Well, honestly, I was nervous for Governor Palin going into the debate.
I was pleasantly surprised.
I thought Biden made it through without sticking his foot in his mouth.
The key things that I saw:
- Governor Palin hit it right on the head when she called out Biden for looking back on the last 8 years and blaming Bush for everything. McCain is clearly not Bush. The Obama campaign has done everything they can to cast McCain as a warmonger. Really, c’mon. The dude’s been a P.O.W. He knows the horrors of war and certainly has a better perspective than Bush in that regard. Not only have they labeled McCain (and Republicans for that matter) as warmongers, but they’ve also generalized ad nauseum that Republicans only care about rich businessmen and are insanely uncaring and black-and-white about social issues. I don’t think that’s true about most Republicans. I’m glad she drove home the differences in a firm, yet lighthearted and personable way.
- She likes the VP debates because she’s not being filtered by the Mainstream Media. Which, incidentally, I feel is one of the main reason why the name George W. Bush is like a curse word around the world. The Mainstream Media looks the other way with regards to Obama’s past, his supporters, his policies, his liberal agenda. Obama’s just an empty suit. He’s Bill Clinton without the experience. If the Mainstream Media and the Democrats didn’t have “8 years of failed _____ policies”, what would there be? Not much, IMO. People want “change” because Obama is there and he’s not Bush.
- I’m glad the whole debate wasn’t mean-spirited. I think that’s because of Governor Palin.
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vice president
Here’s more of my thoughts on the debate — on the Republican side, since I missed part of it when I was on the phone with my mom.
- McCain answered the guiding principles question (following the Bush video clip) very well. I think McCain’s strength is his experience. As much as “change” is the buzzword, it may be his biggest hurdle as well. I know that was my first reaction to him running again. Old.
- Huckabee’s speech about securing the borders was very good. I think building a wall and giving illegal immigrants a choice to go back and get in line to enter legally is a realistic option to the illegal immigration problem. Other than the wall, it’s basically enforcing the laws we now have. I believe that illegal immigration is in part a national security issue. That alone should warrant the construction of a wall.
- Guliani’s comments about why Barack Obama is not qualified to be president were spot-on. What has Obama run? Nothing.
- McCain’s comments about global warming were a little troubling. I don’t think the evidence is there.
- Guliani’s statements about making the goal energy independence like the goal to get to the moon were interesting. I wonder why this kind of thing hasn’t been done more in America. Seems to fit in well the capitalism and the free market.
Tags:
debate,
obama
I took some notes during the debates.
Republican side
- Romney was very defensive and serious — too much of both. He’s going to end up like Michael Bloomberg, out of touch with normal people because of all of his money. I think he hurt his chances in this debate.
- Thompson was funny and intimidating — there’s something about that voice of his.
- Ron Paul …hmmm.. He didn’t sound like a Republican at all. He’s too different/extreme to get the nomination. It’s too bad that he is running as a Republican because he has a enough steam with younger people (at least according the Facebook) to take votes away from the more realistic candidates.
- Huckabee was pretty down to earth. I wonder about how he would handle a crisis.
- Guliani was well-spoken and articulate, but stuck on 9/11.
- McCain stayed out of most most everything. He carried the big stick of experience and perspective. The question with McCain: is he too closely aligned with Bush? He took some jabs from Romney about immigration. Really, people. Can we deport all illegal immigrants, realistically? McCain’s plan seems more realistic than other’s I’ve heard.
Democratic side
![[evil hillary]](http://sprignaturemoves.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/evil_hillary.jpg)
Oh, boy, where do I start. It’s pretty dang scary to me that one of these candidates could be the leader of the Free World. Yikes.
- The best line of the night for me was when Hillary said “let’s have a reality break?” I laughed. I don’t think it’s what she mean — you know — breaking from reality and all, but based on the talk leading up to that comment, there wasn’t much reality in it.
- The thing that I don’t get is this: The war in Iraq has cost taxpayers how many billions? And, what , socialized medicine is going to not cost taxpayers billions? Right.
- There was a lot more spouting off, stump speech snippents and not answering Gibson’s questions in the Democrat debate.
- I’m better, no I’m better, I can change better than you. No, you can’t. Yes, I can. Blah, blah, blah. Normal people are annoyed by this.
- Nothing was quite as scary to me as the foreign policy talk — especially Richardson’s pulling all of the troops out in 6 months. I think that’s an extreme and shortsighted view that is not realistic. I give Hillary some credit for at least being realistic about how to get the troops out of Iraq.
- Seems obvious to me that our military will get gutted, ala Bill Clinton, if anyone of these candidates gets elected.
- I’m tired of the Bush-bashing. He’s an easy target. That tactic is tired and dumb — “the failed policies of the Bush administration.” Come up with some realistic ideas of your own. I’m not sure that any of these chumps would have handled the tough things better than Bush has during his presidency.
- Stopping the special interest groups is “extraordinarily personal” to Edwards. That’s nice. There goes all of his funding.
- Hillary was way too overbearing, fatheaded and mean sounding. People don’t like it.
- Program after program after program after program after program after program. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching…
- I thought Edwards spent the whole debate trying to have the biggest quote of the night.
- I thought it was awesome that Edwards and Obama teamed up on Hillary, especially Edwards comments about Hillary taking third in Iowa.
General thoughts
- I know ABC is biased toward the liberal side, so it makes me wonder why the Republican debate was shown first. Having the Democratic debate second makes it the one that sticks in peoples minds. Don’t think that was quite fair.
- The commercials during this debate were ridiculous. Serenity Underwear, Rogaine foam, Flomax and Mucus and Congestion Alka-Seltzer. The list goes on.
- The Facebook hype was dumb. The choices for the most surprising moment in the Republican debate left something to be desired. I was on Facebook during the debate and most of the data the “correspondent” read didn’t match the majority of what was being shown — at least in the status update thing in the right column.
In case you missed the debates, there they are on Youtube:
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debate,
liberal,
obama
Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church
Second time this article has been shared in my sphere of friends on Facebook.
Ok. Ok.
This age-old debate drums on. How “in but not of” should we be in the culture of ours? It’s certainly not a black-and-white issue in my mind. Back in my high school days it was about Stryper and Christian heavy metal and the associated drugs and sex culture.
This article is a little one-sided and slants toward the “look at these hypocritical Christians” shtick. It skimps on the details about the outreach and positive influence on kids that aren’t part of a church at all. From my perspective, the fellowship was good, fun and positive. You can’t just let the gaming at church stand on it’s own — as it is with any other outreach effort.
I’m glad it’s Halo and not some of the other games that are out there.
Tags: debate