Final Thoughts

I fell asleep during the second hour of last night's GOP debate. And it was a long day at work on Thursday. But I did want to post some final thoughts.

In the contest for who can be the biggest douchebag, I have to agree with my brother. Romney wins by a country mile. The greatest douchebag moment was when a black man listed a series of issues where most African Americans agree with conservative positions. Then he asked, "Why don't we vote for you?" Which is a really good question.

In response, Romney said the most important thing is to get back to "family values," which means every family should have a mother and a father. That's the way to address a lot of these concerns.

Amazing, isn't it, how Romney can manage to be completely condescending and racist without actully answering the question. Which manages to answer the brother perfectly. I mean, when you think about it, the only surprising thing is that the man asking the question wasn't currently in prison. Surely he has some sort of record. Not the kind 50 Cent puts out.

The second biggest douchebag moment, of course, was in a response to a question about how the rest of the world views America due to its attitudes towards Islam and Muslims. The question was asked by a young Muslim American woman wearing a head scarf who said she had spent time studying in the Middle East. While others took pains to point out that there are Muslims who are not terrorists, for Giuliani the most important point is that "we have to stay on offense." Apparently the War on Terror is like a college football game. Giuliani did not specify where this "offense" would take us -- do we need to invade some other country full of brown people to show we still got game? Hmm, maybe it starts with an I?

Finally, I have to say, I was bloody well impressed with Huckabee. He's just as smooth as a previous man who found a path from Hope to the White House. He impressed by not pandering to the audience (as all of them, even McCain and Ron Paul, did multiple times). He was cool and clever, using his wit to get out of some tricky questions. When asked about the death penalty -- "what would Jesus do?" -- he quipped that Jesus chose not to run for public office, which made nicely the point about rendering unto Caesar where others might have faltered.

And he was eloquent and compelling rationalizing how one can be "pro-life" on abortion and yet sign off on death warrants as governor. I didn't buy it, but he put on a good sell. And, most impressively, he was the only one not to cater at all to the anti-immigrant sentiment that was so strong in the audience. He actually gave a convincing and deeply felt (as far as it seemed) argument for why we should not punish the children of illegal immigrants who have been raised and educated in the U.S. for the sins of their parents. This was in defense of his support for a proposed Arkansas law that would have let children of illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at state universities, and even be eligible for in-state scholarships.

To be clear: I think they're all atrocious on the substance. Huckabee included. But he is the only one who brings sufficient sugar along with the medicine. If he does well in Iowa, things could get very interesting. The problem for the GOP this time around is they're pitching immigrant-hate, abortion-hate, gun control-hate, Muslim-hate, gay-hate. Not a word about the looming crises with the environment, oil, the economy. . . . Theirs is entirely the wrong medicine. And even Huckabee won't be enough to help it go down.