CNN/Youtube Debate

I'm not sure who the winner of Wednesday's debate was, but the clear loser is CNN. They flew in a member of Hillary's campaign to debate the candidates on gays in the military when all of the questioners were supposed to be undecided Republicans. CNN would have realized that many of the questioners were actually Democrat plants if they had done a minute's worth of research online and I don't think anybody's buying their story that they didn't know who the gays in the military guy was. Many of the questions CNN chose revealed their view of Republican voters: crazy gun lovers and religious weirdos. One questioner wanted to the candidates to comment on his Confederate flag. We get the message, CNN: Republicans are kooks. CNN is a joke, yet it's the Democrats who refused to even go on Fox News for a debate.

As far as the candidates (click here for transcript), I thought Rudy got creamed, especially on illegal immigration. Thompson was good, but not great. He had solid answers to every question, I'm confident in his conservative values and character, but he just hasn't excited me yet. Huckabee was good, although he did take shots on taxes. He had a great line, when asked about expanding the space program: "maybe Hillary could be on the first rocket to Mars." No one addressed his huge weaknesses in understanding a free-market economy (see my entry below). Romney scored some points early on Rudy, but seemed to waffle on a couple questions. However, he firmly responded to criticsm from Thompson on his abortion record: "I was wrong." Romney noted that he had his change of heart soon after becoming governor and vetoed every abortion rights expanding bill that came across his desk. I think Romney made a mistake though in wasting all his ammo on Rudy. He should have targeted Huckabee's lack of conservative credentials, as Huckabee is a greater threat in the early primaries.