- This is the best debate format. Kudos to ABC and Charles Gibson.
- This must have been attack Romney night. McCain especially was all over him. Huckabee was on him for a bit. Unfortunately for both McCain and Huckabee, the sniping didn't come off well.
- I don't like Huckabee's new talking point about how we need vertical politics about bringing the country up not down instead of horizontal politics about left and right. What does that mean? Someone should have asked him. No one should be able to get away with such empty talk in these debates.
- Everyone needs to do more explaining and keep in mind that there are plenty of people at home who, while being intelligent and reasonable, don't know every word in the dictionary. For example, don't just say that we'll solve illegal immigration by "attrition," tell the people what that means. At our house we spent much of the debate rephrasing candidates' answers to be more communicative.
- Note to all GOP candidates: talk about and explain the free market more. For example, in health care: everyone should have been making free market analogies to explain how the market brings more choices and less cost. If I want a pair of shoes I can select from an endless variety of stores and get pretty much the exact pair of shoes that I want. Why? Because there's a market and people compete for my business; they compete to give me the features I want; they compete to lower prices to entice me to buy. Same goes for health care. If we're all out buying policies, and we can actually see the costs of those policies and the costs of our medical care, health care will operate like a market, providing us with more choice and lower prices.
- Fred is the best on issues. He should talk more and take note of the previous two points.
- When it comes down to it, I am very happy with the GOP field. Fred is my number one choice, but I would also be very pleased with a President Giuliani, Romney, or McCain. Paul... well... maybe if he could have a co-President and be barred from ever touching anything to do with foreign policy. Huckabee, no can do--I'm a small government kind of girl.
UPDATE: More on tonight's debates here.
6 comments:
Surprised at your commentary. RP gave the best explanation of inflation I have ever seen a politician give (i.e. his point about measuring the price of oil over the last 6 years in dollars/ euros/ gold). Most of us in finance and related businesses have never seen a politician that 'gets it' until this guy.
I would have thought he would have been your default candidate.
He may understand certain domestic issues, but his total misunderstanding of the jihadi threat makes him an non-viable candidate for me.
Dang, you got another link from Glenn Reynolds, congrats.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you on the GOP field, though I might switch the order a bit, but Fred would still be at the top. Huckabee almost has me considering not voting as well if he's the candidate were stuck with.
Two questions on a couple of your points: how does a free market (i.e. controlled by people who want to make money) help people who cannot pay for health care get it? In my opinion, you can't ask a company required to make bigger and bigger profits, year over year, to offer health coverage for people that need it and can't pay much. It just wouldn't make business sense, otherwise it would already be happening.
The other point is the one you just brought up in your comments. How does Ron Paul not understand the jihadi threat? He says that the radicals hate us because we keep interfering in their part of the world. There is no arguing against that. Iran, bin Laden, Syria, et. al. while probably competing against us globally, would probably care about us as much as most central and south Asian countries do now if we a) hadn't taken a part of their sovereign land and given it to an historical enemy, b) torn down their governments and tried to replace them with puppets, and c) used them and their land to wage proxy wars with the Soviet Union and China for some 40+ years. I mean, as Paul tried to get out during the debate but was shouted over, imagine if China had taken Texas and given it to the Soviet Union, then killed the president and funded a dictator's rise to power, then encouraged radicals in Montana to launch attacks against Canada? Something tells me you wouldn't be too happy with China after all of that... But if you prefer to think that they hate us because our women don't wear burkas, feel free to ignore the fact that the queen of Jordan doesn't either and is ignored (largely) by these radicals, or that Canada, Mexico, most Central and South American countries, most central European countries, Japan, etc. etc. have no presence in the Middle East and have never been attacked.
Two questions on a couple of your points: how does a free market (i.e. controlled by people who want to make money) help people who cannot pay for health care get it?
The free market isn't controlled by people who want to make money. The free market is controlled by every person who buys or sells anything at any time, and that includes pretty much everybody. This is a more basic issue of economics that might not be well-suited to a blog comment for explanation. (Of course, if anyone else would like to try, you're welcome to it.) It's tough to know where to begin.
Here's a column from Walter E. Williams that might get someone started who is wondering why the market would help improve health care. After that, I would recommend reading more Williams as he writes about the free market all the time and with unparalleled clarity.
Free markets work because they provide a win-win every time. Two people make an exchange when each one thinks the exchange is worth it. For example, I gave Dell money for a laptop a while back, and I did it because I wanted to have the laptop more than I wanted to have the money. Dell took the money because they wanted the money more than they wanted the laptop. I could have given my money to a hundred different stores, or I could have refrained from buying a laptop at all.
Because there's pretty much a free market for computers, I have lots of choices and all these stores have to compete with each other for my money. To to this, they come out with new features that they think I might like; they lower prices to undercut each other; and they come up with nice stores and websites to make my shopping experience better. That's great for me because I want new features, low prices, and nice stores. And that works out great for them because if they provide those things, I, and people like me, might throw some money their way.
Where there are free markets, there are lower prices and more options. That's why it would be great if we had that in health care.
How does Ron Paul not understand the jihadi threat? He says that the radicals hate us because we keep interfering in their part of the world.
And that's where he's wrong. It isn't true that the radicals have left these other places alone. (And some of these places have been in the Middle East. Japan, for example, has helped with the Iraq War.) There have been attacks all over the world. Their aim isn't to seek revenge for our intervention; it's to impose an Islamic Caliphate on the entire world.
The free market works when a company is selling something that people don't need but only want. It works great for computers, cars, books, etc. But when a company knows that I have no choice but to purchase from them, as in the case of health care, energy (not just gasoline, but also home gas and electricity), etc. they get to set the price to whatever they want. These situations allow the corporations to exploit their customers. What other organization would be praised (by shareholders) for telling a drowning man "You have to pay me $10,000 for me to throw you a rope."?
As for that list you linked to, while I didn't look at every one, I did look at the past couple years and everything between 1940 and the mid '80s and I didn't find a single one that was proven to be carried out by Islamic radicals against a country that didn't negatively affect the home country of the attackers or that weren't directed at a different country's interests (i.e. a US embassy). The only one that came close was the incident of 18 people arrested in Canada on charges of planning terrorism. They, however, were all born in Canada, citizens of Canada, and not even claimed to have contact with an Islamic terrorist organization, only to have been inspired by them. They also haven't yet had any convictions in court, which leaves open the question of how accurate those charges are, as they were arrested well in advance of performing any attacks.
If you have any specifics on attacks performed independent of prior intervention, feel free to link directly and prove me wrong.
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