Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Debate in SC

Well here is my first thought on the South Carolina debate: It was embarrassing and terrible, to both the candidates and the republican party. I was utterly disappointed in the moderators and some of the candidates during this exchange. Some of the candidates who are holding on by a few votes, really showed their true colors. This is the debate right before the South Carolina polls, and instead of speaking rationally it came to unreasonably criticizing other candidates. Here is what I got from each person:

Donald Trump:
I think this guy lead the chaos and his performance was down, and I think he tried to get his opponents angry and irrational by tearing down their family and/or beliefs. He started criticizing the candidates character (and family). Donald Trump's speeches would make a great reality show, but his answers and character makes me fear the possibility of his presidency. 

Side Note:
I would hope that the candidates would have the amount of character to be able to win on their own merit. I don't like the idea of slamming everyone else until you are the last one standing. Even if it is a debate, I think it should be conducted in an honorable and courteous way.

Ted Cruz:
I believe this man acted the most reasonably, yet he was considered to have not fared as well. I think he was one of the only ones who did not engage in the name calling, family smashing, pride building, Sarah Palin talk. He did get into a few arguments with Marco Rubio, but I think that he did well in debating the matter without resorting to name calling or such. In my opinion he held his own, and this debate causes me to respect him all the more. If you happen to have a different opinion, just put a comment down below. I would be happy to see your opinion.

Marco Rubio:
Some of you know that I had said that Cruz would be slightly better than Rubio, but that I wouldn't mind him winning. I here want to say that the past two debates have changed my opinion dramatically. The debate in NH aroused a very concerning issue to me. It was on the issue of drafting teenage (and older) girls into the military, in the event of war. I fundamentally believe this is wrong mostly because I believe God has created men to protect women. I believe God has (generally) gifted men with more strength than women, and that mean they should be the protectors and providers of women. In the NH debate Marco Rubio said that he supports forcing teenage and older women into the military. Also in this previous debate, he showed how desperate he was by resorting to Donald Trump tactics. I think that some voters looking for an alternative to Trump are going to him, so that in my mind brings him down.

Jeb Bush:
If I had to say the one person who was most attacked in the last debate it was Governor Jeb Bush. That being said the way he responded tot he attacks just allowed more opportunity for Trump to attack. I do not think that it was President George W. Bush's fault on 9/11. I think it was cheap and dirty for Donald Trump to try to get to Jeb through that. Although, as I said before I was not impressed with his defense.

Side Note:
Jeb Bush forgot to renew his web domain, so Trump jumped on it. Check it out: JebBush.com.

Ben Carson:
Ben Carson didn't engage in the cheap debating, but I think the reason was because he fell asleep in the middle of the debate. He did not give any information that he had not already given, so I would say he did...decently.

John Kasich:
Well based on the SC debate and his NH "victory" speech, I am firmly convinced that he wants to be America's teddy bear. He engaged in the yelling, and then immediately afterwords told the crowd that he was too optimistic to engage in what he was just doing. So I'd give him a thumbs down.

Moderators:
Completely bowled over.

If you have anything additional to add to this let me know. I'd love to hear you opinion.
To God be the glory!

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

New Hampshire Primary

The NH primary was a few nights ago, and it was crazy important. There are a lot of different outcomes it could have had, because the polls were all over the place on where the candidates stood. Almost all the polls had Trump leading by quite a lot, and my assumption that he had the win was correct.CNN's poll I found quite accurate when it came to the Iowa caucus, so I looked at it before the NH primary. Although, it seems that the poll by 7 news was the most accurate when it came to NH, CNN's poll was close. So I will keep looking at those polls while South Carolina polls come out.

New Hampshire is super liberal, and I think it was expected that Trump would do this well. New Hampshire's voting history displays their liberal values. In 2004, democratic front-runner John Kerry defeated George W. Bush by 3 points. In 2008, Barrack Obama defeated John McCain by over 10 points. Finally, in 2012 Barrack Obama conquered Mitt Romney in NH by 5 points. I believe Trump is the more liberal of the Republican candidates for a couple reasons. First, Trump still wants some form of Health Care, and second he is pretty shaky on the issue of abortion. I think this secures him as one of the more liberal Republicans.

Trump ran away with 35.3% of the votes, which was 19 1/2 points more than John Kasich, who arrived in second. I was not expecting Kasich to do so well, nationally Kasich has 4% of the vote which is not very promising, so I had not considered him as a possible front runner in NH. He is doing well in Ohio (the state that he governed), but other that New Hampshire and Ohio he is not doing well. Quinnipiac has Kasich leading Trump 10 points in Ohio, but one (two including NH) state isn't going to make him win an election.

I do want to talk about the three people who were fighting for third place. I was not expecting Cruz to do well in a state like NH. To my surprise, he came in third place ahead of Bush. Even though he got third above some others, he still received the same amount of delegates as Bush and Rubio. Trump now has a total of 17 delegates, followed by Cruz with 11, and Rubio with 10. Bush did surprisingly well in the race, arriving in 4th place just a few hundred votes behind Cruz. CNN reported that Bush had a goal to arrive ahead of Rubio (which he met), and that he hoped to end up in third. His near 4th place win earned himself a place in the South Carolina debate, but despite the improvement in NH, he still has an average of 4.3% nationally. Rubio did a lot worse than he hoped, arriving in 5th place, instead of the 2nd he was expected to gain. I don't think he will last much longer in the race, but that's just my opinion. The only chance I think Rubio has is if Bush drops out before him, allowing him to gain Bush's "Establishment Republican" votes. One of the factor's contributing to Rubio's loss, was the debate on Saturday. Governor Chris Christie proverbially destroyed him. This is the exchange between them:



Marco Rubio said that his downfall in NH was due to his poor performance in the debate. In his speech to NH he said that it was not the fault of the people of New Hampshire that he lost, and he took all the blame for his poor performance. Chris Christie's excellent skill in debating brought Marco Rubio down from his high place in the polls (before the debate his RCP average was over John Kasich's), but it did nothing for himself. Christie announced that he was suspending his campaign this morning due to loss in NH.

Trump definitely had the win in New Hampshire. Kasich got second, but in my opinion he won't continue much longer. Kasich just got a bunch of money from this, but the polls don't look good on his side. Is this the end of John Kasich's campaign? Is this the end of Jeb Bush and the rise of Marco Rubio? Or has Marco Rubio been eliminated by Chris Christie? Please comment below, I would love to hear your opinion.