Florida GOP Debate Highlights Offered

Five Republican candidates participated in the GOP Candidates Debate in Florida tonight. Rather than rehash everything covered during the 90-minute event held on the campus of Florida Atlantic University campus in Boca Raton, I’ll offer a handful of highlights:

The biggest buffoon of the night was MSNBC’s Tim Russert. Based on the tone and content of many of his questions, I nearly mistook him for the gay retired general and Hillary Clinton operative who showed up at an earlier debate.

The best observation of the night was Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor expressed worry that recipients of each of the 116 million checks issued as part of President Bush’s short-term stimulus plan would spend their part of the $150 billion short-term stimulus package on Chinese-made goods.

The best line of the night came from Mitt Romney, who said, “When Republicans act like Democrats, we all lose.”

The stupid comment of the night was made by John McCain who spoke as if he truly believes that buying and selling carbon credits actually makes sense.

The candidate most devoted to his cause is Ron Paul. Unfortunately, too many of his ideas — aside from a return to truly Constitutional government (which I like) — just won’t fly with the American people.

The best rebuttal of a set-up question came from Huckabee after McCain asked him to explain what he senses as public interest in the FairTax and to explain how poor folks won’t be hurt by a FairTax. Huckabee’s masterful explanation made McCain appear as if he might have been on Huck’s campaign staff.

Finally, the most hopelessly optimistic candidate tonight was Rudy Giuiliani. He said that, like the New York Giants last we, his campaign would come from behind and win the Republican nomination — even if he had to do it with Spanish-language ads and implementation of a tamper-proof national I.D. card system.

-- Bob McCarty Writes™