Good Old PBS - blowing it again - having the debate at 9:00 pm - I'm certain as an alternative to the season premieres starting at 9:00 pm of Greys Anatomy and its medical staff lightly done over fluff and CSI Vegas with it's cliff hanger of will they find the kidnapped Sara buried under a car in the desert in a rain storm or not in time?
I'm certain when the ratings are completed Greys Anatomy and CSI will have some 50 million viewers between them and the PBS Republican debate about 50 viewers if that many and that's the studio audience.
It was on Channel 22 at 8PM, San Mateo public TV on cable....Ron Paul
got the most enthusiastic support from the audience of the entire field
but Giuliani, McCain, Romney and others weren't there. Allan Keyes made
one of his first appearances in the race. It was a "minority-focus"
event. While my preference was for Paul...actually a number of the
candidates did pretty well in the situation offering good ideas like
allowing people to buy insurance across state borders (not currently
legal), buy drugs from anywhere (not currently legal) and not so good
ideas like a Marriage Savings Account and things like it. The War on
Drugs was big and of course Iraq and Foreign Policy where Ron did well.
Ron found himself a bit out of position as an early responder to a
question about our involvement in Darfur and the Sudan...although Ron
responded appropriately that there was no limit to what American
citizens could do about it, there was nothing the US government should
or could do about it. And when government gets involved, aid goes to the
military and not the people. A couple of candidates got in some good
cheap shots that twisted the context of his comment into how governments
clearly needed to be involved for "moral" reasons and this got to the
audience...which makes sense. Most are "Republican".
One of the more curious events of the evening was just after Ron Paul
denounced the FEDERAL death penalty after being asked about it and what
candidates thought about the fact that so many more people of color are
executed by the Feds than others...Allan Keyes lobbied for the (federal)
death penalty because "it is commonly known that people of color tend to
kill each other, so why should we demean the murder of one brother by
another by not prosecuting the offender to the full extent of the law
including the (federal) death penalty." People in the audience seemed
shocked to hear this from Keyes.