Editorial: GOP Presidential Debate

Thursday night I watched Chris Matthews moderate the Republican candidates as they faced the cameras for the first time this election cycle. The apparent winner of Thursday night, Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney, came across as a complete dick who’d mastered rhetorical NLP. And as much as I hate to admit it, by the end of the debate I actually like Ron Paul.

The debate was held in the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library under the watchful eye of his widow and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the specter of Reagan was certainly ever-present throughout the evening. Raising the specter of Reagan seems to be little more than the nostalgia of the dispossessed, the current administration being such a negative mark in the country’s collective soul that not one of the Republican’s candidates are rallying around “More of the Same.” as a defensible rhetorical stance. Forty-five minutes in and I’m positive they’re going to wheel Reagan’s corpse out in the second half so the candidates can line up to suck his dead cock. (Seriously, why do people venerate Ronnie’s ghost? Doesn’t anyone other than MadCowProd remember Iran-Contra?)

These debates are never about the issues being mentioned. They are a way of sounding out the party, finding out who is in favor on looks and speech patterns alone. It is not the substance of what is said, and in fact the argument can be made that it is more important which words are used as opposed to the sentences in which those words are embedded. I can imagine a politician saying “Iran has no nuclear weapons,” and the fact that the words Iran, Nuclear, and Weapon are suddenly in proximity devalues the intent of the statement and conjures an assurance that Iran and Nuclear are, in fact, linked in some way. The posture struck while statements are made is much more important than what is said, as is obvious by the indifference paid to the actual content of the questions being posed. The questions are little more than platforms for the candidates to utilize as a way to launch into their rehearsed paneling responses, responses so burned into these guys’ frontal lobes that they’ve blocked out any real attentiveness to the odd asides being shot through the ether in real time by members of politico.com.

By the end of the evening, Rudolph William Louis Capital G Giuliani the Third demonstrated his complete indifference to the rules of debate, which probably cost him more points with the viewers than his bizarre two-step around abortion. Tommy Thompson , who’s name and visage conjure impressions of a villain from Dick Tracy or some lumbering ogre from a Brother’s Grimm folktale – in short he’s entirely too fictional, he seems a constructed manifestation from the Republican Id, a conservative made up of monkey wrenches and red tape determined to stamp out any bill that so much as threatens to pass, no matter it’s substance, or it’s intent. And don’t get me started on the Hayseed from Kansas. Seriously, the only conservative more appalling from the Heartland would be Todd Tihart, who’d have a platform of “choice for none” and creationism. Evangelical Christianity supported by the likes of Rev. Jerry Falwell is as repressive in intention as an imposition of a fundamentalist Islamic regime would be, and the fact that John McCain would have subverted his original positions to appeal to that audience shows us just how important this election cycle has become. Against this recognition, watching the debate is more about seeing how the candidates react to the presence of each other, gauging how they spin what they’ve said at the debate in the days that follow, and the way they consolidate their poll results with the positions they’d assumed.

A special thank you to capital G, our ‘Fear” candidate, who’s left the dull witted commentators, pundits, party-hangers-on-ers wondering if Iran has nuclear weapons RIGHT NOW aimed at OUR throats, nervously dialing into talk radio all over the country. With all deference to Nine Inch Nails, I can see it now with the music, elements of Guiliani’s fearmongering being hijacked into an unofficial music video remix–Rudy is the fear, the terror candidate fully capable of narrating the US right on up to Year Zero.

Meanwhile, MsNBC, bitch that she is, has rolled over in the midst of 46 pounds of phone records for the busy little cat house in DC, and with the red lights whirling, elephant hunting season begins. Wondering which of the candidates turns up in this roster, thankfully cresting for next weeks news cycle, probably is the only thing more random out there than the subtle rumblings of Attorneygate in regards to shifting the field of these candidates. Impeachment is in the air, you can smell it, Dennis Kucinich threw down a gauntlet then ran for the circuit. Should Attorneygate survive its sudden eclipse, perhaps Bush would step down and Cheney fade away behind a last-ditch pardon tossed through Gonzales before that corporate crony slash in-house attorney fires off a resume to the World Bank by August 9th. Against this implosion we’ve got a campaign going, and with all the issues facing the incoming administration, anyone signing on to take up the reins of the Republic has got to be insane.

Ultimately the real issue is the hair. Mitt Romney’s coiled Mormon coif looked spectacular against the 9.99$ protestant Supercuts haircut Sam Brownback was sporting. John McCain, while sporting a more traditional evolutionary creationist style, turned up the volume with a spiffy striped tie, shiny and slanted to the right. The suits, their postures, the rhetorical techniques the candidates utilized – not the statements on abortion, or Afganiraqiranistan is what won the debate. This early in the campaign, it’s not about the ‘Issues” but the aftermath.

I wouldn’t wish these ongoing crises on anyone, especially not on someone like Ron Paul who looks as though the stress could eliminate him from office within 30 days of his inaugural address, even if he is my favorite of the lot. Rudy seems two shades from being a used-car salesman, eager to pander so long as you buy, but it works. He certainly placed higher on the polls than Tom Tancredo, a paleoconservative who left about as much of a mark on me as Huckabee (who got me to chuckle. Once) Or Sam, from Kansas, who wanted to take something out behind the back of the shed and whack it’s head off with a dull axe, and who’s wife in the post-debate meet and greet’s creepy grin and robotic movements evoked stepford and simulacra with each lurching swing. All in all, the usual party suspects trotted out, spoke their piece, jostled for attention, and lined up for the race.

Lovely. Game on.