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Wednesday, December 16, 2015

KoopaTV Judges the CNN Republican December 2015 Presidential Debate!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Let's order this by who should still be here.

Last night, we had two debates for the Republicans on CNN, again. Yeah, we already were on CNN, but there are only a few "approved" channels left after the CNBC disaster.

See the list of people that were in the debates here. Or, represented here in these graphs of talking times:

Speaking time during CNN GOP December debate undercard primetime
Numbers provided by CNN.

The huge differences between the amount of time the earlier-debate candidates got compared to the later-debate one is important. You might ask why anyone would want to show up to the larger debate when only I'm-going-to-keep-talking-and-ignore-the-moderator-telling-me-to-shut-up Ted Cruz got to talk more than anyone in the lower debate, but you got to consider the larger debate had three times as many viewers. 5.7 million vs. 18 million.

It was a big point of contention for candidate Rand Paul, because the media was massively reporting days before the debate that he wouldn't qualify for the prime-time debate and that he'd have to drop down to the scrub one. Some folks were even reporting that he was going to be DROPPING OUT of the race! Didn't happen, but if Rand did go to the lower debate he could probably fight for double the amount of speaking time than what he actually got last night. Could balance the one-third of the viewers?

In honour of Rand's dilemma, I'm going to organise my thoughts based on three tiers. "Stay in the debates", "Figure something out", and "Drop out already". I might be biased here, so feel free to call that out in the comments. And of course, our awards at the end.

Stay in the debates


Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Rand Paul.

Hm, how do I explain how I feel here? Basically, if you have something interesting to say, you can stay. Donald Trump is interesting just with his presence. I mean, he pretty much spammed the word "toughness" so of course he's going to win that award.

Rubio is still a successful Lindsey Graham. A moronic war hawk eager to bring the planet to World War III (for our "security") while being totally for amnesty and open-borders for illegal immigrants. The hypocrisy is delicious, and pointed out by Rand Paul. Rubio is successful given his polling and his ability to be articulate, and actual establishment backing. But he had the most fights with Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is also quite articulate, which made their exchanges nice.

Rand Paul Marco Rubio CNN GOP Debate splitscreen
Marco Rubio can't believe Rand wrecked him. Even though it literally happened in the previous debate too.


Ted Cruz got the better on Rubio in basically everything, and there's a good reason why, besides Rubio lying over and over. He... basically is using all of Rand Paul's campaign positions (at least on foreign relations/national security/surveillance/liberty) and articulating them in a way more appealing way than Rand could to the Republican primary voter. Fortunately, Rand can continue to still talk about things that Cruz hasn't latched on, like regime change and that Donald Trump is an idiot. The latter is something Cruz refuses to do.

Oh boy, is Donald Trump an idiot. He wants to kill the families of ISIS terrorists as a policy. It's fine if Koopa Kingdom and America both put KoopaTV-traitor and ISIS woman Noxial on a "kill-on-sight" list, but I don't think her family approves of her destructive decisions. So why should they just be slaughtered, and how is that what the "good guys" would do? Trump also wants to somehow just shut off the Internet in entire countries. He wants to somehow test people based on religion if they can come here or not.

Dude just doesn't make sense, but hey, at least he's fun. Unfortunately, I don't think Rand calling Trump out on his idiocy is helping with Republican primary voters. For some reason, it also makes these weird Donald Trump fans like Donald Trump even more when he's being completely erroneous?

Trump had one good moment where he said he'd rather spend the money on wars on things that'd help America's interests. That would be nice.

Chris Christie really shines as a big "I will keep your family safe" guy, again by being eager to cause World War III against Russia. Are people really that afraid of terrorists that Christie repeating that "I'll keep your family safe" over and over again is that effective? To me, that's effective if you feel like you can't leave your house because a terrorist would be hiding behind a non-political bush.

Ted Cruz radical Islamic terrorism debate
Speaking of repeating something over and over, Ted Cruz is in the middle of saying "Radical Islamic terrorism."

I don't like that Chris Christie is saying the legislative process doesn't matter. You can't really trust a guy who thinks that way with not being a tyrant, can you?

Rand needs to ditch his 3-4 people with mega-phones in the audience cheering loudly for him every time he talks. I appreciate the support, but, uh, it's really obvious it's not organic. It's pretty much equivalent to a GameFAQs Undertale rally. That's un-cool.

Figure something out


Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, Ben Carson.

I really like Mike Huckabee. You know, I can't dispute his logic on "we should monitor mosques because they're public, and if they're really such a great religion they should encourage people to listen in on them and get more congregants!" And he still has the best tax plan. But he's obviously not doing well. Figure something out, man.

Ben Carson had a, "Let's give a moment of silence" as part of his debate performance because he has really no idea what he's talking about, so that's how you use your time. So, pretty much, no improvement from last debate. At least he upped his neurosurgeon analogies, if that helps anything. And he (hopefully) shut down the notion that you need to be a screaming idiot to appear tough. At least, in theory.

Lindsey Graham is right: He has been influential (dunno if it's really because of him or coincidence) in getting the Republican field to be much more hawkish. But he's been taken over by Rubio now. So all that's left is Lindsey Graham being ineffective and hilarious. Hilarity is valued which is why I'm not telling him to drop out... but, you know, since he got what he wanted, why is he still running? He has no support.

Lindsey Graham closing statement CNN debate
Lindsey Graham is pointing in the direction that his poll numbers WON'T go.


Drop out already


George Pataki, Rick Santorum, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich.

Rick Santorum DID say he would reverse the policy that allows the possibility of women in certain positions in the military. ...Just putting that out there. He has absolutely no place here. Neither does Pataki. Vortexica's last line in yesterday's live reaction log portrays Pataki's presence perfectly.

All Jeb Bush did was attack Donald Trump. JEB! was actually... correct in what he was saying, but he looked totally useless. He made no case for why he should be president. He still smiles weirdly too.

CNN Republican debate Donald Trump Jeb Bush splitscreen facial expression
CNN split-screening.

Carly Fiorina and John Kasich were annoying and didn't contribute anything. That's a pretty good combination that you shouldn't be there. Fiorina gave an almost-Hillary-esque remark with regards to going to women "to get things done" as opposed to men. C'mon, that's not necessary.

Awards (All)

  • Beauty: Ben Carson
  • Cool: Ted Cruz
  • Cute: Jeb Bush
  • Smart: Rand Paul
  • Tough: Donald Trump


Do you feel terrified of ISIS? Which candidate helps you sleep best at night? And is that your answer because of safety, or because they're boring? Let KoopaTV know!

2 comments :

  1. The only thing I want to know is how Ben Carson won the beauty award when it clearly should have been Trump. I mean, just look at that smile!

    ReplyDelete

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