The Republican Debate
January 30th, 2008Just watched it. Well…
Frankly, most of the opinions and statements seemed to be the same as what I had heard before. I guess the candidates feel the need to restate their positions for each set of primaries and the makes some sense.
But there was much “my opinion vs his opinion” especially with McCain and Romney. The candidates are trying to contrast each other, or to paint the other guy into a corner.
I wish I could like McCain better. When he rebooted his campaign, he came back as a straight talker. And he plays that for all it’s worth and I like that idea. But I’m put off by the mere sound bite addressing of the issues that is all we get in the debate.
Romney still strikes me as a bit slippery.
I didn’t hear much from Huckabee.
Ron Paul seems frighteningly attractive when he talks about the constitution. But when he talks about what he would actually do he scares me.
So what do we do with that? I think at this point there are two things I want to consider.
- Who are these people away from the debate sound bite mill? Are their detailed positions and explantaions more coherent and worthy of consideration? I’m more concerned with the candidates philosophy and how that leads them to their positions. The question there is, can they convince me?
- What is more important; to have a candidate whose positions I agree with or a candidate whose morality I agree with more? And lets avoid “moral rationalization” when we say that. Follow the link for a fantastic article from the New York Times on “The Moral Instinct”.
