The debate by the bottom seven Republican nominee hopefuls was a complete fail. The auditorium was filled with almost no people. This shows the clear lack of interest that most Republican potential voters have for the people resting at the back of the clown car. However, some of what the clowns had to say did provide for a good laugh.
The debate began by going around the room to each individual presidential candidate and allowing them to introduce themselves. The presidential candidates who need introduction because they are irrelevant at this point are: Rick Santorum, Bobby Gindal, Rick Perry, George Pataki, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham and Jim Gilmore.
After the introductions they were asked several questions that led to quite hilarious results. Not every potential nominee was asked every question because of time, but honestly no one cares about most of their opinions on most issues. This was again apparent by the literally tens of people in the audience.
They were first asked about the significantly higher poll numbers that Donald Trump has over them. Perry was the first to respond by posing a question as to what kind of conservative Trump truly was because of his support of a single-payer healthcare system. Fiorina brought up Trump’s donations to the Clintons in her attempt to attack Trump.
Graham was later asked about how he would fight ISIS differently. His rhetoric offered on the subject was a punchline he used throughout the entire debate. He stated:
“Whatever it takes, as long as it takes to beat them.”
Graham is a complete joke, and no matter how much he sucks up to the military industrial complex that isn’t going to change. But his being a joke surely didn’t stop him from sharing his thoughts on the Middle East. He stated that he wants to re-invade Iraq. Furthermore, he went on to double-down on war by promising invasion of Syria. The only other somewhat relevant thing Graham had to say was that he would surveil mosques and break cyber walls. Both of these things are clearly problematic in terms of personal freedom, but Graham obviously only cares about white Christian men.
The next candidate to make a splash was Fiorina. She made her memorable statements when she said she would not settle for a peace agreement with Iran until America has unlimited access to all their military bases. I am not sure if she understands this would essentially make Iran an American colony, but she obviously doesn’t understand such complexities. Though she did come out on top so this must be a sign of what is to come for this party.
Rick Santorum achieved clown status in his own privileged white Christian way. First when asked about having to split up a family because of one of the family members being undocumented even though the child was born here, Santorum told a story of how his father immigrated from Italy to America and had to be without his own father for a period of time, and in the story Santorum’s father told Santorum that he was not angry about having to be without his father because it was “worth the wait.” Though his father’s story is tragic, the idea someone should have to be without their family or potentially go back to a country where they will be killed is completely disgusting and disconnected. He also went on to make his anti-marriage equality stance clear by comparing the gay marriage ruling and his disgust for it with Abraham Lincoln’s disgust for slavery.
The other candidates were unable to shine. With Perry, Jindal, Pataki and Gilmore unable to make any statements that were more inflammatory or infuriating than their opponents, they clearly came out on bottom, with Gilmore doing the worst. They all either agreed with each other or agreed with the other opponents in ways they tried to make special but were not. The whole debate came out to be very boring with few high points.
However there were some particularly inflammatory few minutes when all the candidates expressed their misogynistic hatred of women by attacking Planned Parenthood. This was the only time that Pataki was made to be memorable and that was because they were attacking him on how he was pro-choice, but he backtracked on his once pro-women position by saying he was against abortion.
In summary, none of these hopefuls stand a chance at getting the nomination, but I don’t mind if they keep making fools of themselves for recognition.
Featured image via Yahoo Politics
