Because I am a masochist, I watched Wednesday’s entire three-hour debate between the 6,743 hopefuls vying to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.
Here are ten thoughts I had during the broadcast:
1. What an endurance test this one was. The first GOP debate was kind of like a fun carnival. The second debate was fun for the first ten minutes, and then it felt like getting delirium-inducing food sickness from the funnel cake, puking inside the house of mirrors and then waking up the next day butt naked in one of the game booths without any recollection of what happened.
2. Politics has always involved childish name-calling and insults, but Donald Trump is taking it to such a middle-school level that no one really knows how to react to it. When he’s not mocking Carly Fiorina’s face pre-debate, he’s just flat-out insulting Rand Paul’s face during the debate in front of 23 million people. Trump’s going to atmoic wedgie Paul in the next one.
Speaking of childish antics, Jeb Bush desperately tried to get Trump to apologize for insulting his wife Columba, who is Mexican. Trump flat-out refused to do so, and it was super awkward. To me, Bush did himself some favors over the course of the night, but is he going to be just as unsuccessful when Iran inevitably has a nuclear weapon?
“Stop building that nuke right now! No? Oh…well…um, just be careful with it, okay?”
3. Everybody up on that stage was mercilessly sweaty. All the candidates looked like they were melting, but Marco Rubio looked like he was hiding a dead body on Reagan’s Air Force One and knew he was about to get caught.
4. Jeb Bush was a big wet noodle again when he couldn’t commit to saying that Kim Davis should have been fired from her job, even though he did say it outside of the debate. I’m starting to think he might get the atomic wedgie next debate and then apologize if his underwear rips.
5. How in the world does Ben Carson fumble the question about vaccinations? Jake Tapper lobbed him a softball, begging him to put to rest the idea that vaccinations are in any way linked to autism, and Carson just slightly left the door open by not saying, “Anybody who believes that is a deranged imbecile. I’m an ACTUAL DOCTOR.” Instead, Carson leaned on the freedom-of-choice-makes-our-country-great stump speech, which means idiot parents are going to run with that and use it to put their children and their friends in harm’s way.
6. At one point, Mike Huckabee, who is sentient diarrhea, started talking about the importance of finding a cure for heart disease. Though, in most cases, it would appear that the cure is to exercise, stop smoking and eat better food.
7. The candidates were all asked which woman they would put on the $10 bill (which is a weak gesture in the first place), and Chris Christie gave the best answer, saying that “the Adams family has been underrepresented in the currency business.” He then mentioned Abigail Adams, but I guarantee he was originally thinking of Wednesday and Morticia and then wussed out at the last second.
8. For all the articles I’ve read about Carly Fiorina driving Hewlett-Packard into the ground, she still comes off as a very impressive candidate. She is composed at all times and gives quality answers to almost every question she is asked. And it would appear that she wasn’t the worst corporate executive of all time, either, which is a plus!
9. Huckabee was BEGGING Tapper to give him some time to let everyone know that he thought climate change was a complete hoax. There aren’t many people out there who agree with that, except for, you know, Huckabee supporters, and even they knew that was an implosion waiting to happen.
10. Hey, there’s John Kasich! He consistently makes the most intelligent points and refuses to engage in name-calling and finger-pointing, for which he’s being punished. Every time he does get the chance to talk, he looks exasperated and runs through his resume/career highlights like he’s on his 432nd job interview. He knows all he’s going to get is a “Thanks for coming in, we’ll definitely give you a call” and never actually get the job, but he’s sure going to try hard in the process.
