SC Debate on Substance

I have only had the time to go through the South Carolina Republican debate today. I watched the videos from the You Decide 2008 website. I will have several quotes from FactCheck on some of the substance. Those quotes are all from here. Here are my thoughts on the substance of that debate:

Wallace began with questions regarding concerns about a coming recession.

Mitt. Recession is not necessary. Mitt claims that he added jobs each month after “the turnaround.” Factcheck.org says that the job growth was see-saw. Some months were up and some months down. So his claim was incorrect.

Huck on recession. First reason is gas prices. “Dependency on foreign oil.” Second, subprime mortgages. Third, healthcare cost. Fourth, education cost. These are the reasons for possible recession (education—really?).

Rudy talks about tax cuts and the fact that at least some cuts increase revenue (but not necessarily all cuts). Rudy is correct and it is nice that he has come around to this idea. Fred points this out.

McCain makes an insinuation that Reagan both cut taxes and cut spending. The reality is that Reagan wanted to cut spending, but it was never realized due to Congress. But his tax cuts brought about a lot of increased revenue.

Paul blathers on.

Fred is asked about short-term financial issues. He points out that lower taxes do increase revenue. He runs through his plan. He also says that in the future, a stimulus package may have to be considered similar to 2001.

Carl Cameron starts a discussion on the Reagan coalition and whether or not it is gone.

Huck points to “middle class” folk feeling like part of the Republican party. I have no ideas what he is talking about. He talks about the evangelicals being part of the coalition. He then talks populist rhetoric about “helping lower class and not upper class”.

McCain claims that the Reagan principles have been left behind, which is very true.

Fred finally buts in on the Reagan coalition (Fox was more or less ignoring him for McCain). He lets go on Huck and makes this a debate. “That’s not the model of the Reagan coalition, it is the model of the Democratic party.”

Huck’s rebuttal. “I cut taxes, which hadn’t been done in 160 years.” To which, FactCheck says,

Huckabee repeated some dubious claims about his tax-cutting record in Arkansas, but this time he added even more embellishments:
Huckabee: I did something that had not been done in my state in 160 years. I cut taxes, with the legislature working with me, and we continued to do that 94 times.
The former governor previously has claimed to have passed the first broad-based tax cut in Arkansas' 160-year history. We found that claim to be somewhat exaggerated, as former Gov. Bill Clinton signed an income tax cut that was similar to the one Huckabee championed. But the suggestion that Huckabee was the first in 160 years to cut taxes, period, goes beyond exaggeration into the realm of outright falsehood.

And we've said this so many times that we're considering programming a special key to automatically insert the text: While Huckabee did in fact cut taxes 94 times, many of those cuts were trivial, and overall, Huckabee presided over a more than $500 million net tax increase.

Some have claimed that Huck’s rebuttal was strong. It was not. First, it was factually incorrect. Second, Fred whacked him on so many things, he did not have the ability to try to address them all. Third, Fred was not simply attacking his tax and spend record, though this was clearly part of it. He was attacking the fact that his philosophy has nothing to do with the Reagan revolution. In fact, Huck had already spouted some populist rhetoric about class differences, which Reagan would never have done. Reagan did not appeal to multiple classes because he pandered to them. He appealed to them because his philosophies made sense to them.

The situation with Iran and their gunboats faced down by our warships was brought up.

To Huckabee regarding if the commanders did the right thing. Big applause line on engaging the Americans would have sent them “to the gates of hell.” Nice applause line. Not sure he has any understanding beneath it.

Fred. “You can’t take that decision from the hands of the commanders.” Then his line about the virgins. Then Fred demonstrates that he actually understands what is going on. Fred is much deeper than Huck on these things.

Paul compares this to the gulf of Tionkin. Minimizes the danger of these speedboats. We are looking for a reason to hit Iran. Britt smacks him down very effectively on the fact that the others were supporting the decision NOT to engage the speedboats.

Wendell asks McCain about if the Republicans can win the election with the Iraq situation. McCain has a very good come back questioning if the Democrats can win with us doing as well as we are there.

Wendell asks Fred about whether we should continue to support Musharraf in Pakistan. Wendell quotes a poll that basically said that we should not. Fred had a great line on not following polls. Fred argues that stability is necessary in Pakistan due to them having nuclear weapons. He also argues for progress in their government.

Mitt then show what is, in my opinion, a bit of ignorance Muslim countries. He starts with a weird joke about foreign policy now being like 3-D chess rather than checkers. Then he argues that Muslim countries need to be made more modern. In this, I think he misunderstands the Muslim religion.

Huck on aid to Pakistan. What an idiot. The concern is “mis-used” funds. Huck says that some money was used to build up their military rather than fight terrorism.Huck on aid to Pakistan. Fred proceeds to smack him around for this.

Wallace points out to Huck that he raised taxes and made government bigger--he wants to know if Huck is a big government Republican. Huck answers: “Get the job done and make sure you balance your budget. You respond to the needs of your people.” That is why he signed the no tax pledge. Then he defended his education spending because it was court ordered and he then raised their education rankings to 8th. He also talked about his highways being the most improved in the nation. Factcheck did a lot on these statements. First, on the his signing of the no tax pledge:

It’s true that on March 2, 2007, Huckabee signed the tax pledge promoted by Americans for Tax Reform. He did so despite earlier reservations about tax pledges. Shortly after announcing his bid for the presidency, Huckabee told NBC's Tim Russert that he was wary of making such pledges:

Huckabee: I think you got to be very careful. I, I wouldn’t propose any new taxes. I wouldn’t support any. But if we’re in a situation where we are in a different level of war, where there is no other option, I think that it’s a very dangerous position to make pledges that are outside the most important pledge you make, and that is the oath you take to uphold the Constitution and protect the people of the United States.
We don’t begrudge any candidate the right to change his or her mind about an issue. But we do think it’s worth noting that the Russert interview aired on Jan. 28, 2007 – just 33 days before Huckabee signed the tax pledge.

Then his facts on the quality of his education were called into question:

It is true that Education Week’s newest Quality Counts report put Arkansas at eighth in the nation overall. These rankings take into account spending and assessment as well as achievement. Arkansas' scores in individual areas ranged from 45th to second. It ranked 34th in achievement.

Finally on the “most improved” roads:

For starters, Huckabee gets the name of the magazine wrong (we're familiar with that phenomenon, too). The magazine in question is called Overdrive, and according to Editor Linda Longton, "Huckabee referred to Arkansas’ rank at the top of Overdrive’s Worst Roads list in 1999 and our Most Improved list in 2004."

What Huckabee neglects to mention is that while Arkansas tops the most improved roads list in 2004, it still came in at No. 4 on that year's worst roads list. According to one of Overdrive's survey respondents: "Arkansas is trying. It’s better than it was, but they have a long way to go."

In short: Yes he is a big government Republican and he will deflect or lie about his record on the subject.

Fred critiques Huck on giving in to make the tax pledge as mentioned above. Rather than whack Huck here, which he could have, he moves onto his achievements of voting for conservative principles.

Carl Cameron wants to talk about electability and gives a religious question to Huck (about him signing on with a particular religious position on wives submitting to their husbands). Huck whines a bit about getting asked religious questions, which I consider disingenuous. Huck is a former minister who is going around calling ministers to encourage their congregations and get out to vote—presumably for him. He is the only one pulling that stunt, and it is part of his experience, so why shouldn’t he get those questions. His answer is good—so why whine? By the way, the answer is fundamentally correct, but he did not have enough time to really give the complete answer.

Immigration (finally). McCain is asked about amnesty. What do you do with the 12 million. Send the 2 million criminals back. Deal with the others “humanely” – “I know how to do this” (i.e. offer amnesty). Mitt: they should “stand in line” with everyone else, then they have to go home before they can come back. Not a bad answer.

Fred is asked how you look at each illegal individually and how you would find them. Fred gives his line about high fences, wide gates, and the fact that we determine when to open the gate and when to close it. People are not understanding Fred’s immigration approach. He is not proposing a mass deportation. He is proposing SELF-deportation. When you cannot get a job and there is not a prospect of amnesty, they will leave on their own. I don’t know why people cannot figure this out.

Fred knocks McCain and Huck on their records on this issue.

The debate was good. I think by the time the next one rolls around they will give Fred more respect--at least I hope so.

Fred clearly won this debate. Mitt kind of disappeared. Huck got a lot of time, but sounded like an idiot. Rudy was OK. McCain was good. Paul took up too much space on the stage and is still a nutjob.