I REALLY tried to watch the GOP debates. But how long can you spend watching a bunch of guys fight over who cut taxes more and whom Rush Limbough loves most.
(Really, any idiot can cut taxes. It’s not exactly an unpopular stand with most voters. What I don’t hear is anyone illustrating that they have cut taxes responsibly.)
The level of sophistication in the Republican debates is so much lower than in the Democratic debates. It’ll be interesting to see what happens after the conventions. Will the intelligence of the debates go up or down? It will probably depend on who the candidates are. If Clinton is the nominee, we will have a Democratic candidate who has illustrated while in the Senate that she will acquiesce in letting the Republicans set the agenda. If Obama is the nominee, I hope that he will raise the level of discourse as he has in the Democratic debates.
It occurred to me today (I’ve been busy and haven’t had much time to think about it) that, now that Edwards has dropped out, it is almost guaranteed that for the first time in American history the presidential nominee of a major political party will either be a woman or an African-American. What an exciting time this is. It’s almost enough to make me want to stick around in this country to see if, perhaps, there’s hope for us.
I certainly agree with your point on the sad state of the Republican Party, of which I was once a member. They lost me when they sold out to the religious right. The path of least resistance for any politician is to pander to monolithic voting blocs instead of addressing the real issues of policy.