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Dec
Final GOP Debate
In the final GOP Debate before January 3rd’s Iowa Caucuses, the format was very different than the last CNN debate. Candidates were only given 30-60 seconds to answer questions. I thought this led to very shallow “sound-bite” answers rather than thoughtful, meaningful answers. 30-60 seconds is no time to answer what you want for lunch, let alone questions we are asking Presidential candidates. I did not catch the whole thing (since it was on at 2:00 pm EST), but I caught a decent amount. From what I saw/heard and read, I thought Fred Thompson was probably the winner and certainly helped himself. I thought the current Iowa front-runner Huckabee had his first mediocre debate performance due to the format. Alan Keyes was involved in this debate. While I think Keyes is an excellent speaker with some great ideas, he came off as an angry old man that was mad at the world at times.
Perhaps the worst question of the debate was the final one in which the moderator asked the candidates to make a New Year’s Resolution for one of their opponents. Oh yeah, and do it in 15 seconds. All the candidates except Tancredo refused to take the bait. Tancredo went on about Huckabee for 30-45 seconds without ever really getting to his point before the moderator cut him off.
So, the winner in my opinion was Thompson, but will it help him? This debate was short and choppy without any real substance in the middle of the day. What a bad way to wrap up the debate season.
[...] Craig Thomas views yesterday’s midday Iowa Republican Presidential Primary debate: Perhaps the worst question of the debate was the final one in which the moderator asked the candidates to make a New Year’s Resolution for one of their opponents. Oh yeah, and do it in 15 seconds. All the candidates except Tancredo refused to take the bait. Tancredo went on about Huckabee for 30-45 seconds without ever really getting to his point before the moderator cut him off. [...]
December 13th, 2007 at 7:49 am