The Ames, Iowa Republican Debate

It was an interesting evening, to say the least. The first thirty minutes were pretty much an all out war between Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann. In all honesty, I'm going to declare Michele Bachmann the winner of that little war within a war!

Anyway, I did a play by play on Facebook and then read back over everything. People are commenting left and right and everyone has their opinion, but I'd like to talk about why debates are so necessary.

With a field as large as the Republican field is, we need to get it whittled down and whittled down quickly. Barack Obama, our extremely lame president, is gathering money to take on the winner of the Republican primary. In the meantime, Republicans are attacking each other instead of attacking the culprit, Barack Hussein Obama. Many of them need to regroup and consider who the enemy is, and it's not each other. Don't poison the well so much that the winner of the frontrunner is so poisoned by our own people they will not be able to win. All I'm asking is you exercise some common sense and looking beyond your noses. Notice that Mitt Romney and Herman Cain focused on Barack Obama and America.

We must unite behind the Republican winner, whomever that may be. To be frank, any of them are better than Barack Obama, who is so far out of his league he's killing America faster and quicker than anyone else who has ever been president. Fortunately for us, the American people are catching on quickly and we are all working to make Barack Obama a one-term president. We can only do that if these candidates do not destroy each other in the process. Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain handled that the best tonight. Although Mitt Romney was the only one who remained above the fray and stuck to the issues.

Here is how I felt each candidate did tonight, in order of who won and who lost their campaigns tonight.

Mitt Romney - Romney's closing statement was "This country is an economic crisis and America understands that. We have a leader, a man who is out of his depth, and can't get the economy going again. I believe we need someone who is willing to go to work, believes in America, free enterprise, capitalism, opportunity, and I love America." It struck a chord with many, and that is what needed to be done.

Tonight Mitt Romney was cool under fire. He answered every question, and attack, concisely and firmly. He addressed every issue with good, solid answers. He didn't dodge anything. There is no issue he didn't understand, have the facts with and clearly state them. He said that we need to reign back the scale of government, and he's right. I agreed with everything he said tonight. I thought he was the clear winner of the debate.

Now, I know his history, his record. Mitt Romney is not as conservative as I would wish, but as he has grown older, wiser, he has become more conservative and has a clear understanding of what is appropriate within the states and what is not appropriate with the federal government. All in all, I think he won, hands down.

Michele Bachmann - I thought she did a good job tonight. Tim Pawlenty clearly came gunning for her and I thought he showed himself to be extremely low class in his attacks on her. There are ways to disagree without attacking her. Now to her responses, they were consistent with her stances and votes. She's been a strong conservative in her votes, and I think has shown leadership on a number of subjects. I like Michele Bachmann, she is passionate in her views and she also handled the attacks under fire very well.

One of Michele's best moments was when she said, ‎"It was important we not raise the debt ceiling. The Congress gave Obama a blank check for $2.4 trillion. What did the American people get? $21 billion in cuts. The trillions of dollars we have in U.S. debt is madness. The worst thing you could do is to spend money we don't have. S&P dropped our credit rating and said we don't have the ability to repay our debt. I was proved right in my position, we should have cut government spending."

Herman Cain - He had some good solid answers tonight. Good ideas all over the place. I liked his responses all the way around, I'm not 100% sold that he could be president, but I do think he came in third tonight. He is a good businessman and has pulled companies out of near bankruptcy and made them successful again. He is popular with the tea party because he is not a career politician. He was challenged on what the Chris Wallace termed "several controversial statements." Maybe Chris hasn't heard, but I have, Mr. Cain addressed them all several times, and he did so again tonight, very succinctly.

His best statement was, "America needs a leader and a uniter. I represent growth. If we don't get this economic engine going by putting fuel in the engine, the rest of it won't matter. We have a lot on the line, send Washington a message and send a business problem solver to D.C."

Rick Santorumi - Rick comes next because, when he did get to speak, he addressed the questions with passion, understanding of government, and the extreme challenges we face as a nation. However, he didn't quite sell me on his leadership skills because he catered to Iowa, rather than addressing America. I think that was a big mistake. However, he had a very solid foreign policy and a good understanding of the dangers we face as a nation, unlike Ron Paul.

Rick's brightest moment was when he said, in defense of the unborn, "SCOTUS said a man who committed rape could not be subject to the death penalty, but a child conceived as a product of that rape, could be. That child did nothing wrong. That child is an innocent victim. A child is an innocent human life, and life begins at conception."

Newt Gingrich - Newt had one or two bright moments, one of which was "‎Having some kind of central bank is an important part of dealing with monetary policy in the world. But having Bernanke deal with hundreds of billions of dollars, in some cases, trillions, is insanity. The Fed should be audited, it should be transparent. Frankly, their monetary policy has been a major factor in the bubble that was created and the economic pain we're going through now."

That being said, Newt Gingrich was a very angry man tonight. He yelled at the moderators, didn't want to answer the questions asked of him and wanted to answer others. He was very dismissive of every one on the stage. As he got angrier and angrier, he clearly showed he does not have the temperament of being POTUS. I think he lost the debate tonight because he didn't have the patience to answer the questions, and address what was being asked.

Ron Paul - While Ron Paul has some solid ideas on the Federal Reserve and a clear understanding of the U.S. Constitution, although I think he takes some of them too far, he once again showed that he is clearly out of his mind on foreign relations. He does not understand the dangers of the radical Islamic mind. He does not understand how dangerous Ahmadinejad is, as Paul said he wouldn't prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. He also continued to say that if we just left everyone alone and lived in peace and liberty, everything would be okay. I'm going to guess the man has never run across the path of a despot, dictator, or madman, or he would never say anything so asinine. Ron Paul was the clear loser in every single way tonight.

With all that being said, I still believe any one of these people would be leaps and bounds better than Barack Obama. One thing is absolutely certain, if Barack Obama wins another term you can kiss the America we know and love goodbye. That is unacceptable to me and why I dedicate so much of my time informing, inspiring and motivating others to get involved, and begin making a difference within the circles of their own influence.

So those are my personal summaries for tonight's debate. Others will not agree, but then this is my blog and my opinion. So there you have it!