Monday, January 07, 2008

New Hampshire Republican Debate

I wasted nearly two hours of my life watching last night's debate on FOX.

FOX was shameful when it decided to exclude two of the Republican candidates from the debate (Hunter and Paul).

When I looked at the eight Republicans running for President a month ago there were three I could not vote for and five I might be able to support

The four I liked were Ron Paul, Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, and Fred Thompson. Tancredo has dropped out. Paul and Hunter were excluded from the debate. Huckabee I am not sure about; however, his performance last night was not impressive.

The three I cannot vote for are Giuliani, Romney, and McCain.

I do not like inconsistencies in candidates and I do not like "flip-flopping."

As far as last night's debate goes I am not sure who won. I liked the responses of Fred Thompson the most; however, that is not surprising since I liked him the most before the debate.

The New Hampshire Republican Party impressed me since it dropped its sponsorship of the debate since Paul and Hunter were excluded.

I am not sure who will win the Republican primary at this point; any of the five candidates in last night's debate could win the nomination; however, if I had to guess I think it will be Huckabee or Romney.

The Republican field is wide open and it will be interesting to see who wins.

I imagine that Clinton or OBama will win on the Democratic side.

Looks like I will most likely be voting for a Libertarian for President again; however, it will depend on which Libertarian wins the nomination.

Mike Sylvester

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

The media continues to try to pick the winners for us by filtering out anyone who they don't want to succeed.

To put it nicely, this is complete bullshit.

Templeton Peck said...

No, I think Ron Paul's numbers (as well as Duncan Hunter's, who I like) dictate their absence.

Anonymous said...

To leave mainstream candidates out of a forum based on numbers from the caucus in one state, or polling data is ridiculous.

How about we look at Ron Paul's fundraising numbers?

Are those good enough to get him in the forum in your opinion?

Templeton Peck said...

Kody

I disagree that Ron Paul is a mainstream candidate. His polling overall and showing in Iowa certainly don't reflect that. Further, you can't give somebody a microphone simply because of the amount of funds they've raised. At some point, that funding has to translate into votes to be a vialbe candidate. For Ron Paul, it hasn't.

Tim Zank said...

Kody, From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: 1main·stream
Pronunciation: \ˈmān-ˌstrēm\
Function: noun
Date: 1599
: a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence

Doesn't exactly describe RP.

Anonymous said...

If we look at Iowa numbers then Ron Paul is more mainstream than Giuliani.

And other polls can be misleading, as most of them generally talk to people who are likely to vote in one party or another, but in primary season that is not always how people vote. Crossover situations happen quite a bit, and independent voters also play a major role.

It is still very early in the primary season. 49 states have yet to voice their opinions. Candidates should not be left out of the discusssions this early. It does a disservice to the American people.

Templeton Peck said...

Re Ron Paul

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca

bobett said...

tim,

it's early...no picking on the young at hearted. It all works out.

Tim Zank said...

templeton peck: interesting link you provided. That side of RP isn't getting much coverage. It gets a mention here and there but nothing in the MSM. He's got a few pretty scary skeletons in his closet that I don't think many of his supporters would be too proud of. Except may the truthers, of course, they don't care about anything.

Robert Enders said...

Tim, Templeton,
What happened was that some goon published a newsletter under his name. He was too busy with his medical practice to notice it.

Does that sort of thing happen often? You bet. Many blogs still link to this page as "Mike Sylvester's blog" even though he no longer moderates the blog or generates most of the content. I will say things on this blog that Mike does not agree with and should not be attributed to him. Likewise, Mike says things on this blog that should not be attributed to me.

Ron Paul is not afraid to take an unpopular stand. If he were in fact racist, he would be openly and flagrantly racist.

Templeton Peck said...

Robert

I would believe you if it happened once or twice, but when this filth is churned out repeatedly over a long period of time, you think someone would eventually say to him, Ron, what's going on with your newsletter?

But let's say you're right, that he did not know what was being published under his name. That is almost as scary (although not quite) as what was actually being published.

Robert Enders said...

http://www.tnr.com/downloads/November1990.pdf
This is a link to a copy of the newsletter. It looks like it was made with a photocopier. Anybody could have made it.

And that really does scare me. It means that one guy with a photocopier could produce the "Robert Enders Gazette", say some very unkind things about certain demographic groups, then pretend to find it the next time I run for office. If this newsletter is real, how come it took 17 years to surface?

Templeton Peck said...

Are you now taking the position that this is not Ron Paul's newsletter? I assume he filed suit for the misappropriation of his name? Come on, Robert, if this was something a City Councilman did, you'd be all over him (and rightfully so). This guy is running for President!

Anonymous said...

I've read excerpt from the newsletter, which were written by Paul himself, and they are also bigoted.

In this article Paul defended "white fear" of blacks, arguing that blacks are 95% criminal or semi-criminal.

Paul can also be directly attributed to some of the anti-homosexual writings in the newsletter.

Anonymous said...

Robert, it didn't take 17 years to surface, but the writings are hard to find, because Paul has made them hard to find.

Before you start apologizing for someone who has clearly made racist and intolerant comments, you should look into the issue more.

Andrew Kaduk said...

The New York times (months ago) already discounted the idea that these were Paul's words. They were written by Eric Dondero. This TNR piece is a shallow attempt at besmirching Paul's well rounded and consistent positions.

Templeton Peck said...

Shallow? Are you kidding me? Are you telling me that Ron Paul should not be responsible for newsletter after newsletter, with his name on it, that spewed this garbage? Frankly, I don't care if it was written by somebody else. The fact that he allowed this to go out with his name on it should cause his immediate withdrawal from the race.

Anonymous said...

Have you read any of the content from the newsletters, Andrew? It's not the type of material that's passively published under someone's name. If you are involved in politics and there's a publication under you name, you going to at least look at the thing.

If Paul ever looked at one of the articles in question (this is presuming he did not review/edit/write any of them ,which is hard to believe), the 'ghostwriter' creating the content should have been removed from the publication immediately. The bigoted writing occurred for a span of years, however.

This is also not-to-mention that some of Paul recorded public comments align with the questions the newsletter raises.

Andrew Kaduk said...

Yes, I've read them. So did Ron Paul. He then fired Eric Dondero.
It was Eric's job to censor the content of several of the publications, and he ended up writing most of it.

Templeton, your sweaty red-faced objections to the content of these newsletters are hardly cause for Mr. Paul to drop out of even a local school board race. Heck, Sen. Robt. Byrd's actual membership in the KKK didn't stop him from running for office...so surely if somebody 20 years before that had attended a Klan rally wearing a name badge that said "Robert Byrd," it likely would have not forced an end to his candidacy either.

We get enough of this puff-chested fist pumping, "everyone must agree with my home-woven logic" rhetoric from politicians already...we don't need it in the comboxes of blogs too. This begs the question, are you a politician? It would clear up a thing or two.

Templeton Peck said...

Andrew

He fired him when, years later? This very website raised holy hell when it was discovered that to build Harrison Square, they were going to dig down to build the stadium, a common method of building stadiums since, oh, about the 1930's. Now, Robert and his ilk are prepared to give Ron Paul the mother of all free passes on this issue.

Steve, I am glad that there is at least one other sane person on this blog. Poor Jimmy the Greek, he would still be alive and well in Andrew's world. (I'm purposefully ignoring the insult about being a politican).

Andrew Kaduk said...

What in the world does digging-in a stadium have to do with what people were anonymously publishing in obscure newsletters 10 to 20 years ago?

Let's recap before this gets any more convoluted:

1. Ron Paul didn't write the inflammatory material.

2. He took responsibility for it anyway, SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, and apologized for his lack of oversight with respect to these little newsletters.

3. The New York Times (not exactly your typical conspiracy-theorist rag...nor does it really act as an apologism outlet for Republicans) reported on this (again, MONTHS AGO) and cleared up any misconceptions about Paul's involvement...not based on inference or speculation, but on facts.

This is just a re-hashing of the same two-term old "what did he know and when did he know it?" rhetoric that has been keeping those of us with any more than 12 functional brain cells absolutely bored to tears with political discourse.

Find a new horse to beat. This one was flogged beyond recognition before you ever heard the sad little agenda-spun side of the story that you did.

Anonymous said...

Couldn't find the Paul piece in the Times. I saw it address in one article, but it was in no way exonerative. Can you post the link.

This is a direct quote from Paul:

"University of Texas affirmative action law professor Barbara Jordan is a fraud. Everything from her imitation British accent, to her supposed expertise in law, to her distinguished career in public service, is made up. If there were ever a modern case of the empress without clothes, this is it. She is the archetypical half-educated victimologist, yet her race and sex protect her from criticism."

Paul apologized for this statement, but that hardly effaces the his sentiment.

Robert Enders said...

Steve, that was from the newsletter.

Andrew, where did you hear that Dondero was the editor of the newsletter? It sounds like something that Dondero would do, but we want to get our facts straight when talking to Steve and Templeton.

Speaking of which, Templeton, I was wrong to insist that the newsletter was a forgery. The image of the newsletter looks like something produced with a photocopier, and at first I thought that it looked like something anyone could have produced. Then I read Paul's most recent statement:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS233377+08-Jan-2008+BW20080108

Paul denied that the words are his, but he accepts responsility for them being published in his name. He is not racist, he simply trusted the wrong person to print the newsletter. There are dirtbags working in every public and private organization. You can't screen them all out in the hiring process, you can't monitor them all the time, you just fire them when you catch them.

Andrew Kaduk said...

I'll do you one better, Robert. Here is and excerpt including Ron Paul's comments from a 2001 issue of the Texas Monthly specifically dealing with this situation, proving once and for all that these allegations are anything but "new."

TEXAS MONTHLY:
———–
What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.

When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, “I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren’t really written by me. It wasn’t my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady.” Paul says that item ended up there because “we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything.”

His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: “They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that’s too confusing. ‘It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.’” It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time.


See what I mean about the whole "dead horse" premise? Next thing you know, we'll all be starting to bash George W. Bush because there were no WMD's in Iraq...and I'm sure I can make quite a scene trying to make it sound like new and damning information.

Templeton Peck said...

Andrew

I'll make one finally comment before I stop beating this "dead horse" (although I'm not sure its dead seeing as the New Republic just published an article on it). I'm sure its just you, me, Steve and Robert reading at this point.

Let's say Ron Paul for a period of years really did not know what was going on. Hard to believe, but I'll buy in for the sake of argument. I also believe everybody makes mistakes. Some mistakes should not preclude someone from running for President (although that list is dwindling) and some should. I think allowing/not knowing someone is publishing such trash under your banner for a period of years falls in the latter category and you don't. I like Ron Paul but was not going to vote for him. If you and Robert can get past this issue and still support him, I'll respect that.

Andrew Kaduk said...

Face man,

Take the time to do a little background research and you'll quickly discover WHY T.N.R. just published this piece. The author is a rabid Giuliani supporter and was somewhat chastised for this by other bloggers after the Iowa caucus (you know, the one where RP mopped up the floor with Rudy). Evidently, he then went on a little "dirt digging" mission to try to vindicate himself and his political position. He, much like you, didn't do enough research to find out that this information was FAR from secret and had already been hashed and re-hashed in the media 7 years ago. Now, I don't fault YOU for it, I fault this idiot TNR muckraker who failed MISERABLY to do his job. It's not your job to do the print media's research, is it?

Who knows, maybe next month they'll run a piece in TNR telling us all about Rudy Giuliani's "secret" extramarital affairs.

Robert Enders said...

It is a legitimate concern, because the presidency is an administrative position. In my lietime, every president has had people within his administration who were indicted. You pick who you think will be the right people, then you find out later that there were a few who shouldn't have been picked in the first place. That's happened to anyone who has been in management for any amount of time.

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