This Sunday’s debate caps the weekend Presidency IV rally in which Florida Republican politicians, political groups, and four of the Republican presidential candidates vied for attention to their views and policies. After all of the thousands of Republican ambassadors from Florida’s 67 counties filled the Gatlin ballroom at Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, FL to hear Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, and Fred Thompson battle to establish themselves as the GOP frontrunner for the 2008 presidential election.
Before the debate began, a Fox News Channel focus group showed some of the more bizarre Florida GOP voter opinions, along with equally bizarre, attitude-heavy moderation on the Hannity & Colmes pseudo-news entertainment program. Not only did Fox News Channel presenter Frank Luntz bereate the focus group for being undecided on a Republican candidate, but one of the participants called Ron Paul “certifiably insane,” and almost every group member agreed that Hillary Clinton was a “socialist.”
All of the debate hosts were from Fox News Channel, and consistently frustrated the candidates by misquoting them and misrepresenting their stances and policies.
The first battle among the candidates was over who was more conservative. None of the candidates gave particularly inspiring responses — they commented on their voting and political records, and tossed off small attacks on various votes, political support, and positions that opposing candidates have executed over the years. The first portion of the debate frequently seemed like a series of arguments among candidates, fueled by antagonistic comments from the Fox News Channel hosts meant to encourage the participants to attack one another. In some cases, the questions asked of the candidates contained misquotes and quotes taken out of context, which all of the candidates expressed some discontent with. The exception was Mike Huckabee, whose first comment of the debate, some 20 minutes into it, were that he would not attack his fellow Republicans. Duncan Hunter even commented in his first response that the Fox hosts were trying to divide the Republican party with their questions and comments.
On the subject of health care, both John McCain and Ron Paul had in-depth analyses of how the health insurance issue can be dealt with affordably. Mitt Romney talked up his own plan in Massachusetts, which reduced regulation in state-organized health insurance. Duncan Hunter insisted that Romney’s plan would fail on a larger scale because it contained too many state mandates, and Mike Huckabee said that the larger problem was the health of the average American citizen, and that prevention of chronic diseases would be a better focus than federally organized health care plans.
Continuing the string of bizarre questions, the Fox News hosts asked Mitt Romney if he thought Hillary Clinton would make a good commander-in-chief of the US military, Romney laughed and said that the audience — which unanimously screamed “No!” — would answer for him. When told that some analyst had asserted that he and Hillary Clinton are identical on many social issues, Giuliani said incredulously, “You have got to be kidding.”
John McCain got a standing ovation for attacking Hillary Clinton for her pork-barrel spending, specifically for trying to secure federal funding for a Woodstock concert museum, admitting that he was “tied up at the time,” referring to his time spent in the “Hanoi Hotel” POW camp in Vietnam. Huckabee refused to joke about Clinton, saying that “there is nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president.” Thompson insisted that the Republicans shouldn’t concentrate on fighting one Democrat, but to stick to Republican ideals, which he said were the best formula for running the federal government.
Despite the fact that Ron Paul was booed for saying that US troops should come home from the war in Iraq, his comments on removing all troops from “America’s empire” around the world earned him generous applause. John McCain reiterated his staunch support of US troops, and his belief that a stronger military presence is now working to win the war in Iraq, which will in turn help to remove the threat of Islamic terrorism from the middle east.
On social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and social security, Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney all agreed that extensive work needs to be done to reform these plans. Ron Paul called for giving people the option of getting out of social security — paying into it and receiving benefits from it. The other candidates favored a partial or complete privatization of social security and other benefits. Duncan Hunter said that many social security problems could be solved by fixing foreign trade deficits, tariffs, and re-claiming the manufacturing jobs the US has lost to China and other economically emerging countries, which would revitalize the middle class.
For some reason, the hosts thought that asking the candidates about diplomatic ties with Russia would elicit good responses, but the candidates only offered theorycraft and vague speculation.
If crowd reaction is any indication, warmongering is popular among Florida Republicans. Ron Paul was booed for suggesting an Iraq pullout and a strict policy of non-interventionism. He was booed again for saying that the Republican party had adopted the Democrats’ foreign policy attitude and strayed from traditional Republican philosophy, and all candidates who advocated military strength overseas were met with applause.
Post-debate coverage will be available on this site soon.
Discuss this article or get technical support on our forum.
Copyright 2007 JEM Electronic Media, Inc. No reprints without written permission.