CNN Republican You-Tube Debate -- Wednesday, November 28, 2007

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Huckabee has surged to a record high of 12.8 on InTrade.

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6. Speaking of Huckabee, we all realize the media keeps pushing this guy because they know he'd be a catastrophic general election candidate, right?  He has an exclusively fundamentalist religious education, he does not recognize evolution or the big bang, he has a tax plan that was designed by the Church of Scientology, he has said he thinks the purpose of gun rights is to make possible violent resistance to the Federal Government, he has no foreign policy expertise, he is economically illiterate, he can't raise money, and he believes Christianity should be the basis for public policy.  His simplistic one line answers to every question play well in cattle call debates, but in one on one engagements they are likely to look shallow and poorly thought out when compared to Hillary Clinton's detail heavy answers.  He is a joke and should be treated as one.

I think he could beat Clinton. Edwards would probably destroy him.

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I was watching some questions on YouTube, and during the Bible question, when Rudy said "I read the Bible quite frequently," I chuckled.

Also, does Romney have a slight cold or nasal congestion?

I don't know, but Romney really blew his response to the Bible question.  Maybe it was the point of the question to see if Romney would say yes or no.  Not sure, but I'm sure someone would have told him to work on a response for that question in case it popped up.

When they went to Romney on that question, I thought briefly "poor guy".

Then again, when you're the frontrunner, most every question is fair game.

Also, on Huckabee, why haven't any Republicans called him a tax-and-spender yet? That would be the easiest way to slow his momentum if you're Romney or Giuliani or McCain. He called the Club for Growth the "Club for Greed". Fred did last night in his ad but didn't follow up on it forcefully enough.

Eh, even better would probably be to point out that he supports lower tuition for illegal immigrants.

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In one sense, Ron Paul is about the opposite of conservatism.

I don't think he'd agree with you.  I think he'd speak of the "old right"  In France he'd definitely have been seated as far to the King's right as there are chairs.  And he is opposed to economic interventionism.  And he's totally against the current imperialism, which is really a big waste of U.S. capital and diminishes U.S. security.  Anyone that concerned with money and security, in a real economic sense, is far more conservative than most.  On the political spectrum of candidates, he's about as far to the right as we have among the candidates debating in both major parties.  Just as Kucinich is as far to the left as there is.  Most of us are neither libertarian nor socialist, but rather somewhere in between.  Just as Paul isn't a libertarian and Kucinich isn't a socialist (despite talking heads' frequent comments otherwise).  But as the American political spectrum goes (which isn't very far when you compare it to all that has been), they represent the extremes.  Paul is the quintessential small government conservative.  The guy in the mansion on the hill who doesn't allow morality to inform his politics.  (Just as Kucinich is the peasant with a lighted torch ready to flame his mansion and who allows morality and the tyrrany of the masses inform all of his.)  I respect them both.  Immensely.  They are about as near purist as we have.  Most Republicans aren't really conservative, just as most Democrats aren't really liberal.  In fact, ever since its first national convention in Pittsburgh in 1856, it has been Nationalism, and not Conservatism, that has been the defining characteristic of the party.  Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord.  He is trampling through the vintage with his terrible swift sword.  And all that.  Wrap oneself up in God and The Flag.  This is a constant in the Republican Party.  So just because Paul doesn't agree with most Republicans (on a few issues) doesn't make him "the opposite of conservatism."  Especially in light of the demonstrable fact that "conservativism" has never been the defining characteristic of the Republican party.  Nationalism is. 

Now, in that since, he may not be as "republican" as most republicans, since he isn't particularly nationalistic, at least in the manifest ways that come to mind nowadays.

Paul is anti-government. He is probably the most anti-government candidate in the whole field. He is against the military government, yay, and the financial government, and the social government, and the so called world government. Even the insurgent nature of his campaign channells heavily on an outsider theme and a not a small dose of his special kind of populism either.

On the other hand, what was Louis XIV's motto again? "L'État, c'est moi". So I'm not sure that he'd be quite on the side of the Bourbon monarchy. It's in that sense that they are opposites.

That's over-simplifiying him, for example he supports banning abortion.