As Long as They’re Not Saying Anything
. . . why should I listen?
This story from MSNBC discusses how Fred Thompson upstaged the Republican debate. Since I’m an independent, these debates are generally of limited interest to me, though I do like to follow the candidates so as to have prior knowledge about the nominees.
What surprised me here was that anyone would think that people might be more interested in the debate than in the new announcement. For the moment, Thompson has one advantage over everyone else: He’s new. We will all wait anxiously (well, not so much me) to see if he’ll say anything substantially different. If (I suspect “when”) he doesn’t, we can go back to being bored.
As long as we put up with this sort of campaign with canned talking points that are rolled out in answer to every question we’ll just get more of it. We need some free-for-all presidential debates in which candidates can’t dodge the questions and in which they’ll be told outright that they didn’t answer a question when they don’t.
OK, enough whining I think! Back to our regular programming.
For years I’ve dreamed of asking presidential candidates at a debate “What does the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States say?” Just to see how many would know. Judging from public policy, I’d say not a single elected leader in Washington.
Good question John. I would guess Ron Paul knows what it is, and could give you a 2 hour answer. Other than that, I suspect not.