The GOP Debates and the Ghost of Tom Joad
Your daily dose of Pitt.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33452-the-gop-debates-and-the-ghost-of-tom-joad
There were some interesting moments from Wednesday night's first debate to be sure. George Pataki went long and loud on the true existence of human-caused climate change, delivered a big pitch for solar energy, and even compared climate-deniers to the anti-vaccine crowd. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. He was right, which means his campaign is doomed. Even Graham had his moments. When asked about his use of cellphones (Dear moderators: Why?), Graham replied, "The only reason I have an iPhone is because I gave my number to Donald Trump. Don't do that." Funny stuff.
The second debate - Kasich, Huckabee, Bush, Rubio, Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Cruz, Christie and Paul - was a longer and more crowded version of more of the same, but with some lit kerosene added here and there. Cruz, Trump and several of the others gave the moderators the back of their rhetorical hand for asking so many "gotcha" questions and trying to turn the debate into Thunderdome.
Bush tried to tag Rubio on his Senate voting record, or lack thereof, and Rubio burned Bush down to the stumps. If Jeb's stock was low before, it is pennies on the dollar after last night. He looked and sounded terrible, and got crushed coming and going. The moderators waited a full 50 minutes before deciding that Mike Huckabee actually exists. Dr. Carson professed his love for the US Constitution in the same sentence he declared that gay people don't enjoy constitutional rights. Rand Paul was an invisible human hairdo, virtually ignored, except when he materialized to argue that the retirement age has to be raised because we can't fund our entitlement programs ... and, once again, the "defense" budget was ignored.
That was perhaps the most galling part of all. Both debates were a showcase for hatred of the federal government ... except every single one of those candidates in both debates were kept safe by the FAA as they traveled to Colorado, using one of the interstate highways built by a Republican named Eisenhower. Not to mention the fact that they all have been pushing their campaigns on an internet created by government employees and shamelessly coddling a multi-faceted multi-trillion-dollar government "defense" sector to the detriment of all the Tom Joads out there with a hole in their bellies and a gun in their hands.
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