As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve spent a lot more time lately talking about the GOP primary than the Democratic primary. Mostly this is because the Democratic primary has been pretty uninteresting lately. Clinton is obviously the front-runner, Obama the contender, and Edwards the dark horse. The differences between the candidates largely come down to style, experience, and rhetoric. (FYI, I’m personally leaning towards Obama, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.) And the campaigns themselves largely seem to recognize this; sure they swipe at each other occasionally, but even at their worst you still get the feeling that they respect each other at the end of the day.
The GOP primary, on the other hand, is fascinating. At times the candidates have really gone after each other pretty viciously, the press darling changes every couple weeks, and there are five candidates who could realistically walk away with the nomination. More importantly, the GOP primary is really boiling down to a referendum on the future of the party. A vote for Huckabee is a solid vote for social conservativism, but also against the Club for Growth, whereas a vote for Giuliani is a solid vote for the preeminence of foreign policy concerns and against the Family Research Council. Not to mention the actor who has been labeled as boring, the Mormon trying to appeal to Southern evangelicals who are regularly taught in church that Mormonism is a cult, the libertarian running on foreign policy concerns, and the Congressmen with the Spanish last name running on an anti-immigration platform. This is great stuff, here folks, so forgive me if I dwell on it.
Anyway, on Sunday the GOP candidates met in a debate in Miami, conducted in Spanish and sponsored by Univision. It was an interesting debate, and I recommend that you read the transcript. (If you want to compare them, here is a transcript of the Democratic Univision debate in September. Both transcripts are in English.) The debate itself focuses on immigration, but it is also the rare debate to question the GOP contenders on health care and education–issues that are likely to come up repeatedly in the general election.
Continue reading »
Recent Comments