Republican Debate thread 8/23/23

[Ralph Wiggum]

The Election 2024 section is rather inactive yet, so I'm posting it here for discussion.

As a resident of one of the first states in the primary/caucus process, certainly have skin in the game tonight.

I voted for President Trump enthusiastically in both 2016 & 2020. Yet I'm absolutely not deciding whom I will support early next year quite yet.

That having been said, I'm watching the rest of those participating tonight rather than tune in to Tucker's "Twitter/X" deal with President Trump. I'll hear the highlights afterwards, considering I'm not obsessed with the "Orange Cheetolini" as much as the left is.

There are a lot of good things I've heard from each of the candidates, and I'm inundated with ads/junk mail/calls/texts already. Once it gets closer to actual casting a ballot, I'll give y'all my reasons for who I choose to represent my party.

I have one guarantee: the leftist media will declare Chris Christie (Blob-NJ) as the winner because that beached whale has already declared he's there as an assault rifle on Orange Man Bad.

Carry on.

[Drafe Hoblin]

I'm voting for Trump no matter what.

The elite and the elite media insured that.  They need to be mercilessly hounded and publicly blowtorched.  Nobody on the stage tonight is capable of it.  Nobody on the stage tonight is capable of casting a black shadow over China. 

The Debate will be a NASCAR-pileup of pre-school buzzer and bell-dinging...  " Each of you have 60-seconds to explain how you'll forgive The Left. "  etc.

I'm watching Tucker.   

[DefiantSix]

Under no circumstance will I be giving another vote to any faction of the Uni-party.

[enslaved1]

Under no circumstance will I be giving another vote to any faction of the Uni-party.

  and stolen.  Might print it and tape it on the classroom door.

I didn't watch the debate, number one it's too early in the season, number two there are too many candidates to cram on one stage and expect much actual debate.  There should be two or three initial debates, pick 3-5 max names from a hat, pick their brains for a bit, give everyone some time to talk and provide us with reasons to vote for them.

Christie is wasting his time again.  He's not getting the nomination, and if he had all the other candidates gunned down and miraculously is picked last man standing, he's not winning the general.  Pence is wasting his time.  Trumpers won't vote for him for turning Judas on Trump (in some opinions), never Trumpers won't vote for him cause he's tainted by the touch of TFG, and if by some other miracle he got the nomination, the general public seems likely to vote against him also because he's Trump adjacent.   

Highlights I've heard this morning, Ramaswamy made some good points and some big statements, don't know if he's got the muster to power through the rest of the season or how he'd fare in the general.  Sounds like Desantis hit some high points, held his spot as the most likely to be head to head with Trump (assuming Trump holds up through the rest of the season, again, it's still so early).

[Eupher]

I watched the Tucker/Trump interview this morning.

No way in hell do I watch any debate. They're pointless, IMHO. Basing a vote on someone's performance (and that's what it is) with moderators who usually can't GTFO the way is like selecting a piece of chocolate candy from a box of chocolate candies, a la Forrest Gump -- you never know what you're going to get.

My impressions on the Trump/Tucker interview (taped a couple of days before and scheduled to go on about 5 minutes before the GOP debate):


• Trump had a difficult time staying on topic -- probably because Tucker's questions were (deliberately) generic. He got into the weeds on some of those questions, veering way off course.
• Tucker followed up on a couple of key points, but one question I just could not fathom that Tucker kept harping on -- "Did Epstein kill himself?" Trump said he didn't know, though it was possible Epstein was killed.
• Trump wasted no time harping on the 2020 election (again). He badmouthed Pence, declaring that he thought Pence got "bad legal advice" and Trump went on to explain that he himself got differing opinions from different attorneys. He talked around the subject, somewhat unclearly, when he pointed out that he asked Pence to call for a delay in confirming the delegate votes rather than rejecting those votes outright. (The leftist media point out that Trump called for Pence to dump the Constitution (Pence says so too) which is patently wrong.) Trump said that Pence is a "bad man."
• When Tucker asked Trump what his first priority would be if he were reelected, he paused for a second before saying "the border." Trump claimed he built 500 miles of the Wall (generally true) with another 200 miles to be built with material already staged and another 300 miles yet to be funded.

Apart from Trump's meandering around the questions and Tucker's general "let him talk" approach, the interview was classic Trump. In short, he thinks very highly of himself.

[FlaGator]

So far I've seen no one that I really feel compelled to vote for... not even Trump.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Under no circumstance will I be giving another vote to any faction of the Uni-party.

Which is why I tuned in last night and figured I'd catch up later with the Trump/Tucker thing. I want to identify who isn't part of the Uni-Party.

There were only three who impressed me last night: Vivek, DeSantis and Haley. Scott seemed like he wasn't even there although I like him, Pence is the preacher who touts his "political experience" which scares me. "ASS" Hutchinson and Doug Burgum were unimpressive and barely noticed them. And the attack dog Chris Christie falls into the Pence bucket although less evangelical.

Just for poops and giggles, here's how the NY Slimes ranked the 8 on stage last night (no link):

Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the first Republican presidential primary candidate debate, held in Milwaukee on Wednesday night. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers and contributors rank the candidates on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the candidate probably didn’t belong on the stage and should have dropped out before the debate even started; 10 means the candidate can head to Iowa and New Hampshire with the wind at his or her back. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought about the debate.

Nikki Haley 6.3

Mike Pence 5.1

Chris Christie 4.8

Ron DeSantis 4.5

Tim Scott 4.2

Vivek Ramaswamy 3.8

Doug Burgum 2.9

Asa Hutchinson 2.8

Their leftist commentary is downright hilarious what they think is important.

[Eupher]

Hutchinson has no business being on ANY stage at this point. Any jackoff governor who vetoes a law prohibiting the genital mutilation of children in a red state like Arkansas should pack his duffle bag, clear quarters, and GTFO of town.

He's yet another example of a career politician who just doesn't know when to quit.

[enslaved1]

So far I've seen no one that I really feel compelled to vote for... not even Trump.

I'm on board with that.  Partially because I don't know for sure who's going to be on the other side of the ballot, and what will be needed to beat them.  There's no guarantee that Biden will make it to November 2024, physically or mentally, and even if the duct tape and superglue does hold, how many voters will still be willing to vote for him seeing how far he has declined?  Even that will be affected by who the R nominee is.  Trump and Desantis have a lot of fans, but they have a lot of detractors as well. 

It's going to be a long year, that's for sure.

[Ptarmigan]

Under no circumstance will I be giving another vote to any faction of the Uni-party.

How about Bugs Bunny for President. 

[enslaved1]

How about Bugs Bunny for President. 

I'm waiting for Alice Cooper's fairly regular "campaign" to kick off.  He promised "a chicken in every pot" a couple of elections ago. IYKYK.

[DefiantSix]

I'm waiting for Alice Cooper's fairly regular "campaign" to kick off.  He promised "a chicken in every pot" a couple of elections ago. IYKYK.

Alice Cooper would have been a pretty damned good Mayor of Scotsdale, AZ back in the day.

[DefiantSix]

How about Bugs Bunny for President. 

Can't vote for Bugs, Ptarmy. He always gets turned around in proximity to Albuquerque. Anyone who doesn't know what his objectives are that close to the southern border can't have my vote.

[SVPete]

[SVPete]

How about Bugs Bunny for President. 

Well, he keeps missing left turns at Albuquerque.

[Old n Grumpy]

No matter how bad the republicans are the democrats will be ten times worse 
God help us if either biden gets another term of if Gavin nuisance gets elected 

[Ptarmigan]

Bugs Bunny is the Anti-Christ. He gives doom and gloom.