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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

KoopaTV Judges The Fox Business Network Republican Debaters

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They're not all the candidates, so Lindsey Graham won't be winning any "cute" awards.

The last time the Republican candidates debated, it was a total waste of time if you wanted to see the candidates talk about solutions to America's problems (that may exacerbate the problems, but at least they're trying) instead of trashing crappy moderators.

Now we're in a debate on mostly economics issues with Fox Business Network, featuring Neil Cavuto as moderator. What that means is that unlike the "buncha jokahs" of CNBC, we're promised a debate on economics done right. And hey, that's mostly what we got.

We got two debates, actually. The "loser" or "undercard" one, and the main one. I'll go over my thoughts on all twelve candidates from those, WITH SUPER CONTEST AWARDS!

Undercard Debate


Rick Santorum


Rick Santorum is still a stressed loser. To be honest, it's not worth talking about him. He's just extremely bored and has nothing to do with his damn life. He should read (negative) KoopaTV articles about him rather than using his time spouting gibberish. What'd he even say? Nonsense about the family and manufacturing and nothing we haven't heard before. Oh, he said he's THE example of a true conservative (he's not) who won in a Democrat state and can work with Democrats. Just don't tell him about why he's no longer a senator: Because he lost his election is a massive landslide.

Rick Santorum Fox Business Republican debate clueless stressed bewildered stupid
...This Rick Santorum screenshot is amazing and speaks for itself.

He also doesn't know how to talk about infrastructure. Dude also randomly screamed "BECAUSE THEY FIGHT!" into the microphone like an obnoxious YouTube Let's Player.

Bobby Jindal


Bobby Jindal should rise up in the polls. He stood out as the most right-wing conservative of the undercard debate and perhaps of both debates! Come on, Republican primary voters should like that!

Fox Business Republican Debate Bobby Jindal versus Chris Christie split screen
"Let's not be a second liberal party. Let's actually cut government spending, let's grow the American economy."

Bobby Jindal is also really smart. He became prepared to tear down all three of his opponents and rise himself up. He studied up on the deficient records of his opponents, and stood fast on being the candidate who will starve the government.

Jindal also started a great trend of people ignoring the "Which Democrat congressperson do you admire the most?" question and advocated for Congress to live under the laws they pass.


Mike Huckabee


Mike Huckabee! Still endorsing The Fair Tax and he still has a nice silver tongue. Sort of a shame he's down here. I don't think he really has a chance of increasing his numbers when his whole campaign strategy is to try to be on the forefront of whatever cultural/religious controversy is going on in the country. I think he lost weight.

Chris Christie


Chris Christie was debating against Hillary Clinton, trying to be a "prosecutor" like Miles Edgeworth. Except awful. He kept ignoring Jindal's points on Christie's record. Chris Christie's position was basically, "It doesn't matter which Republican we nominate since anyone is better than Hillary." While that's true, that's not a winning campaign message for him. Why would I elect Chris Christie if I could elect any Republican of my choice?

Awards — Undercard

  • Beauty: Mike Huckabee
  • Cool: Mike Huckabee
  • Cute: Chris Christie
  • Smart: Bobby Jindal
  • Tough: Bobby Jindal


Now it's time for the main debate. Note that the order of candidates presented is arbitrary.

Main Debate


Jeb Bush


I forgot Jeb Bush was in the debate. He did thank Donald Trump for letting him speak! Uh... Bush's campaign is pretty much a disgrace. That said, I was happy he actually named specific regulations that needed to be curtailed, though, rather than going with an overarching "Repeal every regulation!" thing. I mean, he did that too, but he also named specific ones.

He needs to stop acting like he's the only one trying to get 4% economic growth. Yeah, he's the only one literally saying "I have a 4% growth plan!" but the other candidates are basically all saying they'd do what he'd do. Except with lower tax rates.


Carly Fiorina


"Why does she keep interrupting everybody?" Asked Donald Trump about Fiorina.

Fiorina continued her tendency to speak very articulately about how bad the government is at doing things and how politicians are incompetent, but also continued her tendency to not really talk about how she'd do anything about it. As usual, she talks a lot but doesn't say much.

This time, she came in with a list of five things she wanted to talk about in every answer. You know, this debate gives candidates 90 seconds rather than other debates with 60. However, Carly Fiorina structurally set herself up to go WAY over time. Which is obnoxious, and she should read my article on time management. Her list of five things was: 1. Go to zero-based budgeting. 2. "Actually" reform the tax code to a three-page one. She offered no specifics for what that three-page plan would be. 3. Top-to-bottom review of every regulation. 4. Make Congress in charge of regulations instead of nameless bureaucrats like the bad guys at the EPA. 5. Make government officials accountable.

...So she didn't actually say anything of specific substance.


Fox Business Republican Debate Carly Fiorina green
Carly Fiorina has now picked up the platitude, "Let's take our government back!"


Marco Rubio


Marco Rubio! Now this is a guy who can take the warmongering of Lindsey Graham, the amnesty of Jeb Bush/John Kasich, and the family-centricity of Rick Santorum... and present all of these policies with a smile and make them seem palatable! That's what happens when you're the young, articulate, establishment candidate. He had an answer to everything. And he also wasn't sweating disgustingly like he usually does.

A lot of people are saying Marco Rubio won the debate. Sure, if you're a moderate Republican. What I got from Rubio is that he's another big government conservative, as Rand Paul would talk about later. Marco Rubio wants one trillion more in military spending that isn't paid for, and he wants another one trillion dollar welfare transfer payment that isn't paid for. Blegh, I don't like this guy. ...Also his replies are predictable word-for-word.

...What I didn't predict is that he'd name-drop Candy Crush Saga. I wonder how he feels about Activision's deal regarding that.


Ben Carson


Ben Carson has no idea what he's talking about. I'm sad I gotta say that, but it's true.

Fox Business Republican Debate Ben Carson rant ramble clueless
Let's take an example.
By the way, I'm listening to Carson talk at half speed to write this transcript. It's an experience, alright.

Moderator: "Do you think J.P. Morgan and the other big banks should be broken up?"

Ben Carson's rant: "Well I think we should have policies that don't allow them to just enlarge themselves at the expense of smaller entities. And certainly some of the monetary policies makes it very for them, makes it very easy for the big corporations quite frankly, at these very low interest rates to buy back their stock, and to drive the prize of that up artificially. Those are the kinds of things that lead to the problem in the first place. And I think this all gets back to this whole regulation issue, which is creating a very abnormal situation. This country declared its independence in 1776 and in less than a hundred years it was the number one economic power in the world, and the reason was because that we had an atmosphere that encouraged entrepreneurial risk-taking and capital investment. Those are the fuels that drive that. And what we've done now is let the creep of the regulation turn into a stampede of regulations which is involved in every aspect of our lives. If we get that out it makes a big difference, even for the average person. Every single regulation costs money, and it's shifted to the individual, so, and it hurts the poor and the middle class much more than it does to the rich. They go into the store and they buy a bar of soap and it costs ten cents more and they notice it. And the middle class when they come to the cash register and have a whole cart full of things that costs five, ten, or fifteen cents more, they notice it. It is hurting the poor. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton won't tell you that that is the thing that's hurting the middle class and the poor. They'll say it's the rich; take their money. But that won't help. You can take all the rich's money and it won't make a dent in the problem that we're having. We have to come back to the fundamental principles that made America great."

Moderator: "...Just to be clear, you wouldn't favor breaking up the big banks?"

When you talk about America being founded in 1776 as part of your rant, you clearly have no intention of answering the damn question. Which is a valid question too.


John Kasich


Get this guy out. Please.

Fox Business Republican Debate John Kasich annoying
I'm John Kasich, and I'm in the wrong party.
He sort of resembles George W. Bush in this screenshot.

Kasich is revealing himself to be more and more annoying. Everyone else agrees, too. Guy wants to means-test bank bailouts. What the hell? Guy is fine with amnesty because he doesn't want to deport people because that will "terrify the children." Go away John Kasich. He's desperate! He kept begging for talking time (the time distribution for this debate was actually fair, for the first time in a debate) just to annoy people with his "realism."

Ted Cruz


Texan senator Ted Cruz also has a list of five things: The number of departments he'll eliminate. He'll eliminate "The IRS, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and HUD." Well, whatever, he's getting his cues from former Texas governor Rick Perry. (The fifth agency is the Department of Education.)

Fox Business Republican Debate Ted Cruz Department of Commerce list
Ted Cruz is holding the wrong number of fingers.

I'm not shallow enough to say that Ted Cruz shouldn't be elected president or anything. I do like him. I just don't think he really stood out and had a big moment like he did last debate. That said, he trashed Jeb Bush's pro-amnesty views. Great! His best moment of what he did have was that if journalists were crossing the Mexican border illegally and dropping the wages of American journalists, the mainstream media would actually cover it and be against that!

Rand Paul


Rand Paul finally became assertive. I've been waiting for this! Rand Paul went after the non-conservatism of Marco Rubio's big government spending. He got his dig at the Federal Reserve at the start of the debate, along with associating the Democrat Party with income inequality.

Fox Business Republican Debate Rand Paul isolationist Marco Rubio laughing
Marco Rubio and Rand Paul having a jolly time on-stage.

Rand Paul's fundamental question: "can you be a fiscal conservative if you don't conserve all of the money? If you're a profligate spender, you spend money in an unlimited fashion for the military, is that a conservative notion? We have to be conservative with all spending, domestic spending and welfare spending."

Think about that. Also, Rand Paul got Donald Trump to shut up with his statement that China is not part of the Trans Pacific Partnership after Trump ranted about China and that trade agreement. I'm not really sure why Rand made that point since both men are against the TPP, but whatever. Guy is out for truth and levity? Well, what he got out of it was actually stopping a commercial break from happening. So the commercial break music just sounded like cool background music for Rand, until it stopped and they realised Rand was stopping the commercial. That hasn't happened in a debate so far!




Rand Paul pen Fox Business Network Republican debate
Rand Paul also waved around a pen throughout the debate. Well he guest-write for KoopaTV?
Will YOU?

One more thing: Rand needs to stop bringing up "junior high" in debates.

Donald Trump


Trump is going to build a wall. He wants Kasich to shut up, which is fine. He wants Fiorina to shut up (after she interrupted Rand Paul), which is fine. Trump didn't do anything for himself, but he still exerted his tough-guy-ness. Uh... yeah. Donald Trump still isn't a policy wonk, but at least his responses this time were relatively coherent, unlike Ben Carson's. He also got to talk about corporate inversions, which is something he WOULD actually know about!

Awards — Main

  • Beauty: Rand Paul
  • Cool: Marco Rubio
  • Cute: John Kasich
  • Smart: Rand Paul
  • Tough: Donald Trump

All in all, Fox Business Network did very well! So did the candidates, minus John Kasich and Rick Santorum. And if you don't have Fox Business Network...

DEMAND IT.

That said, you can watch both debates here. Fox Business Network live-streamed the debate to everyone, even those without cable. That means even Vortexica could watch it!

One casualty: John Stossel's 12 AM libertarian panel didn't air because Neil Cavuto took too much time doing post-debate interviews. He got really mad over Twitter (now deleted — language warning):


John Stossel Twitter fuck autocorrect
He meant to say "Fox", blaming "autocorrect".
"Autocorrect" is an invention of mobile trash. Stay away from that.


Speaking of mobile trash, Thursday will have a NINTENDO DIRECT. And it supposedly WON'T feature any mobile trash! Stay tuned to KoopaTV's live analysis of that! And let KoopaTV know your thoughts on this debate. Screenshots are courtesy of Fox Business Network.


The next Republican debate is here!
The next Fox Business debate is here. It was much worse.

2 comments :

  1. The debate was fairly enjoyable, and although I missed the previous one, it doesn't sound like I missed much. I would have rather watched paint dry than listen to the CNBC moderators' questions.

    ReplyDelete

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