That was the first I'd heard of him. Jeebus, what a story. That poor kid.

That question aside I thought Romney did quite well last night...unfortunately for him the one person he needed to clearly beat(Huckabee) also came off pretty well too.




I am getting a little sick of these "Town Hall" type debates.....they're about as real as reality TV and take away the focus from the candidates. I want real journalists(I don't even care if they are liberals or not) asking these questions....at least you know where they are coming from and most of them don't try to be the show.

Now that he is starting to get some real attention I finally went and looked into Huckabee. All I can say is "oh my god, please no!" Fortunately he probably won't do anything outside of the easily swayed by fundamentalist Iowa caucus crowds and maybe a couple southern states.

So long as there are 63 candidates on stage needing something approximating equal time no debate can actually be one.

Obviously, you don't know me well. Feel free to offer rebuttal, I'm not afraid of the discussion.

There are various reasons, but fundamentally it'll come down to the fact that Huckabee was one of the three men who raised his hand in this video. Quite simply, if you are willing to say in front of a national audience that you do not believe in evolution, I do not think you are qualified to be president of the United States. To me, this is worthy of the same reaction we'd have if one of the candidates raised his hand if asked "who believes the sun revolves around the earth."

His later demurrals that it isn't important whether he believes in evolution because he isn't asking to write high school textbooks just makes it worse since it would appear he has no understanding of the role the president plays in fostering policy in the executive branch. His later comments that he believes god created the universe "but he doesn't know how long it took or how it happened" is a better answer but then suggests he answered the question in the video without understanding it since believing in God does not necessarily require not believing in evolution (just ask the last pope and the vast majority of scientists).

So, right there, I am completely off the bandwagon.

Then there's the fact that it appears he is a social conservative but a fiscal progressive (both Republicans and Democrats tend to be fiscally progressive they just disagree on which problems need progression) which is, in my opinion, the worst combination of stereotypically Republican traits (this part, admittedly, is mostly from an NPR profile but based on the disqualification above I don't feel the need to poke into details too much more.

Then he had to go and invoke Godwin's Law. :)

I kinda liked how he used Paul as a sorta heavy bag to show how he would go after a potential Dem rival.

I was actually surprised that, in front of that audience, Ron Paul was getting quite a few cheers and McCain was getting booed when he said that we were winning in Iraq. And imagine how much louder that booing would have been in a mixed crowd. So yeah, he came out swinging, but I don't thing America is buying what he is selling.

I do agree with him on the waterboarding subject however.

Each candidate had between 30 - 40 hard core supporters in the audience....Pauls were pretty loud.

Fox news(for what it's worth) had 34 registered Republicans wired. They were to hit one button every time they heard something they liked and another everytime they heard somethig they disliked. At that point in time when McCain was being booed by the "audience" his favorable rating spiked at nearly 80%. In other words the audience noise was not a good measure of how people generally felt about what was being said.

Of course these same 34 people, when polled at the end of debate gave the win to Thompson.......(at best, I think Thompson came in 5th) so who knows if Fox's Republicans were all that random or not.

I really hate these town hall debates.....I think they diminish the office these guys are seeking.