The Iowa Debate Videos

The Des Moines Register has a fairly nice setup linking all of the videos of the debate.

Some Thoughts on the debate:

First, the moderator has been given more grief than what is deserved. What she did not do is allow for interaction, which would be a true debate. What she did do was get the issues discussed by all of the candidates in a parallel fashion. Her global warming question (raise hands) was awful, but generally she did just fine. The critics were looking for the candidates bashing each other and they didn't get that.

Second, one theme candidates need to go. If any question turns into a discussion about your pet idea, that means that you have not considered the various topics. Among these candidates are: Hunter, Toncredo, Keyes, Paul. It is interesting that it is the second teer (or third in the case of Keyes) that do not have a deep understanding of the issues. That may be one of the reasons that they are second teer.

Third, the performances:

In one way Fred did incredibly well. He was funny; he was substantive, as usual; he was candid.

Romney was very positive. He avoids talking about tough decisions, which makes me wonder if he would address them as President, but he generally did very well.

No one else, in my mind, differentiated themselves (in a good way) from the others.

Some say that Fred and Mitt don't like each other--and they may not. But they seemed to enjoy bouncing off of each other. Mitt applauded and voiced support for Fred on his refusal to play the hand raising game and was pushing for Fred to get his time to talk about the issue. At this point, my choice for VP is Mitt. I think the two could have a very interesting dynamic in a national race.

The global warming discussion was a debacle from the moderator point of view. The questions were bad and the candidates as a whole rebelled which created a section of the debate that was confusing and not productive.

I really liked Fred's "First Year" answer. Particularly the part where he discusses his interaction with the Congress: I have a mandate, work with me or I will go over your head to the American people.

I am amazed at the number of Republican candidates that express support for the "Fair Tax". I find several flaws with the fair tax including the fact that the barriers to its implementation are incredibly high--so high that I don't think that it will happen in a long time. It also relies on a tax that is historically how states raise their money. This will put pressure on them to be able to raise sales taxes in order to offset other taxes such as property taxes. The fair tax is also a pretty regressive tax that requires low income folk to pay more of their income in taxes than middle or higher income folk. I think that many candidates have found that claiming the fair tax is a convenient way to argue for "lower taxes" without actually having to discuss how it would happen.

Huck reinforced that he is a big government guy. Mitt reinforced that he would push for a government mandate style of heath care programs. Mitt, though, had a great answer on Conservatism (all three types are important), though I am not convinced that he really is an all-encompassing conservative.

McCain had a good answer to a bad question regarding compromises to ideals.

Overall, I thought it was a much better debate than it is being given credit for in the media. The time constraints hurt and the number of candidates hurt. But the questions were good and probably helpful for the average Iowan citizen.