In Heat of the Crucible, Candidates Start Revealing Themselves

Jeb Bush: I'd eliminate the Citizens United decision, and I won't blame Obama for anything.

By the last part I assume he means "I will be accountable for my own presidency, and I won't, like this mewling quim Obama, forever seek to lay the blame for my nonperformance on my predecessor."

Eh, that's fine, but... I think the GOP is in a Blame Obama mood.

On the first part, I gotta say, I don't care anymore. This cycle has really proven that PACs aren't everything.

Still, we're only now entering the part of the primary where people are moving off scripted ConservaSpeak and revealing their true selves. I wish this could go on longer -- and not be mostly over as of tomorrow.

For example, John Kasich was asked, by a Democrat, why he should have that Democrat's vote.

His answer? Because he'd be a good compromise between Hillary Clinton (assumedly on "the right") and Bernie Sanders (assumedly on the left).

Well shit, where do I sign up, Johnny?

A possibly very confused voter at a John Kasich town hall in Windham, New Hampshire, wanted to know why she should vote for the Ohio governor in the "Democratic primary" — and Kasich, a Republican, didn't correct her. The question did not seem to be a slip of the tongue, either: The voter said she was having a hard time deciding between Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and John Kasich in the "Democratic primary" and wanted to know why Kasich should have her vote.

"Isn't that interesting," Kasich said as the crowd around her gasped. However, without mentioning his political allegiance or correcting the voter, Kasich went on to position himself as a good compromise between Sanders and Clinton saying, "One of them's too hot, one of them's too cold, but I've got the right temperature."

In the podcast, I criticized myself for never actually listening to Kasich during debates. Now, I retract that criticism. It was time well saved.

In what is properly termed an "insane moment" in Saturday's debate, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush all agreed with the suggestion that, now that women are approved (by Obama's radical social engineering executive order) for all combat positions, girls should therefore be signed up with Selective Service for any future draft.

It seems some people aren't very interested in challenging the prison of progressive thought created by the media-Democratic regime -- just in being kinder wardens.

Ted Cruz disagrees, and calls this "nuts."

"It was striking that three different people on that stage came out in support of drafting women into combat in the military," Cruz said of his primary rivals at Saturday night’s GOP debate.

"I have to admit, as I was sitting there listening to that conversation, my reaction was: Are you guys nuts?" he added during a speech in New Hampshire.

Meanwhile, Trump is sounding more radical now. Your mileage may vary on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

In a nearly one-hour speech, Trump railed against pharmaceutical companies. He railed against oil companies. And insurance companies. And defense contractors. And he set himself against a political system that he said allows big-money corporate "bloodsuckers" to control the government with campaign contributions.

"Whether it's the insurance companies, or the drug companies, or the oil companies, it's all the same thing," Trump said. "We're never going to get our country back if we keep doing this."

Trump promised to allow the government to negotiate drug prices — a common position among Democrats but rarely heard at nominally Republican events. He said he would not raise military spending, arguing that the nation's defenses can be improved without increasing its already huge Pentagon budget. He promised tough sanctions on American companies that move jobs overseas.

...

There were portions of Trump's Plymouth speech that sounded like Bernie Sanders, if Sanders had Trump's sense of showmanship.

I don't know how I feel about this -- it would depend on what he's specifically proposing, and he's usually very light on specifics. I think most would agree that major donors and corporations should have no special favors -- but also, no special punishments for their success, either. It's very hard to differentiate "no special favor" from an affirmatively punitive measure without knowing what it is, exactly, that is being proposed.

This video of Rubio is kind of funny.

posted by Ace at 05:37 PM

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