First GOP Debate

[Parkbandit]

Participants:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson
Former Vice President Mike Pence
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum

15 minutes in... and the hosts have lost control.

All canned responses so far.

[~Rocktar~]

Conspicuously missing, Larry Elder who easily met the requirements, hummmmmmmmm

[ClydeR]

Biden and Ramaswamy are monopolizing the time by mentioning each other, giving a right to respond under the debate rules. This had to be coordinated in advance.

[ClydeR]

Biden and Ramaswamy are monopolizing the time by mentioning each other, giving a right to respond under the debate rules. This had to be coordinated in advance.

Did I say Biden? I meant Pence. How ever did I confuse those two?

[time4fun]

Big takeaways so far:

1) Hearing the candidates talk about Pence's refusal to overturn the election results was the first time it felt like Trump made a huge mistake not showing tonight.

2) The audience reactions during that part of the debate were flabbergasting. It was mostly (with one major exception) cheers for people who were calling Trump out for his efforts to overturn the election. It turned into a near consensus from the candidates on the situation. This could conceivably, finally be the turning point in the Republican narrative about what Trump did.

3) This is the first time in 15 years I've seen a group of Republican candidates *not* racing to out-crazy each other. For the most part, there seems to be far less extremism in the responses than we've gotten used to seeing in the GOP. As a Democrat, that's concerning. As an American, I dare say it makes me feel hopeful that maybe the GOP can finally start moving on from that extremism.

Follow up: Nope. We're back to talking about going after trans kids and eliminating the Department of Education. I may have been too generous in my last assessment.

[Suppressed Poet]

Big takeaways so far:

1) Hearing the candidates talk about Pence's refusal to overturn the election results was the first time it felt like Trump made a huge mistake not showing tonight.

2) The audience reactions during that part of the debate were flabbergasting. It was mostly (with one major exception) cheers for people who were calling Trump out for his efforts to overturn the election. It turned into a near consensus from the candidates on the situation. This could conceivably, finally be the turning point in the Republican narrative about what Trump did.

3) This is the first time in 15 years I've seen a group of Republican candidates *not* racing to out-crazy each other. For the most part, there seems to be far less extremism in the responses than we've gotten used to seeing in the GOP. As a Democrat, that's concerning. As an American, I dare say it makes me feel hopeful that maybe the GOP can finally start moving on from that extremism.

Follow up: Nope. We're back to talking about going after trans kids and eliminating the Department of Education. I may have been too generous in my last assessment.

A conservative response post to your leftist reaction of the GOP debate:

1) I know how disappointing it is for you watching this without Trump. How are you going to feed your TDS without your 2 Minutes of Hate?

2) Yeah I guess you never paused to consider that those people are human beings and your fellow Americans. Could it be that these evil domestic terrorists aren’t really looking to violently overthrow the government like MSNBC & The View repeated to you for years now? Maybe they are just regular working people that want to pay a little less when the fill up their car to go to work or pay their taxes. Who woulda thunk it?

3) Oh, don’t you worry. We still hate commies, queers, niggers, kikes, hippies, switch-foots, faggots, chinks, gooks, mics, ruskies, pollaks, yanks, mops, japs, towel-heads, wetbacks, and I’m sure I’m missing a few but you’ll get the picture. Go back to playing your “oh my gaaawd Becky!, what a bunch of racist deplorables” card.

And yep, you got it. It’s back to talking about your post modernism 3rd wave feminism view of a colonial white male patriarchy. Have a nice day.

[Parkbandit]

Winners last night: Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and even Chris Christie to a lesser degree.

Losers last night: Doug Burgum, Mike Pence and Tim Scott

Ron DeSantis didn't really stand out in my opinion.. and he wasn't attacked as much as Ramaswamy was. No harm done.. but no big boost either.

Haley's big moment was abortion.. and how she shut down Pence saying we need a federal ban on it.

Ramaswamy just had the most energy in the room.. and he comes across as the smartest on stage.

Chris Christie was probably the most rehearsed up on the stage. At times though, he looked like he was just regurgitating one liners.

Burgum looked like a fish out of water. I anticipate him dropping out come January.

Mike Pence was the bible thumper everyone in the party likes to dislike. He wants to be President SO BAD. He is my least favorite candidate after last night.

Tim Scott is just too nice for this game. His "I was a poor black man" schtick for every.single.policy. he has is already old after the first debate.

[Parkbandit]

Big takeaways so far:

1) Hearing the candidates talk about Pence's refusal to overturn the election results was the first time it felt like Trump made a huge mistake not showing tonight.

2) The audience reactions during that part of the debate were flabbergasting. It was mostly (with one major exception) cheers for people who were calling Trump out for his efforts to overturn the election. It turned into a near consensus from the candidates on the situation. This could conceivably, finally be the turning point in the Republican narrative about what Trump did.

3) This is the first time in 15 years I've seen a group of Republican candidates *not* racing to out-crazy each other. For the most part, there seems to be far less extremism in the responses than we've gotten used to seeing in the GOP. As a Democrat, that's concerning. As an American, I dare say it makes me feel hopeful that maybe the GOP can finally start moving on from that extremism.

Follow up: Nope. We're back to talking about going after trans kids and eliminating the Department of Education. I may have been too generous in my last assessment.

Trump not showing up last night was probably the best political move he has ever made.

[ClydeR]

Pence, Ramaswamy and Christie got the most speaking time. CNN has a chart showing how much time each candidate got to speak. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/23/polit...-dg/index.html

There's no way Pence and Ramaswamy did not coordinate to tag each other to generate response time under the debate rules. The strategy worked in both of their favors.

[Solkern]

3) Oh, don’t you worry. We still hate commies, queers, niggers, kikes, hippies, switch-foots, faggots, chinks, gooks, mics, ruskies, pollaks, yanks, mops, japs, towel-heads, wetbacks, and I’m sure I’m missing a few but you’ll get the picture. Go back to playing your “oh my gaaawd Becky!, what a bunch of racist deplorables” card.

Damn…