The Presidential Debate Beyond the Edge of Forever

David Weigel | September 18, 2007

Matt Ortega of the Right's Field blog documented the Value Voters Debate, a Clive Barker-worthy torture session that featured the debut of perennial candidate Alan Keyes and the absence of Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson. Some highlights:

Duncan Hunter: “God wants a Republican to be president.”
...
This is the most ridiculous debate format I’ve ever seen. They have “minutes” they can use? What 50s game show did they steal this set from?
...
Oh man, I was just thinking “when are they going to bring out Terry Schiavo’s family” and there’s her brother.
...
Judge Roy Moore just asked about the NAFTA Superhighway that doesn’t exist.
...
An antiabortion activist, a lady who claimed to be nearly aborted, just asked Rudy Giuliani “why do you want to kill me,” only Giuliani isn’t there. So they cut to an EMPTY PODIUM of Giuliani. They’re doing the same thing now with Romney. They just zoom in on the empty podium.I wonder if 1856 Republican candidate John C. Fremont will also get a question.

Here's a snippet from the debate, which unfortunately doesn't include any of Ortega's highlights.

Pro-choice Ron Paul fans might want to cover your ears, but the real weirdness comes from Keyes. He's the Bruce Vilanch of presidential politics, talented at writing applause lines and giving speeches and absolutely nothing else. Peter Bagge captured that in an immortal 2000 profile for Suck.com.

Comments

Fluffy|9.18.07 @ 1:16PM|#

The highlight of the debate was when Paul said that Christ was the Prince of Peace - and the audience booed.

Nothing like booing Jesus and peace to really identify you as a Christian Values Voter.

|9.18.07 @ 1:25PM|#

Onward hate-filled, bloodthirsty, warmongering, Christian soldiers, marching other people into war.

Franklin Harris|9.18.07 @ 1:34PM|#

He's the Bruce Vilanch of presidential politics, talented at writing applause lines and giving speeches and absolutely nothing else.

Bruce Vilanch is like a human Muppet.

|9.18.07 @ 1:46PM|#

"The highlight of the debate was when Paul said that Christ was the Prince of Peace - and the audience booed."

Isn't that interesting how so many Christians are so pro-war and also seem to be among the West's biggest racists. I thought Christianity was supposed to be a religion of love.

Gottschalk|9.18.07 @ 1:49PM|#

Look, if all those Jews hadn't wanted to get slaughtered they shouldn't have been all over the Rhineland.

Pre-Emptive Dan T.|9.18.07 @ 2:10PM|#

Look, if all those Jews hadn't wanted to get slaughtered they shouldn't have been all over the Rhineland.

That's right! They could always move if they didn't like it.

Nein. Nicht Funni. Nein.|9.18.07 @ 2:15PM|#

Pre-Emptive Dan T. | September 18, 2007, 2:10pm | #
Look, if all those Jews hadn't wanted to get slaughtered they shouldn't have been all over the Rhineland.

That's right! They could always move if they didn't like it.

yeah. they, like, could take the train outta there.

Tom W|9.18.07 @ 2:30PM|#

I was there as a delegate last night and at the amazing Ron Paul after-party at the Metro Cafe.

I don't think Ron was able to address the first question about radical Islam adequately - letting pilots arm themselves would not have removed the terrorists' motivations for the attacks, and Ron knows this and could have responded differently. He hardly had a chance to elaborate, because such is the format of these debates. They had a painfully long round with poorly formulated yes/no questions, but later, Ron took the audience into account and did a superb job of explaining the libertarian philosophy a bit better to so-called "values voters," many of whom sorely needed churchin' in that regard. Ron's closing was eloquent if hurried, having a whole four minutes left when most of the rest had only two.

There were a handful of theocons/neocons in the audience who booed or made obnoxious comments, but they were drowned out by the widespread applause for Ron. Two jock-looking Huckabee supporters directly in front of me kept shaking their head when Ron spoke about foreign policy or when I made audible statements about the war.

By the way, Alan Keyes is a lot easier on the eyes than Bruce Villanch. And his disowned daughter Mara (apparently disowned for coming out) is pretty nice herself.

|9.18.07 @ 2:30PM|#

Moose - come on man! :-D

VM|9.18.07 @ 2:37PM|#

/kicks pebble.

/waits for next train with Boxcar Willie.

*the management wish to apologise for that behaviour.

Richard Dawkins|9.18.07 @ 2:40PM|#

Judge Roy Moore just asked about the NAFTA Superhighway that doesn't exist.

Roy Moore obsesses over lots of things that don't exist.

Cynic|9.18.07 @ 2:41PM|#

No one is talking about how Ron Paul would pretty much have to have a 51% majority going into the nominating convention. If he had, say, a 44% plurality, the voting would go to the second round, where the remaining 56% would not be predisposed to give the Ron Paul delegates the time of day in negotiating round 2.

Timothy|9.18.07 @ 2:45PM|#

VM: They had trains in 1095? Way to go Germans!

Wikinger Elch|9.18.07 @ 2:50PM|#

Zee Gschermans had lotz of invenshunz before yoo realized zem.

Zee train and the portable, collapsible bidet vere two of zee better onez.

|9.18.07 @ 3:13PM|#

You owe it to yourself to visit the V2 website, where you will find illuminating quotes like this one: "How can we expect these no-show candidates to take on Osama Bin Laden and other world leaders when they're afraid to show up and answer questions from Phyllis Schlafly?"

|9.18.07 @ 3:16PM|#

No one is talking about how Ron Paul would pretty much have to have a 51% majority going into the nominating convention.

Or how, with 11 or more candidates and a lot of the primaries being winner-take-all, someone could win with around 30% of the vote.

Or how, with low turnout in the primaries, someone polling at 10% could get 30% of the vote if his supporters were more motivated and enthusiastic than the other candidates' supporters.

Or how Ron Paul just hit 4% in the latest Gallup poll....

Or how he has 44,000 volunteers in local Meetup groups, more than the rest of the Republican candidates -- combined.

|9.18.07 @ 3:22PM|#

Cynic,
It depends who the other two candidates are. The nice thing about the GOP field is that there are a lot of candidates who's supporters hate each other in the running. If its a Liberal, Godless, Pro Choice, Cross Dressing Mayor from New York vs a Flip Flopping Guy who belongs to a cult, Ron might look like a good alternative to a lot of those socially conservative delegates. And Remember, the war gets more unpopular, even among Republicans, day by day.

I thought in many ways this was Ron's best debate. His proximity to Allen Keyes rubbed off on him when he got that NAU question as Paul practically screamed out his opposition to every transgovernmental organization under the sun, and he got stronger as the night went on. While every other candidate used the question about fighting the "homosexual agenda" to launch into predicatable gay bashing, Ron used the question to stress the importance of individual rights and liberty, and that we can't use force to stop people from doing something that doesn't hurt anybody else. Later on he used a specific question about Libertarianism to attack the failure of the war on drugs, point out the 1st Amendment exists to protect unpopular speech, and tied the war on medical marijuana with our increasingly threatened access to vitamins, supplements, herbal medicines, and alternative treatments.

Cynic|9.18.07 @ 3:33PM|#

It depends who the other two candidates are. The nice thing about the GOP field is that there are a lot of candidates who's supporters hate each other in the running. If its a Liberal, Godless, Pro Choice, Cross Dressing Mayor from New York vs a Flip Flopping Guy who belongs to a cult, Ron might look like a good alternative to a lot of those socially conservative delegates. And Remember, the war gets more unpopular, even among Republicans, day by day.

Maybe, but I was thinking that anyone who was selected to be a delegate for Fred "Ruddie" McRomney would probably be a die-hard neocon. That would make a majority of neocon delegates ganging up on Ron Paul delegates unless Ron Paul took the majority.

I hope I'm wrong and your right, or that Ron Paul gets a majority.

robc|9.18.07 @ 3:40PM|#

Cynic,

I dont actually think there are enough neo-cons in the nation to have a majority of delegates. There are maybe a few hundred. They all just have jobs in the current administration. And a lot of republicans go along with them for a variety of reasons.

TLB|9.18.07 @ 4:36PM|#

Great to see Weigel still pushing the fiction that the Highway doesn't exist. It might not exist under that name, but real reporting at WND shows that it does exist not just as a concept but as an actual plan that's being pushed.

Weigel might want to tell the people of TX and OK that it doesn't exist.

He might also want to tell that to one of the organizations involved, which until a name change some years ago had "Superhighway" in their name.

He might also want to tell it to Ruuuudy, who's law firm represents one of the companies involved.

rho|9.18.07 @ 4:37PM|#

Jebus, kyle, you need a hobby. Okay, a different hobby.

|9.18.07 @ 4:47PM|#

Oh no! ScaryWords! SuperHighway1!!1!

TLB, did you know that almost EveryRoad is connected to Mexico and Canada, one way or another? They could drive right into your BackYard and hold a salsa party!

Timothy|9.18.07 @ 4:58PM|#

Randolph: DUDE! ROADTRIP!

TLB|9.18.07 @ 5:21PM|#

We're talking about a MajorTransportationSystem designed to make it easy for ChineseGoods to arrive at ports InMexico and then be transported directly to the center of the U.S., bypassing WestCoastPorts. Since "free" traders would support such a move, why be dishonest about it? Just come right out and admit that you want something like this and powerful forces are working towards it, no matter what it's called.

Why be so secretive about something that "libertarian" sites like this would normally support?

sv|9.18.07 @ 5:34PM|#

i miss suck.com

|9.18.07 @ 6:19PM|#

...but real reporting at WND shows

Whaa? They had some real reporting at WND? As When was this? Will there be an ABC movie commemorating it?

|9.18.07 @ 6:20PM|#

Grrrggg! I splooged my blockquotes! I will now do penance by wathcing Kyle's video.

|9.18.07 @ 7:15PM|#

I love Paul's "4000 babies" thing he trots out. Perhaps it's because I think high numbers (like 55 billion) and babies are funny.

|9.18.07 @ 9:20PM|#

"Why do you want to kill me?"

Uh...because you're an obnoxious idiot?

Climkadiddler|9.19.07 @ 4:48PM|#

The woman asking the question at the beginning of the video is also the host of a video series that claims that the earth is 6,000 years old and that man lived with the dinosaurs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cpNjyVvqK0
Quite fascinating. And disturbing.