2023 Republican Debate

I will try to watch... more out of morbid curiosity than anything. I expect it'll be a circular firing squad, with everyone sniping at each other, rather than the frontrunner.

Headlines tomorrow, I fully expect, will be a hilarious summary of all the gaffes and counter-factual conspiracy claims. The MSNBC debate analysis afterward will undoubtedly be more entertaining, with plenty of laughter and eye-rolling.

Wow, I did not expect the debate to devolve into utter chaos quite so fast. The Fox moderators should have have had kill switches on the microphones. The cows also was not instructed to say quiet.

Crowds not cows. Or maybe not?

Wow. Vivek Ramaswamy is batshit crazy.

Charismatic, but crazy. That's a dangerous combination in a party that cares only about "star power" and not about facts or policy. Hate to say it, but if (when) Trump goes down on the 14th Amendment, the "skinny guy with the funny name" (line borrowed from Obama) might be the inheritor.

As befits modern-day Republicans, there were a lot of falsehoods tossed out as facts.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Wow. Vivek Ramaswamy is batshit crazy.

And his claim that he's the only candidate that's not bought and paid for by a SuperPAC turns out to be not quite true.

I've decided I won't be watching the second GOP debate tonite.

My stomach's been a little queasy the past few days, and I don't want to throw up.

Down to Desantis and Haley, watched a few minutes of it tonite, again out of morbid curiosity.

The single takeaway? Republicans have a candidate quality problem in 2024.

Quote :

Viewers of both CNN and Fox News could turn on their televisions Wednesday night and witness Republican presidential candidates existing in alternative realities.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-desantis-haley-debate-iowa-caucus_n_659f70d2e4b0e696b910b969

I can't believe what softball questions CNN threw at the contestants.  I thought CNN was supposed to be a news organization.

How about:
CNN: Governor Desantis, you claim to be "pro-life" yet you allowed 34,557 residents of Florida to die of Covid through inadequate public safety measures to deal with the global pandemic.  How do you square being more concerned about businesses being hurt -- which can be restarted after the pandemic - than killing your own citizens, who, once they're dead, remain dead forever?

CNN: Governor Haley, which was the first U.S. state to secede from the union?

CNN: Governor Desantis, you currently have a state Surgeon General who espouses conspiracy theories, debunked science claims, and has been universally derided by the scientific community as a quack.  Why did you appoint such an unqualified person to this important post?

CNN: Governor Haley, before you had the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina statehouse, you spent years defending its presence. Why did you change policies?

CNN: Governor Desantis, can you define "woke" for us?

CNN: Governor Desantis, you have been very active in banning books that tell us about Black history, gender issues, mental health issues, and anything that might make a white-supremacist uncomfortable.  Do you intend to rewrite US history if elected president?

Quote :

During the hourlong “town hall” on Fox News, Trump fielded friendly questions from voters, almost all of whom supported him, and from Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha McCallum, who never once challenged anything he said, no matter how wrong.