Republican Debate

So the Republican Debate was on msnbc last night.

For my aussie friends quick summary; in the USA they hold primaries about 9 months out from the general election to decide on the final two candidates for President, normally this is a Republican and a Democrat but occasionally people try to run as a 'third party'.

So what happens is you have a field out about 5-10 people from either side of which about 2 or 3 from each side get most of the press.

Each respective candidate has raised on average about $20m with the majors, Hillary, Obama and Giuliani at least double that figure (can you start to see what is wrong with US politics already??).

Ok so in the primaries they will whittle it down to two, probably Hillary on the democrats side and Giuliani on the republican side but here's what I wanted to post about.

Last night the Republicans (I think there were about 8 of them) held a msnbc live telecast debate.

I have never seen a bigger bunch of losers in my life. Fred Thompson whilst a fine actor (and to me at least an unknown senator) fumbled his lines and answers (earlier he referred to the Soviet Union as the USA's biggest threat - the soviet union collapsed in 1991, I guess he meant Russia but the guy is stuck in senility land).

The biggest issue with the majority of them is they dont stand for anything....they are just saying whatever they think will get them votes and hopefully say it in such a way that 'all listeners' think this is the candidate for them.

Like how every second candidate at least once during the night said ...republicans have to be voted in as we are the only ones who will cut government spending - lol like Bush hasn't increased spending over the last 7 years in a way never seen before (that and it was Clinton's decision to retire national debt instead of tax cuts in 1997).

There were a couple of highlight moments like when Ron Paul lost his cool about someones answer about bombing Iran and shouted "are you all nuts-this is insane we are even considering this" (rightly so but I've given up even trying to explain to Americans why going to Iran would be a whole different ballpark compared to Afghanistan and Iraq - heck it's not a different ballpark it's a whole different solar system.....lets just put it this way the day the USA invades Iran is the day i packup and move back to Sydney as the shit will be hitting the fan in a way we've never seen before).

Most of the 90 minutes I was just scratching my head going are these guys for real.

I mean there were things on the democrats debate a few weeks ago where I was saying hmmmm dont agree with that and I was looking forward to some interesting counter views last night but basically at the end of the show I was like who the heck is ever going to vote for these guys when I'm pretty much pro-business and pro-small government.

So here's the prediction - Hillary will win in 08 against Giuliani.


Cheers,
Dean