As you may know, last night there was a debate between Republican canidates for President in South Carolina. This was hosted by Fox News and featured 10 republican canidates which turned out to be interesting to say the least. I wanted to give my brief take on the debate as I saw it.
John McCain - McCain didn't impress me at all last night. I will give him credit for standing by his answers even though they will not get him the ticket. When he started talking about how the "world" will think of us regarding Gitmo, that pretty much assured me he won't get close to the nomination.
Mitt Romney - Romney is what I call a "TV President". He has a presidential look, speaks some good game, but ultimately that is what does him in. He is the John Kerry of the GOP. He made some good points explaining his "switching" of issues, but overall he has a pattern of changing positions that even I am not comfortable with.
Mike Huckabee - Huckabee had an interesting take on the IRS, put a "going out of business sign", and made mention of a fair tax. I really haven't formed an opinoin on him yet, so I don't have much to say, but I think he did OK at the debate last night.
Duncan Hunter - Hunter tried his best to come out as the "real" conservative of the canidates. He was very vocal about not leaving Iraq, putting up a border fence, and not giving up on the war on terror. That likely pleased many in the GOP base. He put on a fairly good presentation last ngiht, and I will definitely keep an eye out for him, but it's highly unlikely he will get the nomination.
Ron Paul - Paul was definitely the biggest goof of the night. His assertions that we caused Sept. 11 and his "blame America" attitude were just ridiculous, and that's pretty much the end of the line for his campaign, at least on the GOP side.
Rudy Guiliani - I have to honesty say he impressed me the most. I was never a big fan of Rudy for President as I don't care much for his more liberal social policies, but he did a great job at explaining and standing by his beliefs. He gained the most applause last night while calling out the goofball Ron Paul for his remakrs about Sept. 11. He also seemed like the only one that was comfortable on the stage last night, and actually seemed to enjoy it. I think Rudy will be the man to be for the republican nomination as of right now.
I know there several more canidates, but none of them did anything that impressed me to write about them. The big three of the debate was McCain, Romney, and Guiliani, and I think Rudy won the debate last night hands down. What was your opinion of the debate?