I found it very interesting that so little time was dedicated to actual social issues. Global warming got very little attention, as did oil prices. Even when questions were asked on those issues, the candidates quickly ran to their old fear-mongering talking points of terror. For people that want to be President, they sure do seem to have a one-track mind.
I found the end rather curious. There was a lot of talk of “reaching across the aisle” and unity throughout the debate, but none of them could say anything good about Clinton. As matter of fact, Guiliani tried to pin 9/11 on Clinton. Perhaps Mr. Guiliani should study a little bit of history and he might find out that Clinton was on the offense against Osama. It was the Republicans in Congress who thought Osama was some sort of boogey man created by Clinton to divert attention from Monica. There are tons of quotes from 1998 of Republicans accusing Clinton of “wagging the dog” when he went after Osama.
Something else stuck out at me. McCain was talking about radio frequencies for fire and police departments. This is an area I have a lot of experience in, being a former firefighter. Why don’t John take a look at how the problems came to being. They are all standing in a building dedicated to the man who helped these problems emerge – Ronald Reagan. It was his administration that decided to start selling off the frequencies used by public safety to private business. This forced fire and police departments to move to the 800 MHz frequency and that has been shuffled around with the rise of cell phones. Ask yourself how many times your cell phone dies inside a building then ask yourself if you want the people trying to save you limited to the same technology. On top of that, the 800 MHz frequency needs many more cell towers (repeaters) to work. This is the very thing that hindered operations in New Orleans.
So it was Reagan and the GOP philosophy of capitalism that helped hinder our first responders.
Over all, what it boils down to is that every single one of these candidates stood up there and tried to separate themselves from George Bush. In truth, they are just the same. They know the only way they can win is by a platform of fear. Luckily America is waking up to that tactic and it won’t work next year. If we work to protect our nation, while ignoring the nation itself, then what the hell are we protecting? There was a lot of war drums beating about Iran going on also. This country will not tolerate another war like Iraq. Actually a war with Iran will make Iraq look like a 15 round boxing match. Hopefully people who are still leaning towards the GOP side will realize that is a mistake. Well that is unless they vote for Ron Paul. He was the most sensible one out there.