Last night, I watched the Republican U-Tube debate and a documentary on negative ads. Both were on CNN.
The questions for the Republican debate were not as entertaining as those for the Democratic one. I think that's probably because CNN edited out most of the good ones. After all, the snowman didn't even make the cut.
The debate had some good moments. There was a campaign ad that allowed me to see Huckabee before he lost all that weight. There was an animated Dick Cheney asking a question about the Vice-Presidency, and Fred Thompson thought for a second that it was making fun of him (Thompson). A homosexual officer who is working on Hillary's campaign supported the open inclusion of gays in the military, but we only found out after the debate that he was working for Hillary. Ron Paul got to speak against the globalist views of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, with CFR member Fred Thompson standing nearby. I wish Thompson had been asked to respond, but I felt that way throughout the debate--I wanted more candidates to have an opportunity to answer the questions. Instead, the usual format was that a question would go out, and only two or three candidates would be allowed to reply. Finally, Tom Tancredo criticized federal funds to send people to Mars, right after Huckabee praised such a proposal (which shows that a President Huckabee would probably be a big spender). Tancredo said that the government can't be all things to all people, and he's got a point there.
The audience was pretty feisty, as there were a lot of boos for McCain and Paul. There was also a lot of applause for them as well. In addition, the audience contained Chuck Norris (a Huckabee supporter) and Bay Buchanan (who looked pretty good, though I have no idea whom she is endorsing for President).
As far as the negative ads documentary was concerned, it did well to point out that negative ads are nothing new. After all, John Adams attacked Thomas Jefferson when he was running for President. There was also some revisionist history. Michael Dukakis said he was trying to run a positive campaign, which is not exactly what I remember, since Dukakis criticized the Reagan record. I mean, that's a crucial aspect of campaigns, isn't it? Showing that the other guy won't make a good leader. But, for some reason, Dukakis felt that the Willie Horton ad was just horrible. What was horrible, noble Professor Dukakis, was that you released a murderer from prison and allowed him to rape and assault innocent people. And that's precisely what happened, even though Dukakis and the "experts" were calling the ad a lie and expressing surprise that the American people were stupid enough to accept it. But I learned a lesson from the documentary that will help me if I decide to run for public office: If I'm attacked, be sure to respond. Dukakis and Kerry didn't do that, and they lost. Don't say "I didn't inhale," but try to offer some explanation.