Alright, I will be honest…until now, I haven’t watched any of the Republican debates on TV.  Focus issues with too many candidates, too many TV appearances, too far before the election, and too little direction for my taste.  Anyways, now that we are down to six, it is 2012, and headway is being made, things are beginning to get interesting.  I had read some transcripts, when I could, of the past debates so the personalities did not offset the messages entirely, but I avoided the debates themselves as well as the secondary news articles…all articles except Jay Nordlinger on National Review Online.  If you ever want an enjoyable quick “flavor” view/feeling of a debate, perhaps after reading a dry recap or watching the real thing, his columns are great.

I decided to give the debate a chance tonight as a break from reading, and was pleasantly surprised to find it enjoyable.  I won’t be watching the debate tomorrow, however, based on the news analysis afterwards…I fear the candidates may read the headlines I am starting to see pop up tonight and run in a direction I am not in favor of…attacking each other.   Tonight’s debate was very informative and the candidates did a nice job of presenting their views in a fairly connected way.  Usually the canned answers get to me, but I felt this was more off the cuff than they had been for a while and, for the most part, they were responding and reacting to the questions and each other.

Here are my quick, general impressions of the candidates (kind of for my own record)…without focusing on specific views, topics, or statements…I already know my views and where they fit…those types of critiques are for later in the year.

Jon Huntsman:  Fairly narrow scope of knowledge and topics.  He knows some issues and he knows those issues extremely well, but he has to work to twist the answers he wants to give to fit the questions actually asked.  Romney, attack, governor, 47^th, record, go!  Although he has a typical presidential speaking style down with his smoothness, cadence, and tone, he was probably the most canned out of all the candidates (note: not more synthetic than the current admin. nor condescending).  I don’t trust him to be strong though…out of all the candidates, I felt he is the only one on a lower tier than the rest skill-wise (granted, I don’t currently know if any of the candidates are top-tier, but he is in a different game).   Perhaps he can learn over the next year…I don’t know.  His style and responses made me slightly uneasy as I felt he could not handle the job if it got tough…I have no doubt in theory and unchallenged he could pull off his goals; however, if something catastrophic happened, I would not trust him to keep his head on straight and the country focused…I’m not sure why, just a gut feeling.  With that being said, I know very little about the guy and can’t back that up with anything other than watching him in the debate.  I would keep him for the administration as a foreign policy guy and have no fear about handing him the mic.

Ron Paul:  Why the anger?  Actually, no, I get the anger, but I do not believe it is necessary.   I’m with him, for the most part, on his views of the Constitution of the United States…great…he can be the absolute go-to guy, key authority, and intellectual on the subject; however,  stretching applicability to every single question does not work.  I really like you, Ron Paul, but relevant answers to modern problems cannot be found in the Constitution.  The framework and overall guidance and boundaries may be there and surely should not be trampled on or manipulated; however, the solution must come from the thoughts of today.  For whatever reason, he stops at A: whether something is unconstitutional or not…okay, what comes after that?  B: a practical, sustainable, constitutionally acceptable answer for economics, health care, energy, etc…I want to hear part B, not just A.  I would also keep him close in an administration as a legal expert…I would not, however, hand him the mic.

Mitt Romney:  Veeery intelligent.  Seemed a little on his heels tonight, perhaps not knowing who his key opponent was going to be or waiting for an attack that never really materialized.  He was more likeable than other times I have watched him, but gut feeling: he’s just not my guy.   There is a difference between someone like Huntsman who would roll over in a second at the slightest hint of pressure, and someone like Romney who could easily handle the job, but I could foresee getting dangerously stubborn and waiting too long to admit he was wrong until it was too late.   A few times tonight, he seemed to come off as the resident debate expert by answering for the group in an almost “let me take this one; let me do this for us, guys…” manner when he felt they could answer in one voice.  I felt this worked in certain instances, but was odd in others.  One promising sign is that he, in a joking way, would defer to whoever on the panel knew the subject better than he when asked certain questions…in a non-joking manner, this deferment showed me he agrees with certain viewpoints of other candidates and his instinct to turn to them showed he can admit he doesn’t know everything and would be willing to rely on experts when necessary.  This has not been done for a while in the exec branch…if this became a trend for him, my view may change.

Rick Santorum:  Please let me like you, Santorum, I really want to and I’m really trying. The goofy quips are okay and actually quite good because they show a bit of wit, frustration, passion, etc; however, they should occur max once, maybe twice…please, do not be rude.  The other side has that down; let them be the experts on it or save it for the partisan debates where it is slightly more appropriate (I suppose).  Actually, it would be interesting to see how his “zings” would interact with Mr. Obama’s condescension….hmmm….interesting.   I remember watching Santorum many times in high school after school giving speeches in the Senate on CSPAN with his flip charts and easels.  I was impressed by him then and learned quite a bit about politics and speaking from him…I even loosely followed him until he was no longer in the Senate although he was never my senator.  I get what he is about; however, he has to become slightly more likeable to the general public to be electable. For some reason, his sincerity and passion is reading wrong…he cares so much, he comes off as arrogant…to me it is frustration.  I think this is probably because he sees so many issues as right or wrong in black and white…no gray middle area.  It may be a simple view or clear-cut idea to him, but to many Americans, it is not so easy.  His ease of answering questions needs to be toned down and he needs to spend some time and effort understanding the viewpoint of the other side…if he could acknowledge their opinions and see their views as valid and well supported, but different from his, I think he could go far.  Oh, and I forgot he was a steel guy until tonight…his economic views in this realm were spot on…big plus from the Rust Belt.

Newt Gingrich: Honestly, I do not know enough about Newt…many of his accolades and controversies occurred before I was ever thinking about politics.  Great politician.  Smart, well-versed, and impressive to watch.  I’m not sure that anyone can argue that this guy does not have unbelievable experience and knowledge.  It would probably be smart to keep him somewhere in the Whitehouse, but I would never vote for him as president in this election because he’s not what I want to see currently.  Advisor Gingrich is just fine…perhaps even Vice President.

Rick Perry:  Holy slogan-a-minute.  I agree with some of his views and policies on very specific topics, but I feel if you venture a couple of steps further than what the obvious answer is and look for some reasoning or “how to,” he’d just stare at you.  Also, I don’t really trust him…my totally unsupported gut feeling is that he’d lie especially to cover up something that would then snowball.  He also has Mr. Obama’s  speaking tendencies: half answer question, revert to what you want to say from someone else’s question from 5 minutes ago, switch from speaking to panel to surveying audience making eye contact, slowly raise voice, end loudly in tone that insinuates everyone has to agree with you or they are ignorant, achieve applause when audience doesn’t even know why they are clapping, but feel they should.  I’m not totally sure what you do with this guy…

Watching the debate restored some faith.  For quite some time I had viewed this Republican lot as hopeless and was confused about why they couldn’t do any better with the candidates.  Now, however, I’m beginning to see why each is up there; they all fill a gap.  Each candidate can counter at least one part of the current administration that people have a serious problem with…the winner will be whoever can fill these gaps the most.  Obviously their goals and policy will have to change drastically if they were elected president…specific campaign talk means very little to me because they can’t possibly understand the job until they get into it.  I know their views and keep those separate from the debates because they are on paper and should not change…for me, the debate is about their character, hopefully their lack of “rollability,” their passion, their strength, their knowledge, their ability to think on their feet, their humor, and their intellect.  A lot can happen in a year, but I can honestly say I am more comfortable with any one of those guys running our country, regardless of their specific views on issues, than the current president (other candidates who have previously dropped out…not-so-much).  The only two that would give me hesitation would be Huntsman for strength and Perry for knowledge.  The rest obviously have their own flaws, but come off as learners…and I can handle that.

I watched between 5-10 mins of the after debate analysis even though I promised myself I wouldn’t…mistake…I found out I apparently did not watch the same debate.  Annnnnd back to reading for Constitutional Law (Ron Paul would have been proud of the first 40 pages I have read today).

Two quick points from the little I saw though:

1)      I don’t believe Mitt “won.” I don’t believe anyone “won.”  I didn’t think someone had to “win.”  Media attempting to tell everyone it is over and clear-cut when it is not?  Possibly.  But why?

2)      Panelists say: In this debate Rick Santorum did not attack Romney (nobody did for that matter) and this was everyone’s big chance and sooo necessary to say “why me and not him”…FALSE!  If this would have happened, my TV would have been off within the first five minutes.  This is the reason I am not watching the debate tomorrow morning.  There is enough ignorant nitpicking between the parties and those in the general population for that matter…I’m proud this wasn’t a degrade and attack the other person show.  I don’t need the candidates to tell me why they are better than any other candidate; I already assume they think so otherwise I’m not sure why they would be running.  I need them to explain their thoughts, beliefs, policies, goals, game plan, etc. and I am smart enough to go “hey, I kinda sorta agree with X more than Y…he’s my guy!”

~Alright, I should actually have time to write a little over break and I am looking forward to it (although I guess we do only have less than three weeks off, but that will work).  In the meantime, I will be trying to fix some things on here in breaks between studying.  So far two finals down (one actual in class final for contracts and my memo for legal skills) and three more to go: civil procedure, criminal law, then finally torts next week.   Then holy moly, Christmas is here!!!   Life is really good right now…high stress, sometimes frustrating, and exhausting no doubt…but I truly love it.  It is amazing how a couple years and regaining a stubbornly idealistic attitude can shoot you off in the right direction.  Although quite obviously there is still lots to learn about life and tons to work on, baby steps will do for the time being (the steps do/have added up).  Well, I hope everyone is having a wonderful pre-holidays couple of weeks…be safe and have fun!

With love, all the best,

~Laura

P.S.  Can I just say this is why I love these guys…zany…and so good.  Wonderful version of “Silver Bells” at 0:47.  “People passing!” “They’re smiling!”   I will have to write about the Boston Pops show we went to featuring Rockapella…awesomeness.

AND a fun, short interview with Scott…gotta love his humor.

Tampa Interview with Scott Leonard of Rockapella