The first of many, many mind-numbing debates leading up to the 2016 presidential election took place Thursday night, and here are ten thoughts I had while watching it:
1. There is no universe in which Donald Trump will be president, but I’ll gladly enjoy him in the race for as long as he lasts. He makes me feel like we could one day see a Muppet run for office.
2. I’m positive that if Ted Cruz was elected, ISIS would somehow get its hands on him and pull his underpants over his head. They wouldn’t outright kill him; they’d just give him the atomic wedgie and leave him in the desert.
3. I honestly can’t tell most of these guys apart. They could have all turned into the silver liquid of the T-1000, morphing together into one mega candidate, and it would have made complete sense to me.
4. Scott Walker always looks like he’s been drinking all day and is ready for that sweet afternoon nap to gear up for the rest of the night.
5. Chris Christie is desperate to make us believe that he is a terrorist-catching vigilante, which I’m just going to assume he’s not. However, I would very much love to see Christie grab a ton of T-shirts from any of the million T-shirt shops on the Atlantic City pier and shoot them out of a cannon for the crowd in the next debate.
6. “When you find mush, you push.” (see also: #4)
7. People either love or hate Trump based on the crazy stuff he says, but Mike Huckabee is even more unhinged. Some people have called him a compassionate candidate, but this guy says some of the most heinous, ridiculous stuff you’ll ever hear in your life. We’ve chronicled it before, but it was especially insane to hear an actual presidential candidate flat-out say that the point of the military is to “kill things and break stuff.”
8. John Kasich made the biggest impact of the night because he spoke like a rational person. While so many candidates are eager to say, “OH GOD SPEAKS TO ME, WE TALK AND CHILL EVERY DAY SOMETIMES I EVEN HANG OUT IN HEAVEN WITH HIM I AM HIS VESSEL,” Kasich has managed to turn his Christian beliefs into a believable, tangible rallying point in his campaign. That’s actually pretty impressive.
9. The JV debate that took place before the main event was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever watched. Quicken Loans Arena was basically empty and the barren crowd made the echo of the microphones punishing. Besides Carly Fiorina, everyone else on the stage at 5 o’clock would have gotten just as much out of simply talking to a brick wall. Lindsey Graham should have eaten a live animal on stage to get people talking. I know I’d pull for a guy who was willing to do anything to get my vote.
10. Is Joe Flacco an elite quarterback?
