Liberty's Last Stand: "PBS All American Presidential Forum Wrap-up"

Source:  Liberty’s Last Stand – The Future of Our Country

I just finished watching the debate on PBS.  Kudos to PBS, Tavis Smiley, and their crew for having the most interesting debate so far.

I loved that they had empty podiums where Fred Thompson, Rudy, Romney, and McCain should have been…had they shown up.  That sent a message.

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Mike Huckabee continued to impress with his home spun wit and whimsy.  He’s trying to remind us of Ronald Reagan like the rest of them but it actually works for him part of the time.  He seems like a nice guy folks wouldn’t mind looking at on TV for four to eight years.  Huckabee was the most mainstream of the candidates on the stage tonight and received polite applause for each of his points.

Ron Paul had a large crowd of supporters in that audience tonight.  Every time his name was mentioned there would be a swell of cheers from the faithful.  At least on TV, it seemed like the majority of the room applauded when he made his key points.  His view on the Iraq war was overwhelmingly popular in that room tonight.  You’ve got to admire a guy who goes into an African American environment and boldly declares that we don’t get our rights from our skin tone.  What’s even more amazing…they were cheering him for it.

Brownback is stuck in the rut of trying to prove that he’s still relevant.  He made some good points tonight, but in the end, the evangelical folks who might want to support him are already supporting Huckabee.

Tancredo made some very forceful arguments and had more good moments tonight than he has had in past debates.  But he’s still not going to get any traction.

Hunter has not yet received the memo that his campaign is over and that he is completely irrelevant to these proceedings.  He’s got a great stage presence, but he’s not saying very much that John McCain wasn’t saying first with the exception of immigration.

If you tied Alan Keyes’ hands behind his back would his mouth stop moving?  Keyes is a phenominal speaker and outshines everyone from a “poise and polish” standpoint when giving a speech, but he’s not great in a debate.  Unfortunately for Keyes, the mostly black crowd was too busy cheering for the 72 year old white guy to pay attention to much that he said.  In fairness, Keyes got decent responses from the crowd tonight, but his entry into this race is a non-event nationally.  The guy just lost a senate race to Barack Obama a few years back and now he wants to run for President again?  Not happening.

Ron Paul won the debate with his forceful points and straight talk on foreign policy.  He’s never the most commanding stage presence on the platform, but he always wins on ideas and conviction.