3rd CD Debate Wrap Up
It was a very interesting debate. To say that Mark Maxon is a passionate and opinionated conservative is putting it very mildly. While he did interject his own opinions in his questioning he did give the three candidates plenty of opportunity to get their points across.
On the economy, there were definite differences between the three. For the most part Jason Chaffetz and Jim Noorlander agreed when it came to getting the government to quit picking economic winners and losers - something I wholeheartedly agree with. Where Jason and Jim parted ways was changing over to the gold standard. Mr. Noorlander is on the Ron Paul gold standard bandwagon - he brought it up ever chance he got and that was often. Jason had a decent response (which I missed adding in my live blog as this was where the debate was jumping back and forth quickly) about the implementation of such a change. Whether it was the fair tax or the gold standard, Jason had concerns about how we could make this change and do it in a way that did not kill the economy.
Spencer brought up the "lack of regulation" a couple of times - making sure to follow the Democratic talking points that this was a failing of the Republican Party - the party of deregulation. There is only one problem with that. There is a video on You Tube (I will post that in another post) that shows the REPUBLICAN chair of the Government Sponsored Entity Subcommittee hearings into improper book-keeping practices at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac calling for further Congressional oversight and regulation into Fannie and Freddie and having that call BLOCKED by the Democrats in the subcommittee (including Barney Frank and Maxine Waters). Woops.....then in another answer, Bennion admitted that the problem was not caused by any one party but by the failure of both parties - a stand with which I agree, but then in another answer he went back to his "blame Bush" talking points. His biggest one was that Bush "laid off the regulators" at the FDIC. The problem with this thought process is that the practice of taking mortgages and turning them into "investments" (a la Freddie and Fannie) is not a practice that is regulated by the FDIC. Because Freddie and Fannie are "GSE"s the oversight and regulation FALLS TO CONGRESS and Congress failed to do their jobs yet again!
The second half of the second hour was immigration talk. The host did a fantastic job of pushing everyone on their answers which gave the listeners a much better understanding of where the candidates stood on the issue. I was mildly surprised when Bennion Spencer brought up a talking point version of the "Razorwire" ad that I wrote about yesterday and Jason did not get after Spencer for an apology. This has been a source of fireworks between the two all campaign. Although I found it interesting when Maxon actually went after Spencer on this allegation. He spoke at length about the fact that men as well as women commit crimes and that a "law enforcement first" strategy is going to ensure that men AND women are locked up and that there was not way to "immediately deport" the criminal aliens as Spencer advocated (after much pushing by Maxon in response to Spencer's claims that he was pro-enforcement).
I had to laugh when Spencer talked about how the Democrat Party was not a party of "litmus tests" like the Republicans were. This is the same "Democratic" Party that has bent over backwards to stifle any moderate opinions within the party - chasing such notables as Joe Leiberman and Zell Miller from the party! This is the same "Democratic" Party whose leadership threatens members with their committee assignments in order to guarantee the proper vote on an issue. No litmus tests?????? Pull the other leg Spencer!
The bright spot of the debate to me was Jim Noorlander. While I can't vote for him (there is no way we can go back to the gold standard as he and Ron Paul advocate) I did appreciate greatly his reminders that we are rapidly marching toward socialism and BOTH parties are leading the parade. It is nice to know that others are seeing this. If the majority of big "L" libertarians are of this mindset, I may find other candidates to vote for!
My thanks to Mark Maxon for hosting this debate. It was a lot of fun and a worthwhile two hours. Now if you guys could just do something to boost your signal - I had to listen on line because I could not get the station in at all here on the West Bench.
On the economy, there were definite differences between the three. For the most part Jason Chaffetz and Jim Noorlander agreed when it came to getting the government to quit picking economic winners and losers - something I wholeheartedly agree with. Where Jason and Jim parted ways was changing over to the gold standard. Mr. Noorlander is on the Ron Paul gold standard bandwagon - he brought it up ever chance he got and that was often. Jason had a decent response (which I missed adding in my live blog as this was where the debate was jumping back and forth quickly) about the implementation of such a change. Whether it was the fair tax or the gold standard, Jason had concerns about how we could make this change and do it in a way that did not kill the economy.
Spencer brought up the "lack of regulation" a couple of times - making sure to follow the Democratic talking points that this was a failing of the Republican Party - the party of deregulation. There is only one problem with that. There is a video on You Tube (I will post that in another post) that shows the REPUBLICAN chair of the Government Sponsored Entity Subcommittee hearings into improper book-keeping practices at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac calling for further Congressional oversight and regulation into Fannie and Freddie and having that call BLOCKED by the Democrats in the subcommittee (including Barney Frank and Maxine Waters). Woops.....then in another answer, Bennion admitted that the problem was not caused by any one party but by the failure of both parties - a stand with which I agree, but then in another answer he went back to his "blame Bush" talking points. His biggest one was that Bush "laid off the regulators" at the FDIC. The problem with this thought process is that the practice of taking mortgages and turning them into "investments" (a la Freddie and Fannie) is not a practice that is regulated by the FDIC. Because Freddie and Fannie are "GSE"s the oversight and regulation FALLS TO CONGRESS and Congress failed to do their jobs yet again!
The second half of the second hour was immigration talk. The host did a fantastic job of pushing everyone on their answers which gave the listeners a much better understanding of where the candidates stood on the issue. I was mildly surprised when Bennion Spencer brought up a talking point version of the "Razorwire" ad that I wrote about yesterday and Jason did not get after Spencer for an apology. This has been a source of fireworks between the two all campaign. Although I found it interesting when Maxon actually went after Spencer on this allegation. He spoke at length about the fact that men as well as women commit crimes and that a "law enforcement first" strategy is going to ensure that men AND women are locked up and that there was not way to "immediately deport" the criminal aliens as Spencer advocated (after much pushing by Maxon in response to Spencer's claims that he was pro-enforcement).
I had to laugh when Spencer talked about how the Democrat Party was not a party of "litmus tests" like the Republicans were. This is the same "Democratic" Party that has bent over backwards to stifle any moderate opinions within the party - chasing such notables as Joe Leiberman and Zell Miller from the party! This is the same "Democratic" Party whose leadership threatens members with their committee assignments in order to guarantee the proper vote on an issue. No litmus tests?????? Pull the other leg Spencer!
The bright spot of the debate to me was Jim Noorlander. While I can't vote for him (there is no way we can go back to the gold standard as he and Ron Paul advocate) I did appreciate greatly his reminders that we are rapidly marching toward socialism and BOTH parties are leading the parade. It is nice to know that others are seeing this. If the majority of big "L" libertarians are of this mindset, I may find other candidates to vote for!
My thanks to Mark Maxon for hosting this debate. It was a lot of fun and a worthwhile two hours. Now if you guys could just do something to boost your signal - I had to listen on line because I could not get the station in at all here on the West Bench.
Labels: Bennion Spencer, Jason Chaffetz, Jim Noorlander
posted by The Lady Logician at
12:10 PM
1 Comments:
You do realize that in order to support your own "Fannie and Freddy AHHHHHH!" claptrap, decent, much more intelligent voters would have to believe that only Fannie and Freddie were in the credit swapping swindle orchestrated by Gramm's circa late 90's early 2k, right? See we lose on this argument because we make stretches just you've done here, rather than just admit we lost sight of what it means to be conservatives. You, my dear, are not really helping the party regain it's historic roots by making such a fool of yourself.
Wingers can be so dumb. Here's to rational conservatives regaining authority of the GOP, rather than this neo-CON bull I'm reading on this blog. Reagan was a hero. He would be ashamed of writing like this.
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Anonymous, at 1:55 AM
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