I could go on and on. Obviously not every Republican nor every candidate is all of the above things, but that's what I see when I look at their party now. I don't think it's what's right for America in 2015. It feels like a bunch of old rich white people who think it is still the 1950s.

The following list is laughably bad and out of touch:

https://www.gop.com/platform/

Anyway, I'm just trying to be honest, even though I know it's an unvarnished opinion and would probably upset any Republican who would read it.

[Nodack]

You pretty much summed up my opinion too Mori.

[Mori Chu]

I want to clarify that I know lots of people who are Republicans and who are great people, with whom I see a lot of things eye-to-eye. But they seem to stray far from the party line. They seem to be more of socially libertarian/liberal with a desire for small/unintrusive government.

I probably sound like a huge raging Democrat after the above post/list. But I would love a party that was socially tolerant and progressive, while trying to trim the fat from government where appropriate. I wish the Republican party were that party, but it is far away from that.

[Nodack]

You sound like a Moderate to me. They can be Republican or Democrat most of the time. Now days moderate Republicans are called RHINOS and are disliked by the Tea Party types for being Liberals.

[ShelC]

I watched the whole thing and, overall, I came away thinking, "Really? Is this the best we can do?". Quick breakdown:

Trump - Honestly, probably came off as the most presidential and had the best command. He is what he is, he's got nothing to lose, and he doesn't sound like a politician. I like that he's being himself and I liked that he hit back and even called out the hypocrisy of the political system (which seems to have been glossed over). He's too polarizing to be a legit candidate, but he's great entertainment.

Bush - Didn't stand out, soft spoken.

Paul - Annoying. I don't think he lasts. Depending who you read/talk to, he either won or lost the argument with Christie (which was a good one). I thought he lost.

Christie -Again, thought he gave it to Paul in their spat over the NSA but wasn't really heard from otherwise. Would've liked to hear more from him.

Kasich - Definitely got more recognition than he had before the debate. Could be a sleeper.

Cruz- Dude is just weird IMO. Had a speech about his father that people loved.

Rubio- Just a robot politician.

Carson - Seems like a decent guy, very soft spoken, seemed out of his league but finished strong with his final speech.

Huckabee - Whatever.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Trump - Honestly, probably came off as the most presidential and had the best command. He is what he is, he's got nothing to lose, and he doesn't sound like a politician. I like that he's being himself and I liked that he hit back and even called out the hypocrisy of the political system (which seems to have been glossed over). He's too polarizing to be a legit candidate, but he's great entertainment.

I can't stand Trump as a person and I don't want him anywhere near the White House, but he's the best (only?) thing we've got to shake up this two party nonsense.

Did that little banter about buying/funding each other irk anyone else? That's a big part of what's wrong with this entire system.

[Ghost]

I don't think Trump will shake up the system at all. He's popular because he's loud and "says what he wants," but he doesn't represent any sort of political movement. If he got the nomination (shudder), the Democrats would win hands down because he will scare off any Republican who can actually think past the bluster. If he ran as an Independent, he would probably steal some votes, but even then I doubt it would be enough to work as a real spoiler in the election. But the point is that Trump has no substance, and without that, he can't shake anything up beyond making a few waves early on.

Sanders, on the other hand, actually has a real platform with real ideas. And in many ways, it's him vs. the rest of the Democrats. In a perfect world, other Democrats could rally around him and there would be potential to see a splinter party form into something that would give us a more left-leaning major party. Then, we'd see the more moderate Republicans join with the Democrats, the Republican party would be left with its rabid Christian base, and we might actually wind up with three parties that count.

But, this won't happen either. It would be terrible for BOTH major parties if a third party got any real strength, and our current third party, the media, would not know what to do, so they'd move to discredit or ignore the new group the way they do every other candidate who dares challenge the tried and true Red vs Blue horse race coverage they are so good at cramming down our throats.

[Indy]

I don't think Trump will shake up the system at all. He's popular because he's loud and "says what he wants," but he doesn't represent any sort of political movement. If he got the nomination (shudder), the Democrats would win hands down because he will scare off any Republican who can actually think past the bluster. If he ran as an Independent, he would probably steal some votes, but even then I doubt it would be enough to work as a real spoiler in the election. But the point is that Trump has no substance, and without that, he can't shake anything up beyond making a few waves early on.

Sanders, on the other hand, actually has a real platform with real ideas. And in many ways, it's him vs. the rest of the Democrats. In a perfect world, other Democrats could rally around him and there would be potential to see a splinter party form into something that would give us a more left-leaning major party. Then, we'd see the more moderate Republicans join with the Democrats, the Republican party would be left with its rabid Christian base, and we might actually wind up with three parties that count.

But, this won't happen either. It would be terrible for BOTH major parties if a third party got any real strength, and our current third party, the media, would not know what to do, so they'd move to discredit or ignore the new group the way they do every other candidate who dares challenge the tried and true Red vs Blue horse race coverage they are so good at cramming down our throats.

With as quickly as the media fawned over the Tea Party, I don't see the media issue as big of a deal. But since it would hurt the GOP and the Dems, I just can't see it getting off the ground.

[Ghost]

But the Tea Party isn't a real party, and they are never going to split from the Republicans. They effectively have moved the party further to the right just by being there, but they never really shook anything up either.

[LazarusLong]

10 candidates on a stage simultaneously isn't a debate; it's a sideshow.
Reminds me of a classroom full of first graders, on the first day of school, fresh from a breakfast of Cocoa-Puffs. They are all mindlessly competing for attention.

Actually, include a swimsuit and a talent completion and you have a short Miss America program.

When the field gets down to three or four candidates, then I will pay attention.