Are You Not Entertained?

There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.  Donald Trump is one of the most ignorant people you could imagine, but he's not a stupid guy.  Trump is a fascist who's attempting to rise to power by acting like a populist.  It's a very old trick, but it's a smart one because it works sometimes.

Skipping this debate is also not stupid.  There's no downside in this for Trump.  He gets the attention he craves without having to debate the people who are actually trying to beat him.  He gets to watch everyone attack Ted Cruz while he puts on a rival event as a monument to his narcissism and megalomania.  

And there's a stretch goal too.  Trump's supporters only get news from Fox.  Those are his people.  If he can convince his supporters that Fox is just like every other media outlet, with their bias against Trump and his amazing truth telling, then he can inoculate himself against any criticism.  There will be no source of information that can convince his supporters that they should look at other candidates, no matter what he does.  This could be a decent plan.  

Meanwhile Democrats are LOVING this.  I watched MSNBC for most of the hour leading up to the debate.  I would describe the mood on Chris Hayes' show as "Obama election level giddy".  They're watching this one guy, this silly joke of a man, burn down their rival party on national television.  You can see how this would be fun for them.  But listen Democrats.  Trump support is incredibly virulent.  He's like one of those movies where one monkey escapes from a lab and two days later it's only monkeys and zombies and Brad Pitt.  Be careful what you wish for Democrats.  Trump getting nominated seems like an easy win...but what if you lose.  We all still have to live here with the zombie monkeys.

8:57PM: I had to watch Bill O'Reilly read his fan mail while I waited for the debate to start.  It appears Bill mostly writes books about killing people.  That's not weird.

9:00PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Fox's A team (which is just Chris Wallace) along with Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.  Points to Megyn for not eating shit from Trump.  I don't like her haircut, but to be fair, I don't like Bret's head.

9:03PM: Megyn asked Ted about Trump not being there.  Ted, in a stunning display of his superficial charm, said "I"m a maniac, everyone on this stage is fat and ugly and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon.  Now that we've got the Trump stuff out of the way...".  

9:06PM: Rubio called Trump the greatest show on Earth and then immediately started insulting Barack Obama.  Marco seems riled up tonight.  I don't love it.

9:07PM: Everything Jeb says sounds a little pathetic.  Jeb!

9:09PM: More than anyone else, Chris Christie likes to talk directly to the camera.  He has this habit of dramatically turning to the camera mid-answer.  It's pretty unsettling.

9:11PM: Rand just called his dad "the most honest man in politics" in a generation.  He may not be wrong about that.  Baier asked him if Cruz is the intellectual and political heir to Ron Paul.  Rand responded with a low key disdain that was really the correct tone.

9:13PM: Rubio just interrupted a discussion between Ted and Rand about auditing the Fed to tell us that he's going to kill ISIS fighters and keep everyone safe (this was, I guess, a response to Rand's position about bulk data collection).  As usual, Rand is for the government getting a warrant before they can go through your stuff and Marco is for killing terrorists and worrying about your stupid rights later.

9:16PM: Ben has performed lots of surgeries, so obviously he's qualified to be President.  Why is Ben still here?  Everyone knows he's done.  Can't we at least put him at the kiddie table with the other nobodies?

9:18PM: Ted, again, says he'll utterly destroy ISIS.  With talking points I assume.  Ted wants to arm the Kurds.  Please can we just once not arm random people we just heard of in the Middle East?  Please.  Just try it once.  Why is handing out weapons always our move?  Why are we so stupid?  

9:20PM: Ted saw an opportunity to mention Reagan and dove right in.  No mention of that time Reagan sold weapons to Iran though.  Republicans always forget about that.

9:26PM: Wallace tried to get Christie to attack Cruz and Christie took the opportunity to hammer Hillary Clinton for a minute.  Ted argued that he should get his 30 seconds since his name was mentioned, but Wallace correctly pointed out that his name was only mentioned in the question, not in Christie's answer, and completely shut Ted down.  I'm glad Wallace is here.

9:28PM: The crowd booed Wallace for asking Jeb about his brother's quagmires.  Why?  I'm concerned that we let this state have such a big voice in electing our Presidents.  

9:29PM: Cruz is complaining about the questions.  THAT NEVER WORKS.  WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE GUYS NOTICE HOW THAT NEVER WORKS???  I also can't tell if the crowd is for or against Cruz.  They booed after Cruz finished complaining, but it was hard to say whether they were booing his complaining or Wallace's mean questions.

9:31PM: Rand on Syria "should we be bombing both sides of the war?" and then "arming the allies of ISIS will make the situation worse."  Maybe I should just be for Rand.  There's something I don't like about him, but his foreign policy is so much better.  Like, SOOOO much better.

9:34PM: Megyn asked Rubio if his position on dealing with muslim citizens and closing down mosques runs afoul of the first amendment.  Marco responded by saying the word terrorism a lot and being very angry.  I'm souring on Marco.

9:37PM: Christie says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have made law enforcement the enemy.  I don't agree with the Obama part, but I have to ask about the Hillary part.  Where is he getting that?  She was Secretary of State.  What does that have to do with domestic law enforcement?  

9:39PM: Ben rambled for a while but then he mentioned Teddy Roosevelt.  Bully!

9:40PM: Megyn just asked Kasich about technological back doors for smart phones and Kasich said we really shouldn't talk about that because it needs to be solved in the White House situation room, which he seemed very confident would happen.  Sometimes I feel like Kasich knows lots of secret stuff.  

9:41PM: I've said this before but it's worth another mention.  Kasich is a sneaky hawk.  He seems like a really nice guy and you think "nah, grampa John would never bomb people".  But he would, he'd bomb lots of people.

9:42PM: Jeb is talking about how people died because of the VA.  From the guy whose brother sent those veterans to Iraq for shits and giggles.  It really does bring the problem with Jeb's candidacy into focus.

9:44PM: YouTube question about the relationship between African-American communities and police departments.  Baier wisely threw it to Rand because he's the one guy on the stage who might actually give a shit.

9:48PM: Bret just astutely pointed out that promises to cut waste, fraud and abuse never materialize.  Points to Bret.  

9:49PM: Christie is going to cut Planned Parenthood funding.  Hooray for talking points!

9:49PM: According to a Fox infographic, first amendment repeal is the third most searched repeal topic.  That feels concerning and I'd really rather talk about that instead of more stump speeching about repealing Obamacare.  We get it.  You guys don't like Obama.

9:51PM: I think Bret just called Jeb Senator Bush, so I'm taking his points back.  Jeb is for Puerto Rican statehood.  OK.

9:52PM: Question to Kasich about poison water in Michigan.  John's answer was less than inspiring, but he doesn't really have that passionate anger gear.  I'm fairly certain John wouldn't poison his own citizens.  I wish he would have calmly said the Michigan Governor should resign.

9:54PM: Marco never thought cap and trade was a good idea.  That makes two of us, but I suspect we have different motivations.

10:00PM: Video montage of Marco's flip floppery on amnesty.  Is it so bad that Marco isn't 100% sure about the best way to deal with immigration reform?  That would seem to put him in the category of everybody.  Some of these guys just want to build a giant wall.  At least Marco has been willing to talk about actual ideas.

10:01PM: Jeb just plugged a book he wrote as "affordable for everybody".  I think he was going for self-deprecating, but it came off more like "I know my campaign is over so please buy my book at least".

10:03PM: We're arguing about immigration now.  I couldn't be more tired of this topic.  

10:04PM: Question about how Ted added a poison pill amendment to an immigration bill, then claimed it wasn't a poison pill, then claimed it was.  Yes, Ted is a pathological liar and a monster.  We already knew that.  I did, anyway.

10:06PM: Big applause for Steve King (the terrible Iowa Congressman, not the author).  I can't wait until Tuesday when we don't have to pay attention to Iowa for another four years.

10:08PM: Ted just listed Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin as references.  So yeah.

10:09PM: Marco just said, directly to Ted's face, that Ted's been willing to do or say anything to get votes.  Shots fired.  I like Marco again.  On the other hand, we're still on immigration so I kind of wish one of those shots would hit me in the face.

10:10PM: Christie is going back to his "I hate listening to these guys argue" thing.  I think it's a good move for Chris.  He really ought to be doing better.

10:11PM: People who post nonsense on YouTube are now calling themselves YouTube creators, so that's fun.  YouTube may be the worst thing that's ever happened to us.

10:12PM: Carson was clearly sleeping when Megyn tried to throw the YouTube question to him.  Like me, Carson had apparently forgotten that he was at the debate.  Carson suggested that one out of every ten immigrants could be a terrorist.  That's baseless and dangerous and makes Ben less funny.

10:14PM: Wallace is steering us away from immigration.  Once again, I'm glad he's here.

10:14PM: Question to Ted about how nobody in Congress likes him.  He says people who work for his campaign like him, and so do idiots like Steve King.  So there.

10:16PM: Jeb says he's seen polls where he's beating Hillary pretty regularly.  Those are just polls Jeb takes at family gatherings, and even those are pretty close.

10:17PM: For the record, I think Barack Obama would be a pretty good Supreme Court Justice.  Marco disagrees, but that's mostly because Marco, like way too many people, believes the Supreme Court is a political body.

10:18PM: Marco wants to be clear that Jesus is the only savior.  Ugh.  Then he said "Bernie Sanders would make a good President...of Sweden".  Ha, that was good.  Then he mentioned Benghazi.  Ugh again.  That answer was a real roller coaster for me.

10:20PM: Wallace just asked Christie about the bridge thing.  Is this actually a real thing for people?  I always thought this was the stupidest story.  Do people really care about it?  It makes no sense to me.

10:25PM: I always like Kasich's answer on taking federal money for medicare.  People in Ohio paid federal taxes, then the federal government was like "hey, do you want some of this money back?" and Kasich was like "yes please".  I don't think that makes you a big government guy.

10:27PM: Wallace seems to be on a tear of religious questions.  I'm getting less happy that he's here.  We're talking about Kim Davis now.  Ugh.  Christie's answer was pretty not terrible.  Why couldn't somebody else in her office just do the marriage license?  Seems like a simple enough answer.  I would also suggest she could have just quit if she didn't like her job anymore, but apparently that's not a viable answer.

10:30PM: Marco says Jesus makes us a special nation.  I don't really know what to make of Marco these days.  I really want to be able to vote for him if he winds up running against Hillary, but he's not making it easy.

10:32PM: Abortion always undermines Rand's Libertarianism.  It did the same thing to his dad.  He has to be anti-abortion, being a Republican and all, but saying the government should make that decision for people runs counter to everything he believes.  It's tough being a Libertarian in a party that wants the government to enforce their religious beliefs.

10:36PM: Marco gave us plenty of tough talk about Iran.  Then Kasich chimed in. He's been talking to Belgian diplomats and thinks we can bring the world together.  Is Kasich James Bond?  

10:38PM: Christie starts every answer with a brief explanation of how he's going to make his answer about Hillary Clinton.  I don't like her either, so I'm kind of on board, but it's also kind of annoying and repetitive.

10:43PM: Rand thinks that any CEO who did what Bill Clinton did with an intern would be fired and shunned.  I think Rand may have some rose colored glasses regarding how effectively CEOs are held accountable.  I'm fairly certain Bill wasn't the only CEO touching the interns, especially in the 90's.  

10:46PM: Jeb says Republicans shouldn't be mocking disabled people.  Agreed.

10:46PM: Big applause for the Governor of Iowa, who can't finish a full sentence without shilling for ethanol.  Iowa really is the worst.  Ted's not in the pocket of ethanol because he's too busy being the pocket of oil.  I wouldn't call that a principled position.

10:49PM: Ben says we are blessed with tremendous energy in this country.  That's pretty ironic coming from Ben.

Here come the closing statements:

Rand - He misses doing eye surgery and doesn't like debt.  Then the Rand people went nuts.

Kasich - We can solve problems, and I know this because I'm actually the secret shadow president of the world.

Christie - He mentioned September 11th.  I'm not kidding.  He's like Giuliani in a fat suit.

Jeb! - My band has some CDs for sale in the back if you want to grab one on the way out.

Dr. Ben - Ben recited the preamble to the Constitution, seemingly from memory.  Ben gets an A in 7th grade social studies.

Marco - Something about shining America's light and the 21st century.  He's still better at debating than these other guys.

Ted - Ted frequently brags that he will kill the terrorists.  I wonder if he's planning to do it himself.

I'm really interested to see who wins on Monday.  This should be fascinating.  

The Man That You Fear

This Republican primary race is hard to figure.  Nobody can rationally explain how Trump still leads all the polls.  Trump got himself in trouble recently by suggesting that we just stop letting muslims into the country.  And by "got himself in trouble" I mean scored another week of non-stop media coverage and surged in the polls.  Does Trump not allow follow-up questions?  Or if you ask him a follow-up question does he just yell and make faces until you give up?  How would this plan work?

For years, Trump insisted that Barack Obama was a secret muslim engaged in a lifelong plan to lie about being a muslim so he could become President of the United States and do...I don't know...whatever terrible thing Trump thinks he's going to do in the next year before he's not the President anymore.  Any yet, no muslim terrorist would be cagey enough to slip past airport screeners on the lookout for muslims.  Seems like a flawed plan to me.

Anyway, the part I really can't figure out is how Ted Cruz is suddenly pushing into a clear 2nd place.  How is Ted Cruz the anti-Trump?  How do you decide you don't like Trump and then you see Ted Cruz and you're like "sign me up!"?  If Donald Trump is your problem, Ted Cruz is not the answer.  If the things Donald Trump says scare you, Ted Cruz is the man that you fear. 

While Trump is wildly unelectable, comically so, Cruz is vaguely electable under the right circumstances.  For one thing, he at least has some experience governing.  He's terrible at it, also comically so, but he's done it a little.  And while Trump has the temperament of three toddlers in a man suit, Cruz has all the sociopathic tendencies of a serial killer.  That might sound unelectable, but serial killers only become serial killers by luring victims into his lair or whatever.

The point is, Cruz is like Trump only worse because he actually takes this election seriously and he may just be tricky enough to get nominated.  And if we have to choose between Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton my only suggestion would be that we all hold our breath until one of these parties gives us a decent candidate to vote for.  OK, let's see how long I can last tonight.

8:47PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Blitzer and some other CNN clowns.  I'm starting with zero patience for CNN so my attitude isn't going to get any better.

8:49PM: Rand immediately attacked Trump and said boots on the ground in Syria should be Arab boots.  Big pop from the crowd for Rand.  Interesting.

8:50PM: Kasich says his daughter doesn't like politics because it's loud and there's a lot of yelling.  I'm going to score that as two consecutive attacks on Trump.

8:52PM: Carly started off by saying "Like all of you, I'm angry".  That pretty much sums Carly up.

8:53PM: Jeb started off with something about how things are under attack and Hillary is under investigation and something else is under the gun.  I told you last time, Jeb loves to have fun with words.

8:54PM: Rubio apparently lived in Vegas for six years when he was a kid, and his dad smoked three cigars a day.  Then he said something stupid about traditional values but still, is it possible Rubio is actually interesting?  Why has he been hiding it?  Tell us more about your smokey Vegas upbringing!

8:57PM: Carson started off with a moment of silence for San Bernadino victims.  Then he made some tortured analogy about the country being in critical condition and excising the cancer of ISIS.  Ben's campaign is like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense.

8:59PM: It's amazing how Trump still stands out on a stage full of egomaniacs.  He immediately pointed out how he's center stage and "people like" what he says.  He's like a little kid telling you how he did great at school today.

9:00PM: "I will build a wall, it'll be a great wall."  I don't really have to tell you who said that, right?

9:02PM: Jeb points out that banning all muslims from the United States isn't a serious proposal and might make some of the countries in the Middle East we're hoping will fight ISIS with us a little uncomfortable about working with us.  Then he called Trump a "chaos candidate".  Zing!  Trump responded, predictably, by insulting Jeb and Jeb's campaign and generally being a dick.

9:04PM: Question to Rubio: "You said banning all muslims is unconstitutional, but polls show a majority of Republicans support Trump's proposal...".  I wish Rubio had just said that constitutional things aren't up for a majority vote, but he said some other stuff instead.

9:06PM: Cruz just quoted FDR's grandfather, but then he actually made a vaguely coherent point about the difference between radical muslim terrorists and other muslims.  This is what I'm telling you about Cruz.  He knows how to sound normal.  He isn't.

9:08PM: Carly seems to be advocating for a new Patriot Act because the old one was written in 2001 and we need to invade the privacy of all the phones and apps and stuff that have been invented since then.  She said we need to work with the private sector and she can because she knows them.  I'm pretty sure these other guys know them too.

9:10PM:  Chris Christie's American flag pin is shaped like New Jersey, which is just adorable.

9:11PM: Kasich says the Saudi's have a coalition of 34 countries that want to help us fight terrorists.  Can we stop the debate and find out if that's true?  That sounds like a good step and I feel like it's a lot more important that whatever Trump is about to say.

9:14PM: Cruz is making Rand's point about focusing on bad guys instead of having more surveillance of law abiding citizens.  I imagine Rand is raising his hand pretty energetically right now but CNN doesn't care.

9:15PM: Cruz and Rubio are having an argument about which one of them is telling the truth about the USA Freedom Act.  I believe Rubio.  As I may have mentioned, Cruz is a sociopath.

9:17PM: Rand is casually attacking Rubio, saying that Rubio is for open borders.  That was weird and seemed to come from out of nowhere.  Rand got another loud cheer.  The Rand people are in the house tonight.

9:19PM: Christie after a five minute argument between Rand and Marco "if your eyes are glazed over right now, this is what it's like on the floor of the Senate".  I couldn't tell you why Christie isn't doing better in this race.  Did MSBNC really land punches with that stupid bridge story?  That can't be it.

9:21PM: Ben just complained about how much time he's been allowed to talk.  That strategy literally never works.  Blitzer asked Ben who was right between Rand and Marco.  Ben, instead of, you know, taking a position on something, said "you'll have to ask them".  Ben is terrible at this.  How is he still here?

9:23PM: Blitzer asked Jeb a question that mentioned Jeb's brother.  Low blow Wolfie.

9:25PM: Carly says the government is too far behind the technological curve.  She's not wrong about that.

9:26PM: Question to Trump regarding his comment about "closing that internet up".  Trump wants to use our most brilliant people to keep ISIS off the internet and also penetrate the internet to find where ISIS is.  Does Trump think the internet is, like, a place you can go to?

9:29PM: I didn't listen to what Kasich just said because I was still trying to figure out what Trump was talking about.  Now I know why Kasich can't get any traction.

9:30PM: Cruz just called 15-30 bombing missions a day "photo op foreign policy".  How many bombs does Ted want to drop on Syria?  Syria isn't that big.  I think it's become fairly clear that we can't bomb our way out of this.  Also, when asked if he would bomb civilians in Syria, the gist of Cruz's answer was yes.  Sociopath.

9:32PM: Marco says you need a ground force to defeat ISIS.  He's not wrong.  He says you need a Sunni Arab ground force with some embedded Americans.  That's also probably right, but doesn't sound likely.

9:34PM: Blitzer seems to be trying to provoke fights between Rubio and everyone else.  If this was MSBNC, I'd say they were trying to make the only viable candidate look bad, but I don't think Wolf is that cagey.

9:35PM: Cruz says we need to be killing bad guys and not getting stuck in Middle Eastern civil wars. Be afraid.  Ted can do this.

9:36PM: Facebook question...apparently Trump recently said we should be killing families of ISIS members.  So, the Facebook guy was wondering, ya know, should we really be intentionally killing civilians?  Trump, amazingly, stood behind that idea and said it would make people think twice about joining ISIS.

9:39PM: Jeb says Trump can't insult his way to the Presidency.  Jeb is all over Trump right now. Trump said we will never be great again with Jeb's attitude and got booed for it.  These crowds never seem to have a lot of Trump people in them.  Who are the Trump people?

9:41PM: Breaking news from Ben, children don't like it when you tell them that you have to open their head up to remove a tumor.  Good note from Ben,

9:42PM: The other guy who isn't Wolf asked Ben if he's willing to be as ruthless in fighting ISIS as Churchill was in fighting the nazis.  Solid question.  Ben said he wouldn't say ruthless, but he would be tough.  Those aren't the same things though.  Ruthless is the right word.

9:44PM: Rand's people explode whenever mentions the Constitution.  He's like a band that has that one song everyone came to hear.  Meanwhile, more boos for Trump.

9:46PM: Kasich wants a massive, American-led army to defeat ISIS.  Kasich is a sneaky hawk.  You wouldn't expect it because he seems kind of laid back.

9:49PM: Christie is playing the "I'm not from Washington" card pretty hard.  It seems like that would work, but it doesn't work for Chris.  You would think maybe it's just because Trump is getting the anti-Washington votes for now, but I can't imagine the Trump people voting for Christie.  This race is a mess.  Also, Christie wants to be friends with the king of Jordan.

9:51PM: Watching Ben talk about foreign policy is like watching a 6th grader try to give a memorized book report.

9:56PM: Cruz seems to be co-opting all of Rand's ideas.  Now he's talking about how toppling dictators is a bad idea when the people who take over the country next are worse.  Rand has to be wondering why he's not doing better.  It can't be because Cruz is more likable.

9:58PM: Rubio's argument for toppling dictators is pretty coherent.  If a dictator is going to go anyway, why not get involved and try to help create a stable aftermath?  I'm not saying I agree, but I am saying Rubio seems to have a decent grasp on foreign policy.

10:00PM: Kasich mentioned the Saudi coalition again.  Does he have secret information that nobody else has?  I'm so intrigued.

10:00PM: Some guy was shouting at Trump from the audience.  Trump didn't take the bait.  I'm stunned.

10:01PM: Trump wishes we had the 4 or 5 trillion dollars we spent in Iraq back and that we had used it here on roads and stuff.  OK so this is one of those reasons why people like Trump.  He says stuff without thinking, but sometimes that means he says stuff without thinking about whether or not it fits with Republican dogma, and that lands with people.

10:03PM: Wolf asked Carson if the Middle East is better off with dictators.  That's kind of an unfair question and Ben sniffed it out and said dictators are bad but we can't just fix the Middle East with bombs.  Ben isn't a dumb guy.

10:05PM: Rand says "there's often variations of evil on both sides of a war".  That really is the foundation of Rand's foreign policy.  If we have no good choices, why bother choosing a side?

10:06PM: Cruz says all of these complicated questions are silly and we should just be defeating our enemies.  Ted doesn't realize that these questions about dictators are questions about who our real enemies are and if we should be taking sides in these fights.  Ted really shouldn't be President.

10:09PM: OK so we basically all agree that we have no good choices in the Middle East and the result of the Syrian civil war will be bad for us no matter how it turns out.  Can we just move on to something silly like the economy or guns or something?  This is depressing.

10:11PM: Quick kudos for Wolf here for not letting this debate be another episode of Trump and Friends.  On the other hand, we're really beating this foreign policy stuff to death.  Presidenting sometimes involves doing things in America too.

10:12PM: Would Christie shoot down a Russian plane in a no-fly zone?  Damn right he would!  Then he called the current President a feckless weakling.  Wolf seemed stunned.

10:13PM: Rand called Christie reckless and said "if you want World War 3 I think you've found your candidate".  I agree that Russia might not be cool with us shooting down their planes.  Then Rand mentioned that stupid bridge story.  Low blow Rand!  I'm giving Rand a time-out.

10:15PM: Jeb says he knows what he doesn't know and he wouldn't get his information from "the shows" (which is apparently something Trump said he does).  Get ready for some Trump insults!

10:16PM: Trump actually controlled himself and rather than attacking Jeb attacked CNN for asking Jeb about Trump, but then he said CNN just does it for ratings because he's still Trump.  Jeb didn't take the olive branch and punched back at Trump some more and then we got the insults I was waiting for about Jeb's poll numbers and his spot on the stage.

10:18PM: Kasich took the opportunity to jump in and be the voice of reason.  Then he mentioned the economy.  Yes! Please!  Something else!

10:19PM: Does being the head of surgery at a hospital qualify Carson to be the Commander in Chief?  The answer is no.  That's not what Ben said.  Ben said our country was designed to have citizen statesmen.  That's 100% true, but things are marginally more complicated now than they were in the 18th century.

10:20PM: We're going to talk about immigration now.  Ugh.  Part of Rubio's answer was "we will not be able to do anything on immigration...".  That's really all he needs to say.

10:22PM: Cruz and Rubio have basically the same haircut, but somehow they don't really look the same.  I think Ted's head is a little more oddly shaped.

10:24PM: Ted wants to secure the border.  Is anyone against securing the border?  I didn't think so.  Can we please move on?

10:25PM: Ted says he led the fight against Marco's immigration bill.  Yes, but Ted leads the fight against every bill ever because he's a legislative arsonist.

10:26PM: Every time two of these guys start fighting, Carly starts yelling about how this is why people don't like politics.  What did Carly think a debate was?  Sometimes people disagree.

10:27PM: People talk about Trump's hair a lot.  It really isn't so weird.  It's just kind of thin and an odd color.  It looks like cotton candy.

10:28PM: I feel like if you talked to Jeb in person, he'd be one of those people who really struggles to make eye contact.

10:29PM: Apparently Carson visited a Syrian refugee camp recently and called it "really quite nice".  He also said they need more medical care.  Seems like Ben could have just stayed there and we all would have won.

10:33PM: Rand says he hasn't taken a position on sending the 2,000 Syrian refugees already in the United States home.  Now would be a good time to take a position though.  We're having a debate.

10:35PM: Question from Facebook...if the bible says we need to embrace those in need, how can we justify not accepting refugees?  Christie's answer was basically, because the FBI says so.  We've come a long way in Republican politics when the FBI trumps the bible.

10:37PM: Wolf just said we are just beginning.  What?  This has already been going on for two hours.  I'm taking Wolf's words as a threat and quitting while I'm ahead.  These debates are too long.  We need to take Ben, Trump, Carly and Cruz and send them on a super secret mission somewhere until we can get this election settled.

Kasich/Rubio 2016!

They had another JV debate today, and I definitely didn't watch it.  Listen, if you're in the JV debate the first time, that's not necessarily your fault.  This is round three though.  If you're still at the kiddie table now, you might want to take the hint.  You are not going to be President Rick Santorum.  I'm sorry man.  You too Lindsay Graham.  You seem like a nice guy, but this is where you get off the train.  I'd like to be President, but none of us are going to be and we just need to move on.

7:55PM: During the pre-debate coverage, CNBC announced that Linsday Graham won the JV debate.  That's just sad.  I feel sad for him.

7:56PM: Some CNBC guy spent a couple of minutes fact-checking the claims the JV guys made about how they've cut spending/taxes/government in the past.  Spoiler alert, they were all lying.  Hey other networks...this is a thing you can do.  You should look into it.

7:58PM: Apparently Lindsay Graham is at least a foot shorter than the other three JV guys.

8:03PM: CNBC's pre-debate round-table was a catastrophe.  They constantly talked over each other.  I don't think I ever heard one person just make a point and finish a sentence without someone else interrupting.  It was like a meeting at a nursery school.

8:10PM: If you say the debate starts at 8, you need to start the debate at 8.  I'm already tired and have a headache.  I think the biggest issue with this pre-debate panel is the lack of a moderator.  I think one guy is supposed to be moderating but he's decided he doesn't care.

8:15PM: CNBC's slogan for election coverage appears to be Your Money, Your Vote.  In some ways, that really couldn't sum up our electoral process better.

8:16PM: Did you know weed is legal in Colorado now?  CNBC does, and they won't shut the fuck up about it.

8:17PM: I don't recognize any of the three moderators I'm looking at, but one of them appears to be named John Hardwood.  I assume CNBC poached him from a lucrative career in porn.  Full disclosure, I don't watch a lot of CNBC.

8:19PM: The moderator who reminds me a little of Lou Diamond Phillips started out by asking the candidates what their weaknesses are.  Kasich came out swinging by pointing out how ridiculous many of the policy proposals of his opponents are.

8:20PM: Five candidates in and nobody has a weakness.  Ben was number six, and his attempt at a weakness was "I never saw myself as President until hundreds of thousands of people told me I needed to do it".  I wish I could disconnect my ears from my brain.

8:23PM: Still no weaknesses.  Man, these guys are all so awesome!  Can they all be President??

8:24PM: Porn star just asked Trump if his campaign is a comic book version of a Presidential campaign.  Zing! Trump's answer included "I love the Mexican people...".  President Trump would make a really good movie, right?

8:27PM: These CNBC people seem to actually understand how economics works.  Run Republicans!  It's a trap!

8:30PM: When you listen to Kasich talk, it's hard to believe that even Republican primary voters would refuse to vote for him just because he might not be mean enough to gay people.

8:31PM: Trump says all of Kasich's success in Ohio was due to fracking and that he was personally responsible for Lehman Bros.  Then he made fun of Kasich for being on the end of the stage.  I still think it's possible that Trump is just doing an impression of himself.

8:34PM: Carly says the tax code has too many pages in it.  Republicans complain about this a lot.  This is a big and complicated country, some of the laws we need to run it might get a little complicated.  Carly says the tax code should only be three pages because that's the longest it could be for a business owner to understand it.  I feel like business owners should be a little insulted.

8:37PM: Rubio says he's running for President now because he can't wait and we can't afford another four years like the last eight years.  That's basically the same argument Barack Obama used.  It worked well for Barack and I think it might work for Rubio too.  Rubes has his serious face on tonight.

8:39PM: Bush says Rubio signed up for a six year Senate term and he should do his job.  Rubio says Jeb didn't complain when John McCain missed votes in the Senate to run for President, and the only reason Jeb is attacking him is because they're running for the same position and someone told Jeb he would benefit from attacking Rubio.  Seriously, Marco isn't screwing around tonight.

8:41PM: Jeb was talking for a while so I went to see if it was still raining outside.  It is, pretty hard too.

8:42PM: Question to Carly...why should we hire her since HP fired her?  She says other tech companies did worse than HP did when she was CEO.  That's true, but a pretty low bar for a Presidential candidate.

8:45PM: Cruz answered a question about the current budget deal by attacking the moderators and saying how unfair all the questions have been.  Lou Diamond Phillips openly mocked him halfway through and then when Cruz was finished said "I just want the record to reflect that I asked you about the debt limit".  Cruz then begged for the chance to actually give an answer and Hardwood said no.  I like CNBC.

8:48PM: Rand, who I usually don't hate, is openly advocating for using the debt limit to force other people to do what he wants.  He's literally making an affirmative argument for political brinkmanship.  It's kind of unbelievable.

8:50PM: Christie is pretty smart.  He's using every question to compare his positions to Hillary Clinton's instead of just arguing with these other fools.  I don't know if it'll work for Chris, but it certainly seems like a good plan.

8:52PM: Huck thinks Christie's plan to make some necessary cuts to entitlements before they go bankrupt is punishing people who receive social security, because Huck is basically a giant child.

8:54PM: Cruz wants to privatize social security.  That's not what he said, but that's what he means.

9:00PM: Trump is rambling about Atlantic City and bankruptcy, finishing with "I used the laws of the country to my benefit".  That's the kind of "fuck you" attitude we need in the White House!

9:01PM: Jim Cramer is suddenly here and I'm already pretty exasperated.  He yelled a question about drug company price gouging at Ben Carson.  Ben somehow blamed too much regulation.

9:03PM: Cramer asked Chris if he thinks GM executives should go to jail because of the whole faulty ignition switch thing.  I don't know, I had one of those, I turned out OK.

9:06PM: Carly likes to ask herself questions and then answer them.  I don't like that.

9:08PM: Carly is much better than these other guys at ignoring the moderators when they try to tell her that her time is up.

9:10PM: Rubio is successfully playing the "I didn't come from money" card.  He's really starting to smell like a nominee to me.

9:12PM: OK that's it.  I'm declaring this nomination process over.  The Republican ticket will be some combination of Kasich and Rubio.  I have spoken.

9:13PM: Five seconds after I typed that Kasich proposed a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.  Unless he also has a time machine to take him back to the 19th century, that's a terrible idea.  Let's all just pretend we didn't hear it.

9:14PM: Cruz loves single moms.  He'd better because we'll have a lot more of them after Ted shuts down Planned Parenthood.

9:15PM: Everything Carly says sounds vaguely angry.  If I knew her in real life I would always think she was mad at me.

9:16PM: Ben says you can be perfectly fair to the gay community while also definitely not allowing them to get married.  Apparently they don't teach you the meaning of "fair" in medical school.

9:17PM: Ben says he had "no relationship" with a company that he "gave a couple of speeches for".  Ummm, again, Ben seems to struggle with the definitions of words.

9:24PM: Rubio is in favor of more vocational training for Americans so they can do the high paying tech jobs that currently go to immigrants on H1 visas.  That's not a terrible idea.

9:26PM: Trump takes his turn complaining about the questions.  Then Rubio complained about the main stream media.  That's annoying but good Republican politics so I can't really blame him.

9:27PM: Rick Santelli just asked a very animated question.  Can somebody settle him down a little bit?  This is a debate, not a wrap party for a high school play.

9:29PM: I think I'm ready to officially give up on Rand.  Just because you can talk for a full minute about the Fed doesn't make you your dad.

9:30PM: Seriously, Santelli sounds like he's doing an infomercial for debate questions.  I have no idea what's going on or why he's here.

9:31PM: Ben doesn't know much, but he knows he hates regulations.  Again though, we have clear evidence that Ben may not know what words mean, so who knows what he's trying to say at this point.

9:32PM: Huck likes analogies and balloons.  I think he may be two six-year-olds in a man suit.

9:33PM: Huck says the economy would do better if we just cured diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer and heart disease.  Yeah!  Why hasn't anyone else thought of curing those diseases?  Stupid politicians, just give us the diabetes cure already!

9:37PM: Rand wants to know the rules on who gets to follow-up.  He probably should have cleared that up before they went on TV.

9:38PM: Some of the other guys are taking Carly's lead on ignoring the moderators.  Hardwood and Lou Diamond Phillips have lost all control.  The lady in the middle, who I've learned is named Becky, seems to still have a little bit of a handle on it.

9:40PM: Kasich seems to be a big states' rights guy.  This always makes me nervous.  Why not just come up with one good idea instead of giving people 50 different opportunities to do something stupid.

9:44PM: Becky went to Trump's website to prove that he was lying in an earlier answer.  Again, other networks, you have the internet too, you can do things like this.

9:45PM: I'm just picturing these guys trying to negotiate a settlement between Israel and Palestine and constantly complaining about the rules of the negotiation, or crying to Putin about Robert's rules of order.

9:48PM: Hardwood asked Huck if he thinks Trump has the moral authority to bring the country together.  That got a boo from the crowd and I have to say, I agree with them this time.  Stupid question Hardwood, go back to porn.

9:50PM: CNBC has a lot of random guest question askers.  How is three not enough moderators?  Coop basically handled the whole CNN debate on his own.  I like these CNBC people, but why are there 6 of them?

9:54PM: Kasich is advocating for having college students do public service to help pay for college.  This is an interesting idea and an important issue.  Lou Diamond Phillips followed up with a question to Jeb about daily fantasy sports.  I think CNBC should quit while they're ahead.

9:56PM: Christie expressed an appropriate amount of anger over the fantasy football question.  I do like Christie sometimes.  Now he's talking about how climate change is a real thing and mocking Hardwood at the same time.  There are absolutely times when I would vote for Christie.

9:58PM: I have to say, I'm watching Christie talk and realizing that Trump has mostly faded into the background of this debate.  I think we might be at the point we've all been waiting for when Trump turns into a pumpkin.  My sense is he won't go quietly.

9:59PM: I think Rand Paul almost just said fuck.  I really think that just almost happened.

10:03PM: Huck wanted to take another chance to say we should cure diseases.  Can we just stipulate that we all would like to cure diseases?

10:05PM: Trump's economic plan is to "make a really dynamic economy".  He's like a puppet who's ventriloquist has wandered off.  It's just all nonsense now.

10:08PM: I have to stop listening to Ben because he doesn't know what words mean and it makes everything really confusing and a little frustrating.  He was also genuinely funny, even clever, in earlier debates.  He's not doing that tonight.

10:11PM: Marco is pro-mom.  Not all moms, just his mom.

10:12PM: Carly wants to use zero based budgeting for the government.  Way to end the debate.  People need to go to sleep now.

Closing Statements
-Rand likes small government.  Try to hide your surprise.
-Chris hates Washington and loves meatball sandwiches.
-Ted says he stands up against Washington.  He mentioned a lot of things he failed at.
-Carly moves her head a lot when she talks.  She says she will beat Hillary Clinton, possibly with her bare hands.
-Ben thanked the audience for paying attention, and didn't seem to know what to do with his hands.
-Trump says we're losers but he'll make us winners again.
-Rubio says he owes a debt to America he can never repay.
-Jeb says America is at a crossroads.  He then sang that Bone Thugs N Harmony song from beginning to end.  It was hauntingly beautiful.
-Huck said some words.  I've completely given up on Huck.
-Kasich says America is great from the bottom up.

I think Marco and Christie did really well.  Kasich was solid too, but I always think that and nobody ever agrees.  See you next time.

This Cable News Network Goes to 11

I'm sorry.  There were two debates tonight and I just, I didn't have the patience or energy to watch the first one.  To be honest, it looked pretty sad to me.  It was just Jindal, Pataki, Santorum and Graham.  I thought Rick could be a real guy this time around.  I was wrong.  I also thought Pataki might not be a terrible candidate.  Wrong again.  Sorry guys.  I hope you enjoy appearing on cable news shows.

More importantly, how did CNN decide the numbers for these two debates?  Four, and then eleven.  Fox had ten in the main debate, and then everyone else in the other one.  Ten makes sense.  People love top ten lists.  CNN went with eleven.  This cable news network goes to eleven.

Tonight's debate is coming to us from the Reagan Library.  It's like a Republican theme park where they go every four years to pretend that our worst President was actually our best President.  He was a corporate whore with a jelly bean fetish.  I don't understand why these people are so fascinated by him.  It's going to be a long night, I'd better settle down.

8:10PM: This debate is airing around the world, says Jake Tapper.  That's pretty embarrassing.  Also, Tapper seems to be moderating this debate, along with Hugh Hewitt and Dana Bash.  Didn't CNN used to have journalists?  Is Tapper a journalist?  I honestly don't know.

8:13PM: Huckleberry just referred to the 11 people currently on stage as "The A Team", and he's casting Trump as Mr. T.  Way to relate to the young people Huck!

8:13PM: Rubio says he brought his own water because he knows California has a drought.  Hilarious Rubes!  People have no water to drink!  LOLZ!  It's funny because we're all going to die.

8:15PM: Trump says that he's made billions and billions of dollars but he made it clear that he was saying it "not in a braggadocious way".  Sadly, I think Trump honestly believes that's how not bragging works.

8:16PM: Carly stared awkwardly at the camera for about three seconds before she started talking.  I'm pretty sure that's the end of her campaign.

8:17PM: Kasich said hello to his kids in the introductions.  Feels like the move of somebody who isn't 100% sure he'll be around for the next debate.

8:18PM: Christie directed the camera to face the audience instead of him.  He's fun.  Can we keep him for a little longer?

8:20PM: Tapper asked Carly if she'd be comfortable with Trump's finger on the button, she didn't answer.  The correct answer is no.  Trump's response was to point out that Rand Paul shouldn't be on the stage.  Rand correctly pointed out the non-sequitur and called Trump sophomoric.  Trump responded by saying he's never attacked Rand on his appearance even though "there's plenty of subject matter there".  It's like Trump is doing a perfect Trump impression.

8:22PM: Walker..."Jake, Jake, Jake....Jake!".  Tapper ignored him.

8:23PM: Trump keeps responding to questions about his temperament by attacking random people who weren't part of the question.

8:25PM: Walker (after Tapper finally called on him) about Trump: "just because he says it doesn't mean it's true".  That's a good point, but in this case Trump was talking about the terrible economic job Walker has done in Wisconsin, which is 100% true, sooooo....

8:26PM: Kasich begs Tapper to get to the issues.  I think John may be confused about what network he's on.  Tapper followed that by asking Christie about something mean Ben Carson may or may not have said about Christie.  Take that, issues!

8:30PM: Tapper is going to keep asking questions about Trump and you can't stop him.  This one was about how Trump isn't bought and paid for by donors.  Bush says the only donor that tried to get him to do something was Trump, who wanted casino gambling in Florida.  Trump says that isn't true.  One of them is lying.  I'm pretty sure I know who, but I wish Tapper would try to find out.

More importantly, I love the distinction Trump is making here.  He's saying all these people are whores, but he's not.  Good point, Trump's more of a slut.  He acts like a whore, but you don't have to pay him.

8:34PM: Huckleberry, Rubio and Cruz have literally had no opportunities to speak since the introductions.  We're 25 minutes in.  Tapper, with apparently no interest in hearing from all of the candidates, asks Trump another question.

8:36PM: Rubio says Putin is trying to usurp our role in the middle east.  Why is that a bad thing?  If you've been carrying around a bag of dog shit for 70 years and then some Russian guy shows up and tries to steal your bag of dog shit, you don't really put up much of a fight.  Please Vlad, take it.

8:38PM: Carly wants to arm Jordan and the Kurds.  Is the plan to try to give weapons to every single faction in the middle east and see if maybe one of them doesn't eventually wind up shooting them at us?  How's that working out so far?

8:40PM: I think Ted Cruz doesn't understand that if you print out a copy of a law and rip it up, that doesn't mean it's not a law anymore.  That's strange because he's supposedly a lawyer.

8:43PM: Kasich and Rand have spent the last few minutes talking about how we shouldn't make rash decisions in foreign policy.  These other guys disagree, and I fear Republican primary voters will too.

8:44PM: Still nothing from Huck.  Can we send someone to his podium to check out the situation over there?

8:45PM: In a huge upset, Jeb is the first person to suck up to Israel.  I'm shocked.

8:48PM: Rand points out that if we had bombed the Assad regime years ago like these other people wanted to and still wish he had, ISIS would be in control of everything in Syria by now.  That's a good and accurate point, and Tapper has no follow up for anyone.

8:51PM: Tapper has no control.  He just said he wanted to go to Dana Bash.  Kasich said no and just started talking, and then Carly called next.  Tapper then moved on to Cruz and Huck, with Carly still calling next.

8:53PM: Huck says that the Supreme Court decided to redefine marriage "out of thin air".  Thin air, the 14th amendment, whatever.  For the record, I don't understand why they threw that county clerk lady in jail, but I also don't understand why she wasn't just fired for refusing to do her job.  Kentucky's a strange place though so who knows.

8:57PM: Kasich says you can get things done without shutting down the federal government.  He's getting the confused dog face from Cruz.

9:00PM: Would Chris Christie support shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood?  In a touching homage to political brinkmanship, Christie says yes and says they should force the President to do what he's threatening to do.

9:02PM: Carly is very angry about Planned Parenthood.  Like really really angry.  Uncomfortably angry.  It got her a standing ovation.

9:04PM: Trump says "I will take care of women, I respect women".  Nothing in the history of Donald Trump suggests that's true, but OK.

9:07PM: Trump's response to the question about him calling Carly ugly "I think she's got a beautiful face and she's a beautiful woman".  Perfect.

9:13PM: Immigration policy time.  Ben Carson's casual mention of the fact that you can cut holes in fences pretty much ruins the immigration policy of everyone on the stage.

9:15PM: Tapper says we're going to Dana Bash for more about immigration.  Translation: Dana's going to ask a question about something Donald Trump said about Jeb's wife being a Mexican.  Journalism!

9:18PM: Apparently Trump's plan for undocumented immigrants involves moving all of them out, but then letting the great ones and the good ones come back.  And also speaking English.

9:20PM: We seem to be talking about whether or not it's appropriate for Presidential candidates to answer questions in Spanish.  Rubio says he gives interviews in Spanish so that people who don't speak English yet will hear directly from him and not some translator at Univision.  What?  What a strange reason to give.

9:22PM: When all the other guys start falling all over themselves to say how much they like and respect you, that means they have internal polling that says you can't possibly beat them.  Hasta la vista Ben Carson.

9:26PM: Trump says we're the only ones stupid enough to have birthright citizenship.  Yeah!  Take your American exceptionalism and shove it up your ass!  Stop being so stupid!

9:30PM: Every time Tapper says he's going to ask a question about an issue, he starts off with some Trump insult about another candidate that's vaguely related to that issue.  Why can't he just ask Carly why her time at HP was disastrous?  Why does he need a Trump quote for that?

9:32PM: Trump says Carly can't run any of his companies.  I assume that's because he doesn't think she's pretty enough.  Carly responds by pointing out that Trump has run four different businesses into bankruptcy.  Trump mostly just laughs whenever someone brings that up.  

9:34PM: Christie says construction workers couldn't care less about Trump and Carly's careers.  It's not just construction workers, but I agree with his basic point.

9:35PM: Apparently Tapper's one and only rule is that if someone else mentions your name, then you get to talk for a while.  You don't necessarily have to respond to what they said, or talk about the same thing they were talking about.  It's like a game of hide and seek where everyone gets to hide whenever they want but nobody ever has to seek.

9:38PM: Huck is still pushing the fair tax.  He properly explained it as a tax on consumption rather than on what you earn.  That sounds really good, except that in practice it's incredibly regressive and just awful for working people.  Rich people use a small percentage of their money to buy stuff, so a fair tax only taxes a small percentage of their money.  Poor and working people use all of their money to buy stuff they need to live like food and shelter, so a consumption tax is, for them, not totally awesome.

9:41PM: Carson seems to be in favor of direct democracy, as he's referenced getting the government out of the way and letting the people make decisions multiple times.  If I can make a serious point, this is why people who don't know anything about government make bad candidates.  There's a huge difference between what Ben is talking about and the system of government we actually have.  Ben's not a dumb guy, but government isn't his field.  People who don't understand how government works (Ben, Trump, Carly) make bad candidates.  If you have a broken toilet and you hire a plumber who does a crappy job, and then another plumber who does another crappy job, you don't go out and see if a bus driver can fix your toilet.  You go out and find a better plumber, even though you're getting really sick of plumbers.  Ben is probably smarter than a plumber, but I bet he can't fix your toilet.

9:45PM: I swear I think Kasich might actually make a decent President.  I'm sure I don't agree with him on everything, but he seems pretty reasonable.

9:47PM: Carly is a whirlwind of Fox News talking points about Hillary Clinton.  Smart Republicans would stop talking about Benghazi and just talk about the email thing, which is a real thing even though Democrats don't want it to be.

Apparently, this CNN debate is three hours long.  I call shenanigans on that.  I have an hour and a half of this in me, two hours tops.  And that's on a good day, which this week has not included.  I'm done with you CNN.  You can't hold me hostage for three hours.  Let's say Kasich won because I can always hope for a candidate that I don't hate voting for.

The Big Show

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of how Fox is handling this first debate.  For one thing, I don't understand why they felt the need to do one real debate with the top ten candidates in the polls and then one much less real debate with the other seven.  It kind of seems like we're saying that if you aren't polling in the top ten in August, you don't have a real chance to win.  That might be true for some people, but it still seems a little early for that kind of weeding out. 

Why not do two debates and just randomly split the field?  Or, since we're doing more than one debate anyway, why not split the field into three debates randomly so everyone gets a chance to actually talk.  You could run them on three consecutive nights.  How would this not be good television for Fox?  Why am I the only one around here thinking with my brain?

I suppose the concern is that if you did three debates on three consecutive nights, the people in the third debate would have an advantage, having heard what the people in the earlier debates said and how the audience responded to it.  Maybe they'd even have a night to poll test some stuff.  Honestly though, the chances of any of these people saying something they haven't said 100 times before is pretty minimal. 

Also, Fox is a news network.  Can't they exercise some editorial judgment here and not just blindly go with the polls?  We all know Ben Carson and Ted Cruz aren't going to be President.  Meanwhile, some of the guys at the kiddie debate were at least serious people, who probably will also not be President, but still.  You don't have to like him, but Rick Perry was the Governor of a huge state for 15 years, and tonight he debated at 5PM because Ben Carson and Donald Trump are polling well with people who couldn't find the United States on a map of North America.  Fox is making me feel sorry for Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.  My two least favorite Ricks.  I don't like this.  Let's just get started, OK?

Tonight's debate is being moderated by Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly.  Wallace is the closest thing Fox has to a real journalist, and I'm not entirely sure why he can't just moderate this debate on his own.  The other two...well...Megyn Kelly has done this before at least, but that doesn't mean she did it well.  And Bret Baier?  You'd have a better debate if you replaced him with an actual bear.  Where's Shepard Smith when you need him?

8:50PM - It appears that between the first debate and now, everyone on Fox agreed that Carly Fiorina won the first debate.  That was not what I saw, but I have to admit that Brit Hume probably knows what Republican primary voters like better than I do.

8:53PM - Fox's pre-debate panel appears to be getting paid by the number of times they say Donald Trump's name.

8:56PM - Megyn had to call the candidates out four or five times before they actually came out to the stage.  Looks like nobody went to rehearsal.

8:57PM - Just a super weird start.  All ten guys came out and stood in a line in front of the podiums while Megyn and Bret peppered them with questions like "Are you nervous?" and "What do you think of this crowd?".  Then Bret finally let them go to their podiums.  Then Megyn said these guys are probably all glad Carly Fiorina isn't here.  Seriously, did I watch the wrong debate this afternoon?

9:01PM - Fox has been asking viewers to submit questions via Facebook that they can use during the debate.  I always hate that.  You have a whole network full of supposed journalists, but your game plan involves taking questions from internet trolls.  Every network does this, and it is always stupid.

9:04PM - Bret starts by asking the candidates to raise their hand if they will not make a pledge to support the eventual winner and not run an independent campaign if they lose.  Trump's hand went up immediately, saying that he needs to respect the winner.  Rand Paul jumped right on him saying that Trump is used to buying politicians so he's already hedging his bets (in case the eventual winner can't be bought, is I assume Rand's point).  Rand should have won that exchange pretty easily, but the crowd's reaction was sort of mixed.  I think it scares Republicans that Trump is bringing people into the process that are loyal to Trump but not the party, or reality.

9:08PM - Solid minute from Rubio about how this election can't just be about resumes, and he'll make the Republicans the party of the future.  Make a note to keep an eye on Rubio, he may actually know stuff.

9:10PM - Bush says "In Florida, they called me Jeb because I earned it".  I don't know what that means, but I guess Jeb is a compliment in Florida. 

9:11PM - Megyn was trying to ask Trump about his habit of calling women fat pigs and disgusting animals.  His response was 1) be completely dismissive of Megyn 2) say he doesn't have time for political correctness and 3) threaten to stop being nice to Megyn.  There you go.

9:14PM - Ted Cruz still looks like a muppet.

9:15PM - Bret asked Christie about New Jersey being an economic catastrophe.  Christie responded "if you think it's bad now, you should have seen it when I got there".  Yikes.  Then Christie rattled off a list of Republican economic policies that he put into place in New Jersey.  After years of deficit cutting and regulation busting, New Jersey is a dumpster fire.  Ummm, Chris needs to re-group a little.  Somebody get him a meatball sandwich.

9:18PM - Huckabee suggests using the 5th and 14th amendments to outlaw abortion under all circumstances saying "the Supreme Court is not the supreme being".  Roe v Wade happened in 1973.  Same sex marriage supporters should make a note of that.  That argument is far from over for people like Mike.

9:19PM - Rand is having fun pointing out that ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of U.S. Humvees.  Rand then suggested that maybe we shouldn't be handing out weapons all over the middle east.  What an interesting idea.  Maybe don't give everyone weapons.  Can we do that?

9:21PM - John Kasich is pretty good at debating.  He successfully defended his use of the Medicare expansion and then talked about providing care for mentally ill people.  Put Kasich in my maybe column for now.

9:23PM - Jeb proposed fixing immigration instead of using it as a wedge issue.  Trump hasn't insulted anyone in a few minutes so he has to be getting pretty punchy.

9:24PM - Trump, "if it weren't for me, you wouldn't even be talking about illegal immigration".  OK well that's not true, but that never stops Donald.  Wallace asked him twice what specific evidence he has that the Mexican government is sending criminals over the border.  In a shocking twist, Trump was not able to provide evidence. 

9:31PM - Wallace keeps trying to ask about illegal immigration.  Nobody seems to want to answer him, except to say that everyone is in favor of building a giant wall.  Rubio finally pointed out that someone could dig a tunnel under the wall.  Put Marco in the maybe column too, even though he's still in favor of building the giant wall even though he openly admits walls are pretty easy to conquer.

9:35PM - Ted Cruz is not for amnesty.  He is very much for hearing the sound of Ted Cruz' voice.

9:36PM - Christie was apparently appointed to his job in the Bush administration on September 10, 2001.  Sounds like Chris would be a hell of a good luck charm.  I wouldn't go to Atlantic City with him.

9:38PM - Rand says we need to use the 4th amendment to get warrants to collect records from terrorists and not collect records from other people.  Chris is not a fan of getting warrants.  Chris also appears to be employing the Guliani style "September 11th is the answer to every question" strategy.  I don't recall that working out too well for Rudy.

9:40PM - Apparently multiple people, including military Generals and the State department, have told Ted that you can't defeat ISIS until you change the situation on the ground in Iraq and Syria so it's not so conducive to radicalization.  Ted thinks the idea that there's not a military solution to ISIS is nonsense.  You can see why I find the idea of a Cruz Presidency slightly problematic.

9:42PM - Jeb admits that he wouldn't have gone into Iraq knowing now that the intelligence was faulty, rejecting Megyn's argument that since people died in Iraq it isn't OK to say it was a mistake.  That was pretty good.  His answer to what he would do now was less good.

9:44PM - Ben Carson says "I wasn't sure I was going to get to talk again".  Like Kelly, Wallace and Baier, I had pretty much forgotten Ben was there.  He gave an answer similar to what Bobby Jindal said earlier, saying that everything will be OK if we just stop fighting politically correct wars and let the military do whatever they want. 

9:46PM - Trump wanted to quickly point out that he was always opposed to the Iraq War.  Good for him.  Then he said that single payer health care would have worked in another age in America, whatever that means, but now we need a private system.  I can't imagine Trump actually knows anything about health care, except that he hates having to give it to employees.

9:48PM - This is why Trump is doing well.  Sometimes he says things that are true.  He explained his donations to many politicians, Democrats and Republicans, including Hillary Clinton, by saying that if you give them money they do what you want, and that's a broken system.  Can't argue with him on that.

9:51PM - The question to Huckabee was "Is the government to big for anyone to shrink it?".  Huckabee started by saying no, but then talked for a minute about all the ways the federal government is too big.  I think Huckabee thinks no means yes.

9:52PM - Carson appears to be advocating for a flat tax, based on his feeling that the bible supports a flat tax.  It'll be fun to have Ben around for a while.

9:53PM - Jeb said a lot about education, but all I heard was "challenging the teacher's unions and beating them".  Yes please!  I'm very pro-union, but teachers unions are the absolute worst.

10:00PM - Kasich was asked how he would fight Hillary Clinton's argument that Republicans want to oppress women and take the country back to the past.  He said he would respond by balancing budgets.  I think he skipped a step or two.

10:01PM - Same question to Carson.  First he slipped in a doubt that Hillary will actually be the candidate (slick move), then he said he would educate people about how progressives are really causing the problems in this country.  Any political operative will tell you that if you're educating, you're losing.

10:03PM - Wallace asked Jeb how he would get us to 4% growth.  His answer mostly boiled down to cutting taxes and making a wish.  I'm officially worried about Jeb.

10:04PM - Walker keeps bragging about how he's been elected 3 times in Wisconsin.  He keeps leaving out the fact that that's because they tried to recall him twice. 

10:06PM - Wallace asked Christie if Huckabee is lying when he says he can save social security without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.  Christie said "No, he's not lying, he's just wrong."  This is why people like Christie.  That's both honest and a little funny, and also true.  I'm glad he took that sandwich break.

10:07PM - Huckabee still says he can save social security without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age, you just have to institute his fair tax.  Huckabee makes a good point, which is that people didn't opt into social security.  The government started taking their money when they started working and they didn't get a choice, so it's not their fault the system is in trouble.  All true, but life's not fair and magic tax plans won't fix social security.  People are going to have to deal with a raised retirement age eventually.  That's just the way it is.

10:11PM - Wallace pointed out that four Trump companies have gone bankrupt, but Trump responded that he's never personally gone bankrupt.  Wallace asked him about one specific deal where his lenders lost over a billion dollars and 1,100 jobs.  Trump basically said that the lenders deserved it and everybody in Atlantic City goes bankrupt.  I have to give Wallace some credit.  He really has been trying to call Trump out on his bullshit, but Trump just keeps responding with louder bullshit and Wallace only has two hours. 

10:14PM - I know these guys genuinely believe that cutting corporate taxes will help working people.  It's just that there is zero evidence to support that hypothesis and it's really frustrating.

10:16PM - They just showed a clip of the earlier debate.  One thing I didn't notice before, Carly Fiorina's hair appeared to be dyed to match her jacket.  That's an odd choice.

10:17PM - Rand made a legitimate point about the Iran deal.  He thinks the Obama administration gave up too much too early.   You can disagree, but that's a perfectly reasonable critique and certainly better than the "I would tear up that deal on day one because freedom" answer we're getting from everyone else.

10:24PM - Question to Jeb about him being on the board of the Bloomberg foundation, which gave money to Planned Parenthood.  He says they never had a debate about the budget and he was just on the board because of Bloomberg's commitment to education.  OK then.

10:25PM - Rubio swears he's never supported a rape and incest exception to his anti-abortion stance.   Just tell me how this isn't big government.  I just want an explanation.

10:26PM - Question to Trump..."when did you actually become a Republican?".  He says he's evolved on abortion and he's pro-life now.  He said it very angrily, as he says all things all the time.

10:28PM - Can we all just agree that everyone here is anti-choice?  Do we really have to go through this every four years.  We all know the Republican nominee will be anti-choice.  Why do we have to compete every election cycle to see which guy is the most anti-choice?  Seems like a poor use of time.

10:30PM - Kasich just got applause for going to a same sex wedding.  The home crowd cheered pretty loudly for him.  John stays in the maybe column, but this probably means Fox will declare him the clear loser of the debate.

10:32PM - Rand says he's opposed to the government invading the church.  Luckily, so is the government, so we're all good there.

10:35PM - Racial issues question to Walker.  He looks terrified.  He says police need better training and we should treat everyone the same here in America.  Score one generic answer for Scott.

10:38PM - Trump just recommend buying stock in Iran.  I think he was kidding but I can't say I'm 100% sure.

10:39PM - Bret asked Cruz if Russia and China are cyber terrorists.  Bret was just baiting Ted, and boy did Ted take the bait.  Has Ted mentioned that he opposes the Iran deal?  He does.

10:40PM - Republicans keep pointing out that Iran released hostages the day Reagan was elected.  If Iran released some hostages the day Obama was elected these guys would have marched on Washington and screamed about how Iran sees Obama as an ally because he's a secret Muslim.  I'd love to see a Republican debate where nobody is allowed to mention Reagan.  It would last 7 minutes before they all ran away.

10:42PM - Scott Walker would apparently send weapons to anyone who wanted them.  Can we just have one 10 minute discussion about the history of arming everyone who claims to be on our side at any one point in history?  Just once.  Please?

10:43PM - Huckabee feels that the purpose of the military is protecting Americans and not being nice to transgender people.  I'm glad President Huckabee feels like he'd be OK as President turning away willing and able military volunteers.

10:45PM - Rand says it would be better if Israel was independent and we didn't have to keep sending them money we don't have.  That's the exact same argument Republicans make about poor people, but for some reason Republicans don't like it when you replace poor people with Israel.

10:46PM - Christie wants to make the Navy bigger again.  He's really worried about the Spanish Armada.  You never know when they'll show up.

10:50PM - A Facebook questioner asked if any of these guys have received specific instructions from god.  Please someone say yes.  Please!

10:51PM - Sadly, even Cruz didn't take the bait on the talking to god question.  Disappointing.

10:52PM - Kasich just talked for a minute about uniting the country, listening to other people and not leaving anyone behind.  I'm a hard maybe on Kasich right now.

10:54PM - Rubio says god has blessed the Republican party with some great candidates when the Democrats can't even find one.  Then he talked about reforming the VA.  Rubio may have something for the rest of these guys.  Keep an eye on him.

10:56PM - Carson says he doesn't talk about race that much because he's a neurosurgeon.  I thought that was a pretty good line.  Ben's not going to win, but he's pretty funny sometimes.

Summary of the closing statements:
Kasich - He talked about having a lot of experience.  I think John may be a pretty good candidate, but he needs to work on being less boring.
Christie - Chris' dad worked in an ice cream plant.  That explains some things.  He again mentioned that he was appointed to the Bush administration on September 10, 2001.  Seriously, I wouldn't stand next to him anywhere.
Paul - Rand made an electability argument and said he's a different kind of Republican.
Rubio - Rubio wants expand the American dream for more people.
Cruz - Ted gave one of those nonsense day one plans.  Booooo!  Ted's first day would have approximately 910 hours in it.
Carson - Carson says that everyone is bragging about the things that they were the only one to do, and then says "I'm the only one to separate Siamese twins."  Then he says he thought he was the only one to take out half a brain, but when he gets to Washington he may find that someone beat him to it.  Seriously, Ben's funny.
Huckabee -  Huckabee tried to be funny.  Huck isn't funny though.
Walker - "I'm a guy with a wife and two kids and a Harley".  Ugh. 
Bush - Jeb tried to jam his whole platform into 30 seconds.  Always a mistake.
Trump - I think he just called America a loser.

Man, that was long.

I'm Not Voting for Hillary Clinton

You can't make me vote for Hillary Clinton.  I won't do it.  The list of people I would not vote for under any circumstances has on it but one name, and that name is Hillary Clinton.  I don't even care what she says she believes in this time.  I just want her to go away.  Her and Bill are rich, and they've accomplished plenty, why won't they just go away?  Why?

Unfortunately, having only two parties to choose from, this means the Republican primary process takes on extra special significance for me this time around.  No longer are the Republicans just funny TV personalities I can laugh at and then not vote for.  I have to vote for one of these people.  So everybody focus up!  Alright?!?  I'm serious!  Time to take a look at the Republican candidates.  I was worried that the internet wouldn't have enough room on it to list all of them, but internet inventor Al Gore says we're fine.

I've broken the candidates down into three tiers.  Within each tier, I'll try to list the candidates in order from least likely to win to most likely to win.  Seriously now, I have to vote for one of these people, so let's all just pay attention and see if we can find some hope here.

Tier Three
Tier three consists of people who have the same chance at winning the Republican nomination as I do.  I couldn't tell you why they're running, and I couldn't tell you why anyone would bother donating money to them or saying their name when a pollster calls and asks who they might be voting for.  I'll still try to list these people from least likely to most likely, but keep in mind that trying to parse out the varying degrees of absolutely no chance really is splitting hairs.  Pointless, needless hairs.

Jim Gilmore
I don't know who this person is.  I assume he created Gilmore Girls and listen, girls with blue eyes and dark hair is an excellent concept for a TV show.  I wish every show was based around that general theme.  But Gilmore Guy here isn't going to be President.  Sorry.

Carly Fiorina
Being an actual person I've heard of is a good start.  Carly was CEO of Hewlett-Packard for a while, and was apparently terrible at it.  To be fair, taking over a tech company in 1999 was a little like taking over as Brittney Spears' manager in 1999.  You knew it wasn't going to end well, but somebody had to do it. 

Being a former CEO whose claim to fame was lay-offs certainly didn't stop Mitt Romney from winning the Republican nomination.  Mitt, however, was at least a governor at some point.  Carly once ran for the Senate and lost.  I don't think that's going to cut it.  Also, Carly is awful on TV.  Really awful.  If you ever get a chance to see her do an interview on Fox, watch for as long as you can just to see what I'm talking about.  You won't last long.

Lindsey Graham 
I can't figure out what Lindsey Graham is doing.  He always struck me as a guy who was perfectly happy being a career Senator.  I suppose if he and John McCain are ever going to build a blanket fort in the White House, it's up to Lindsey now.  Unfortunately, "John McCain is my best friend" isn't exactly a killer campaign slogan when you're dealing with the Republican base.  They still think McCain ruined Sarah Palin's epic run for the White House.

Bobby Jindal
Take your pick of reasons why Bobby won't win.  How about doing everything but setting his own shirt on fire during a comically awful State of the Union response?  Or how about the fact that he looks and sounds like a little kid pretending to be his dad every time you see him speaking?  Or how about the fact the apparently everyone in Louisiana hates him?  Or how about the fact that nobody will take you seriously if you're a 44 year old man who still calls himself Bobby? 

George Pataki
You probably think I have Pataki ranked a little high, right near the top of the people who have absolutely no chance.  Maybe it's my New York bias, but I don't understand why George isn't doing a little better.  Then again, I haven't actually seen him do anything since I found out he was running for President.  George knows that in order to run for President you have to like, leave your house and stuff, right?

Tier Two
Tier two consists of people who, under the right circumstances, could hypothetically win the nomination.  For a couple of them, those circumstances would mostly involve leading a military coup, or having a deadly virus kill all the other candidates.  Still, I think each of these people has some plausible, if improbable, path to the nomination.

Ben Carson
I know, you think Ben should be higher.  I disagree.  Carson is one of two candidates who are specifically hurt by Donald Trump.  The tea party failed because it became a magnet for everyone in the Republican party who wanted to get angry about everything without actually having to learn about anything.  Carson looked like he might be their guy in 2016, but then Trump came along and boy, talk about being angry without actually learning anything!  The Trump train will wreck eventually, but by the time it does Carson will be lucky to still get his show on Fox, which is really all he wanted in the first place.

Ted Cruz
The other guy Trump is absolutely burying is Ted Cruz, for basically the same reason.  Ever since he got to the Senate Ted Cruz has been the champion of being loud and disagreeable.  Now he takes a firm back seat in that category to Mr. Trump.  Second place in the loud and disagreeable competition is just the first loser.  If Trump disappears more quickly than I expect, his voters will have to go somewhere and Ted still has a platform as a Senator.  Unfortunately for Ted (and fortunately for the rest of us, in this context at least), I don't think Trump is leaving anytime soon and until he does, Ted stays buried.

Rick Perry
Presidents from Texas have a tendency to get us into intractable quagmires overseas.  And with so many potential quagmires available to us currently, I'm confident that Republican voters will recognize that Mr. Perry is not the guy right now.  Also, he's terrible at debating and might actually be a moron.  I'm not a big fan, is I guess what I'm saying. 

Mike Huckabee
I'm a little disappointed in Huck.  Growing up, the priests always told us to love the sinner and hate the sin.  Some of them were better at that than others.  I always thought Mike was pretty good at genuinely not hating the people he believes to be sinners.  Now I'm not so sure. 

Mike's path to the nomination has always been the same.  Rally the social conservatives and stick around long enough to go one on one with the establishment candidate, with enough primaries left to make it a real fight.  This time around, I wonder how much fight the social conservatives have left in them.  They keep losing, in public opinion, in the courts, with former Olympic athletes who they thought were cool.  At some point, some percentage of those folks have to give up and move on to other things.  I don't think there's enough left to take Huck anywhere good, but I guess we'll see.

Donald Trump
I know, I know.  But he's doing so well in the polls! How can you not even have him in the first tier??  Let me ask you an honest question.  Do you really think Donald Trump is going to win the Republican nomination?  I don't.  I think he'll stay in for a while, probably at least into March.  But as other candidates start to drop out, two things will happen. 

First of all, nobody who is supporting any other candidate, except for maybe Cruz and Carson, will come over to Trump when their guy leaves.  Every time someone gets out of the race, everyone else will get some new voters and Trump will stay where he is now.  Secondly, while Trump will probably look pretty good in Thursday's debate with nine other people, eventually he'll wind up on stage with just two or three other people and that's when his real weakness will get exposed.  He's a lightweight.  He doesn't know anything about governing or public policy.  That's fine when you're one of 17 people shouting at the TV cameras, it's less fine when you're on stage trying to debate 2 or 3 people who have spent their lives working in government. 

Trump can't win for the same reason I can't be a famous guitarist.  I think I'd be an awesome famous guitarist!  I'd be so charitable if I was rich and I'd always sign autographs for fans.  I'd always be on tour and I'd play colleges and charity events for free because I'd be rich anyway and you can only spend so much money.  I'd be great at this!  Oh but there's this one thing, I'm terrible at playing the guitar.  Just that one thing, otherwise I'd be great.

Rick Santorum
And now you're wondering how it took me so long to get to Rick.  I've been hard on Rick in the past, and I don't agree with him a lot, but I honestly think he's a solid candidate.  Listen to Rick speak if you ever get the chance.  He talks a lot about the economy, the middle class and jobs.  He hardly ever talks about bestiality anymore.  I don't think Rick's economic plan is any good, but at least he has one, and I think he honestly wants to do good things for working people.  He's pretty genuine on the economic stuff, and I think that'll resonate if he gets a chance.

Rick was also a Senator, and from a state with actual people in it.  He understands how governing works and he has experience in primary debates.  I feel like Rick should be doing better than he is, and I have some expectation that he'll start doing better soon.  I'm not saying I like it, I'm just saying I think Santorum may be more for real than he seems right now, and I'd suggest keeping an eye on him.

Rand Paul
I have to admit to being genuinely interested in Rand at some point.  I've always been a fan of Ron Paul, and I was looking forward to seeing Rand keep up the family tradition of getting booed in Republican primary debates for being somewhat tentative about bombing everything.  Rand is still probably the guy in this field I'd be most likely to vote for, but doesn't it feel like his moment has passed a little bit? 

He really jumped on that whole NSA data collection thing, but it turned out most people didn't really care about that a lot.  And even though Rand is actually more hawkish than his dad, I think most Republicans think he's still someone who wouldn't feature explosions in his foreign policy, and I'm not sure that fits into the current Iran pants-shitting vibe the Republicans currently have going. 

Marco Rubio
All of Marco's avenues seem to be closing.  He lost the tea party people when he decided to support immigration reform and, you know, be Hispanic.  The whole anti-Castro thing doesn't really play outside of Florida.  The most generous description of his State of the Union response would be "not totally awful", which is better than Bobby Jindal's "catastrophic", but still not good. 

Rubio's best path to the nomination is the same as Barack Obama's path in 2008.  It's a pretty good path, but I wonder if this avenue is closing for Marco too.  He's no less new to the national scene than Obama was around this time in 2007, but Republicans got really excited about him and pushed him like Vince McMahon pushing a new wrestler, and now Marco already seems like he's been around for a while.  I think we may already know too much about Rubio for him to play the new guy.  Also, I'm not convinced that anyone from Congress can win this time around.  People really hate Congress.

I seem mostly down on Marco because, like Rand Paul, I think his moment may have passed.  On the other hand, Jimmy Smits won the election on the West Wing, and if anyone is a Republican Matt Santos, it's this guy.

John Kasich
Kasich is the hardest guy on the list to place, because he just got in.  He's a governor, so he's not tainted by being a member of Congress.  He's a swing state governor, and he seems to be a least mildly popular in his state.  He has legitimate experience governing.  Republicans have seemed quietly excited about Kasich for a while now. 

Kasich sort of quietly announced his candidacy right in the middle of Trumpageddon.  Sometimes a bad launch can kill a campaign.  I don't know if that'll happen to Kasich, he seems pretty legit, but it's really hard to say right now.  It looks like he'll probably make Thursday's debate, and I expect he'll do pretty well, and then he should be on his way to the top tier.

Tier One
Tier one candidates are the people who are currently legitimate contenders.  People who I think can win without anything weird happening.  One of these guys would make a really awful President, but the other two would probably be not completely terrifying.

Chris Christie
Maybe I need to give up on Chris.  Maybe this just isn't going to happen.  I'm not ready yet though.  He's the only guy in this field who won't put up with getting bullied by Trump.  His experience as a U.S. Attorney should kill in debates about security.  He's well known and currently a Governor.  The fact that MSNBC still won't stop crying about the George Washington Bridge also leads me to believe that liberals are genuinely afraid of Christie. 

Will social conservatives ever really trust him?  No, but they didn't trust Romney or McCain either and they eventually dealt with it.  Does he need to get his poll numbers up?  Yes he does.  He may not even make the stage on Thursday.  It seems like he's got enough financial backing to hang around for a while, and he should do better once some of the other people start dropping out.  I think he'll get the Rubio people, maybe the Perry people, maybe even the Huckabee people if they don't go to Santorum.  I still think he can win, soon I may be the only one left.

Scott Walker
Walker seems to remind Republicans of Reagan, which is a terrible thing for anyone who actually understands what kind of President Reagan was in real life, but an awesome thing for Scott in the Republican primary.  He's also become the patron saint of union bashing, another killer trait for a Republican.  If I thought Scott Walker was actually a decent candidate, he'd be the clear favorite.  He doesn't really seem like a decent candidate though.  He seems like an empty suit that's been filled with talking points and billionaires' political wishes.  Like I said, he's a lot like Reagan.

Jeb Bush
I think Jeb is still the favorite.  I know his poll numbers never move and he doesn't really seem to do or say much, but consider a few other things.  He's incredibly well-funded, he was a swing state Governor and Republican primary voters don't remember his brother nearly as negatively as the rest of us.  Would it help you to know that his real name is John?  Sounds less silly than Jeb, right?

We have to find out if Jeb actually wants to be President that much.  I'm not 100% sure he does.  I don't know that anyone is especially excited about Jeb, and maybe that's because he doesn't seem too excited about himself.  I'm not looking forward to voting for Jeb, but I think it's the most likely outcome for me.  I mean, how bad can a Bush Presidency be, right?

Epilogue
Oh and one more thing.  Did you notice how I didn't mention Newt Gingrich?  That's because he's not running this time.  If you're looking at all of these people and thinking you don't like any of them, just remember that none of them are Newt Gingrich, and that's pretty great.

Journey to the End of My Sense of Humor

I started blogging almost six years ago for reasons that I don't fully remember.  I could say that I needed a creative outlet, but it's more likely that I just wanted to yell back at the people on the TV and this was the next best thing.  It was my intention to post something two or three times a week, and it went that way for a while.

I found that as I started writing regularly, I started becoming more aware of my inner monologue.  Eventually, after the 2012 election, I got so tired of the voice in my head, and my sense of humor, that I all but abandoned this space.  I needed a break from me, and while that's never entirely possible, I could at least give myself a break from writing, editing and re-writing my thoughts all the time.  I tried to get back here a couple of years ago, but that didn't really take. 

I bought a new car a few months ago.  I'm very impulsive and impatient, especially when it comes to buying stuff.  One day I was just sitting in my apartment getting ready to schedule an oil change for my 11 year old car.  Seriously, my car would have been a sixth grader, and I beat it up pretty good.  I don't think I ever took it to a car wash, and sometime last summer I kicked the clutch pedal the wrong way and just yanked it right out of the car.  I was able to jam it back in, but, not surprisingly, it never really worked as well after that.  Good tip for everyone...ripping things out of your car and then kicking them back into place isn't an awesome way to keep your car in top shape.

Anyway, one day in March I was sitting here thinking about not really wanting to put any more money into my old car.  I went online to research possible new cars.  Now, my grandpa is still alive, and he didn't win World War 2 so I could buy a Toyota or a fucking Volkswagon, so I limited my search to American cars.  I settled on Chevy because, I don't know, my Saturn was a GM car and it turned out pretty good.  About 90 minutes later I was putting a $500 deposit down at a Chevy dealership so Joe, the nice Irish car salesman, could find me a blue Chevy Cruze with a standard transmission.  Joe had a KISS mug on his desk, but I bought a car from him anyway because his hockey equipment was in the car that he let me test drive, so that kind of evened out the whole KISS thing.

Three days after that, I went back to Joe with a large check which I gave him in exchange for a blue Chevy Cruze with a standard transmission.  I didn't like the shade of blue then and I don't like it now, but I wasn't in the mood for red just then so blue was my best choice because the other two choices were white (no) and a fourth color that I honestly don't even remember.  A week later I kept thinking how much I wished I had just gotten a red one.

On the way home with my new car, I stopped in a parking lot to play around with the transmission a little before I got it out on a real road.  I realized that I didn't know how to put the car in reverse, so that started about 7 minutes of panic in a McDonald's parking lot.  What if I never figured out how to make my new car go backwards??  It would be like the Zoolander of cars!  Then I figured it out.

Then I stopped at home for a few minutes before heading back to work for a night meeting.  When I started my new car, for the second time ever, the check engine light went on.  I checked the gas cap and whatever else I could think of.  Luckily, my previous car had a pretty consistent check engine light problem, so I knew what to check, but nothing helped.  I was very unhappy.

I took my new car back to the dealership, and after they checked it out a little, they called me and announced that I needed a new part.  They said I needed to bring it in later in the week to get the new part (which they had to order), then I needed to drive it around for a few days, then I needed to bring it back in again to have it pass inspection with the new part.  This all made me very angry.  I sent Joe a very angry email, which I don't feel bad about because even though this wasn't his fault he's a KISS fan and that is his fault.  I had a very angry conversation with two different people in the maintenance department, which I do sort of feel bad about.

Everyone completely understood why I was very angry, but that didn't really make me less angry.  But eventually,  I realized that being very angry wasn't helping solve my problem, and I decided to stop being very angry.  And when I stopped being very angry, all the car people started trying extra hard to help me, because I wasn't being angry at them anymore.  Since I got my new part, everything about the car has been great.  It even retained its new car smell for like three months.

So back to blogging.  This whole car fiasco reminded me that angry Sean is generally not productive Sean, and that regular Sean is not really a big fan of angry Sean.  I started writing with the main goal of being funny.  I got tired of my own writing, in part, because my tone slowly changed from being funny to being angry, and mean-spirited.  To be fair, you can hardly blame me.  To keep informed on my subject matter, which is politics more than anything else, I watched a lot of cable news.  Here's a quick story about cable news that I think illustrates my point.

Not that long ago, maybe around the same time I bought the car, I tried to watch MSNBC.  I honestly hadn't watched MSNBC at all in like a year because it is so very awful.  While Fox's detachment from reality is often genuinely entertaining, MSNBC's detachment from reality is usually just sad and unsettling.  So I turned on Chris Matthews, a familiar face to ease back in.  Chris, and I swear this is true, was talking about Chris Christie and the George Washington bridge.  A whole segment on it.  Roughly 18 months after the non-scandal happened.  Why?  I watched the whole segment and I honestly couldn't tell you.

Completely unrelated tangent.  I was just adding some tags to this post (Chevrolet, MSNBC, Fox News, etc) and apparently I've never tagged a post with Zoolander before.  How does that happen?  23 year old me would be very disappointed in current me.

Anyway, you can't blame me for getting angry all the time back when I was watching hours of cable news every day.  Honestly, you should be impressed I'm still alive.

I'm at the point now where I either need to start writing here again or I need to come on here, thank the 8-10 people who read most of what I wrote, and give up.  I'm willing to give it one more try.  And this time I can try it without crushing my soul with hours and hours of Fox and MSNBC.  If there's one thing I learned the first time, its that I never learned anything useful watching cable news anyway.

There's an election just starting, with debates and what-not, and plenty of silly sports things about under-inflated balls to talk about.  And maybe sometimes I can just tell funny stories that happened to me in life.  I've heard people find that interesting.  If I can't get back into this now, then maybe it just isn't for me anymore.

First up, a total rundown of the Republican field.  Then a debate on Thursday.  Then we'll see how it's going.  Maybe it'll go a little less angry this time.  Maybe I can get through this whole election without calling anybody a dumbass, and maybe then I can sign off feeling good about how it ended.  Or maybe it doesn't have to end there.  Or maybe I'll write a couple of things next week and realize that I've wrung everything out of the sponge that is my sense of humor already and I don't have anything else useful to say.  We'll see.