The Republicans, Episode 1
Welcome to the second installment of our presidential debate series. Beachwood commentators on-hand: Steve Rhodes, Andrew Kingsford, Tim Willette. Debaters on-hand: 10 Republicans filled with latent homosexuality gathered at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley. There were no black people in attendance.
Unlike the Democratic debate last week, I prepared the Beachwood HQ viewing room for this one by purchasing a box of Dwight Yoakam’s Chicken Lickin’s – seeing as how they may not be available in Wicker Park much longer – and was seduced by the 2-for-$5 special on Walgreens premium ice cream. Once I figured out which of the Walgreens offerings were “premium,” I bought big round cartons of Strawberry Cheesecake and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. We ended up ordering Chinese instead. Andrew brought the beer. I broke out my Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms coffee mug. Oh wait, Republicans hate the ATF. Or do they love it? I can’t keep track.
Pre-Debate Punditry
Our panel opened with speculation about questions most likely to be asked in a Republican debate circa 2007.
Q. This question is for all the candidates: If elected, at what point will you attempt to consolidate power in a unitary executive and declare martial law?
Q. If elected, would you place the King James or the New Revised Standard version of the Bible in our nation’s classrooms?
Q. How many affairs are you currently having?
Q. This question is for all the candidates: Who likes guillotines?
Q. Gov. Romney, please finish the line: ‘The blues got pregnant, and they named the baby . . .
A. The Rhythm Method?
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Musing on bad loans by the financing arm of General Motors accounting in large part for profits falling 90 percent at the automaker, combined with rising home foreclosures, Andrew forecast looming economic disaster.
Tim: And what if you have an RV? Then you’re really fucked.
Andrew: Maybe Coleman Tents will start doing financing.
*
MSNBC’s countdown clock finally reaches 0:00:00 and . . . Y2K has been averted. But it’s time for the debate to begin.
SR: Why is there a big fucking plane there?
Tim: It’s the Reagan library. It’s probably Air Force One.
SR: Is the body of Reagan entombed in there or something?
Andrew: You know, Nancy Reagan had a reputation in Hollywood for giving a mean blowjob. And that’s mean as in good! She was a blowjob queen. She could suck some dick, that girl! Mean as catshit.
SR: Rudy Giuliani is carrying a sidearm.
Tim: [reacting to an MSNBC graphic showing the candidates names and photos]: Hey, there’s a Hunter right above a Thompson!
Andrew: Oh, look at that fucking plane!
SR: Welcome to the TV, Andrew!
Andrew: This is way cooler than the Democrats . . .
Tim: It’s the Reagan library; what’re they gonna put in there, books?
Andrew: Brezhnev is interred in there as well.
Andrew: Is everyone in the audience getting frequent flyer miles?
Tim: Which of the candidates is going to fly the plane onto the stage?
Andrew: It would be cool if the moderator sat in the cockpit.
*
The candidates mill around, greeting each other.
Andrew: Check out the Masonic handshake . . . Did you type that? I don’t see typing, Steve.
Tim: Maybe he’s saying, “Hi, I’m Rudy Giuliani. And you are?”
Chris Matthews opens the show.
Andrew: Okay everybody, hearing aids up, pacemakers down! I’ve never seen so many jowels in my life. It’s waddle heaven!
Matthews notes they are located in Simi Valley.
Andrew: Why didn’t they get Imus to moderate then?
Cameras show Nancy Reagan.
SR: This debate was scheduled after Nancy consulted her astrological charts . . .
Tim: They can’t use cellphones because it would interfere with the plane.
*
Matthews asks how we get back to Ronald Reagan’s Morning in America.
Andrew: Well, you take I-95 . . .
Tim: That’s a loaded question. It assumes under Reagan there was such a thing. On the other hand, it says Bush has done nothing in six years to get us there.
*
Matthews asks John McCain what we need to do to win the war in Iraq.
Andrew: Another $3 trillion, to start with . . .
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McCain calls our armed forces “the best of America.”
Andrew: The best of lower-class America . . ..
McCain says he thinks the war is on the right track.
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Matthews asks Tommy Thompson what he as president would need to win the war.
Thompson: First, you have to support the troops.
Steve, Tim, Andrew: [groan]
Thompson goes on to give a remarkably lucid answer; giving the Al-Maliki government the chance to vote if they even want America there; electing governors in each of the country’s terrritories; and splitting the oil reserves not just between the warring interests, but giving a cut to each Iraqi citizen.
We’re relatively impressed with Thompson’s answer.
*
Questioner John Harris says polls show that the majority of American people don’t think victory in Iraq is possible. Why not elect a president, he asks, who will listen to the people?
Mitt Romney: We don’t need a president who follows polls . . .
Tim: If you wanted a president who did what the people wanted, we wouldn’t bother stealing elections!
*
SR: They should let us vote candidates off the stage every 20 minutes.
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Matthews posits a scenario wherein the candidate as president gets a call from the Israeli prime minister saying he is about to strike Iran’s nuclear sites and wants our help. What would you do?
Tom Tancredo: Blah blah blah.
Rudy Giuliani: It really depends on what our intelligence says.
SR: Oooh, good answer!
*
Viewer question to Giuliani: Does he regret his dealings with African-Americans as mayor of New York?
Giuliani: There’s a great deal I regret . . . we moved hundreds of thousands of people off welfare . . .
Andrew: And into jail.
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Romney is asked what he most dislikes about America.
Andrew: Democrats!
Steve: Discourtesy at the grocery store.
Romney: Blah blah blah.
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Tom Tancredo is asked how he would solve a shortage of organs available for donation.
Andrew: Two words: Chinese jails.
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Duncan Hunter is asked by a viewer from Highland Park if he’s a compassionate conservative. He answers yes, then launches into a spiel about Iran.
Tim: Yes, and I’m going to ignore this question from Highland Park to talk about how I’m going to kill! That was nasty. I’m not voting for him now. Which one is he?
*
Matthews states that every cab driver in America knew what Ronald Reagan stood for.
Andrew: Crush unions! Crush! Crush!
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Tommy Thompson says he would leave it up to “individual businesses” to decide if they wanted to fire workers for being gay.
SR: Whoa! Fumble!
Tim: That’s not a fumble in a Republican primary.
NOTE: A news report this morning says: “Thompson notified the media after the debate that he misunderstood the question about gays in the workplace and said he wanted to make clear that employers should not be permitted to discriminate against employees based on sexual orientation.”
From the transcript:
MR. HARRIS: Governor Thompson, same theme. If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?
MR. THOMPSON: I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have to got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be.
MR. VANDEHEI: Okay. So the answer’s yes.
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
As Tim points out, hard to see what he could have misunderstood about the question.
*
SR: It’s so funny, the topics at a Republican debate are war and religion.
Andrew: And homosexuality.
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On corrupt politicians, Sam Brownback says “They should go to jail and they would go to jail in my administration.
Andrew: But not for long.
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McCain is asked what programs he would cut out of the federal budget. He says he would clean up defense acquisitions.
Andrew: Too many contracts are going to small companies!
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Mike Huckabee is asked to grade Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.
Huckabee: It’s too early, we’re still in the middle of the exam.
SR: And Bush can make the exam last as long as he wants.
*
Giuliani says adoptions went up 65 percent in New York City when he was mayor.
SR: If you count his wives . . .
Andrew: And the bullshit meter went through the roof.
SR: You know that’s gonna turn out not be true when they fact-check tomorrow.
*
Asked how a president can help solve racism, Tom Tancredo says “The great thing about Ronald Reagan was that he was a uniter.”
Andrew: Yeah, black people loved him!
*
SR: I shouldn’t have eaten that whole thing.
Tim: We’ll be hungry for another debate in an hour.
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Duncan Hunter says he didn’t see An Inconvenient Truth.
Andrew: But I loved Spidey!
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Jim Gilmore is asked what would he would do about mothers in prison, and the children they leave behind?
Andrew: Make jails for children!
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Mitt Romney tries to explain away his abortion flip-flops by recalling something about embryo farms in Massachusetts. Or maybe the question was about stem cells. Or both.
SR: Who will speak for the family embryo farmer?
Andrew: Mellencamp.
Tommy Thompson: Nobody can answer that right now because there’s so much research going on . . .
SR: He’s good!
Tim: He’s using a lot of big words. Pluripotent! I’m not even sure what it is, but I want to be near him.
SR: We could pay farmers not to grow embryos.
*
The discussion turns to health care. After hearing a few responses, Tim proposes the next question be “What do you think of the New Deal?”
*
SR: They should go down the line and ask if they regret taking money from Tony Rezko.
Tim: You’d see five hands go up.
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One of the candidates says something about tax cuts for those with middle-class incomes.
Andrew: Middle-class incomes up to $5 million!
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Thompson says the biggest problem in American is the alternative minimum tax. The biggest?!
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Three hands go up when the candidates are asked if they believe in evolution.
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McCain says he believes in evolution, but gets scared by his own answer and notes that he also believes in God because of the beautiful sunsets at the Grand Canyon. And the deaths of hikers who get lost there.
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Giuliani is asked about the difference is betweeen Sunni and Shia. He actually knows the answer.
SR: How many of the others up there are saying, thank God I didn’t get that question? But what does it say that it even has to be asked at this point?
*
Giuliani is asked to identify his biggest weakness.
Andrew: I’m a bit rusty on my 12th-century chivalry.
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Sam Brownback is asked what he thinks of Giuliani.
Andrew: For a cross-dressing gay, he’s OK.
*
We notice that Thompson is gesture-free. He stands with his hands at his side and his body does not move when he speaks. We like it.
*
Giuliani: Everyone who comes into this country from a foreign country should be identified in some way.
SR: Maybe with a yellow star.
*
The debate comes to a close.
SR: The next debate will be held at the Nixon library.
*
Post-Debate Punditry
The debate went surprisingly well. Matthews was on shockingly well-behaved and though there were a couple of clunkers, the questions were mostly pretty decent, not like the Democratic debate which seemed full of gotcha bullshit. And that Brian Williams is so frickin’ arrogant!
SR: Despite a couple gaffes, Thompson impressed me the most. Here’s a guy who said he thinks employers should be able to fire gay employees and I still think he won. The punditocracy won’t say so, but I will. He exuded calm leadership with a depth of policy knowledge and firmness of beliefs that make for a good candidate. He’s an uglier Fred Thompson with a stronger track record. We agree that in the least he helped himself in the veep sweepstakes.
The front-runners, Giuliani and McCain, had the most to lose, and they lost it. McCain seemed old, tired, out of touch, uncomfortable, just not all there. Giuliani seemed like the quick-tempered, stubborn guy without any sort of diplomatic touch that he is, and out of his depth in presidential waters.
Romney would be a shoo-in if he believed in anything. He looks like he rolled off the Acme Presidential Candidate Doll assembly line.
Huckabee, whom I’ve always forecast as my dark horse in this race, didn’t break out the way I thought he might, but he didn’t hurt himself too much either. A push, but not real engaging.
It was hard to tell the difference between the others, though Tim notes that Gilmore sounded at times like a conservative Democrat and certainly more capable than the Hunters and Tancredos of the pack.
Note: We tried to add “at a presidential debate” to the end of our fortune cookie fortunes, but it just wasn’t funny.
*
Previously in our Mystery Debate Theater series:
* Episode 1: The Democrats in South Carolina.
Posted on May 4, 2007