Mitt Romney Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Photo Author: Gage Skidmore

Anybody that has watched the Republican debates with the presidential hopefuls has to have noticed how they are getting meaner. I usually don't write about this kind of politics, but I have to say that the debates have interested me. I don't believe that one has to belong to either party to be interested in who is running for president, or how they got where they are. It seems that as we see less candidates, they are getting more personal. It is getting to be like putting sharks in the swimming pool. Each shark will go after the other if it gets hungry enough and these candidates are starting to get very hungry. In the beginning of the debates it seemed to a lot of people that Mitt Romney was a shoe in. I never felt that he was, because I believe that once someone has lost one of these races, he becomes a loser for life. There may be exceptions to this rule, but generally I think that when you get the losertag, it stays with you. The most amazing part of all of this is that there have been Republican Primaries in three different states and three different candidates have emerged as winners. What does this tell you? I know that it indicates to me that the Republican Party has weak candidates. Even if at the end of all this somebody manages to garner the most delegates, he may be far too weak to challenge the president in an election.

Michele Bachmann Photo Source: US Government

If we look at the original eight candidates that took part in the beginning debates, we find that an awful lot of misinformation was put out and in some ways it is still that way. I think that a lot of people began to notice the untruths in the debates when representative Michele Bachmann made many of the so-called revelations. Things got so bad with what Bachmann was saying that newspaper stories began to appear challenging her statements. When she was challenged about certain things that she said by moderator Chris Wallace from Fox News, she said that she never said them. This got a little tiresome as the debates wenn on. In this day and age when replays are readily available, it certainly doesn't do a candidate any good to deny statements that they made while being videotaped. Then there were the other statements she made that were just plain wrong and she wore them like a badge of honor and would not renege. Is it any wonder that Representative Bachmann is no longer in the race?

Herman Cain Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Photo Author: Gage Skidmore

Herman Cain, the pizza businessman, made a splash in the beginning. He claimed to have the answers to our domestic monetary problems. It was something called 9, 9 and 9. This had to do with the rates that he proposed for income tax. This was more like a flat tax plan than anything else, the only difference being with a flat tax plan everybody pays the same percentage of tax on their entire income. Actually this would be a great thing for this country, but all those powerful people and corporations want to keep the thousands and thousands of pages of tax law in place so that they can twist it to their own benefit and perhaps pay no tax at all. Anyway Cain demonstrated a profound weakness of understanding when it came to world events. He found himself stumbling over questions about other countries and policies that would affect the world. He was getting weaker as time went on, but what really knocked Mr. Cain out of the race were women that were starting to come forward with harassment claims. These seemed to grow and eventually overwhelmed him and he decided that he had to drop out of the race.

Gov. Rick Perry Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Photo Author: Gage Skidmore

Gov. Rick Perry came across as a total amateur. It amazes me that he even made Governor. One of the things that hurt Perry the most was the fact that it seemed he really didn't know what was going on and to make up for this he tried to memorize everything, but had memory failures from time to time. One of the most memorable events in the early debates goes to Rick Perry. Unfortunately for him it was not a good thing. The candidates were asked what agencies they would eliminate from the federal government and Perry came on like a house afire saying that he would eliminate three agencies, but when asked what they were he could only recall two. There he stood trying to mumble out the name of the third agency over and over, but he could never get it. It was pathetic. Even I felt sorry for the guy, but it certainly didn't instill confidence in him. He also demonstrated that he did not understand foreign policy and finally when he called Turkey a terrorist nation that was just too much, especially when Turkey, one of our closest allies, complained about it. That was the end of Mr. Perry.

Jon Huntsman Photo Source: Government Photo

Jon Huntsman dropped out of the race before the vote in South Carolina. Actually I thought that he would have made the best candidate for the Republican Party. He seemed to come across as being very knowledgeable. He never launched vicious attacks that I can remember, against any other of the candidates and he seemed to be very likable. Why couldn't a man like this win elections? Usually the reason that these type of people don't get elected is that they don't have the machine behind them. I am talking of course about the political machine. We didn't see a lot of advertisements for Huntsman and this was probably because he didn't have the money to push his case. He was smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall and decided to drop out.

Newt Gingrich Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Photo Author: Gage Skidmore

What can one say about Newt Gingrich? God judges us and we shouldn't judge others lest we be judged. That is so true, but we have to remember that Newt Gingrich is probably, or was probably one of the biggest hypocrites in Washington. While he was condemning President Clinton for sexual acts with Monica Lewinsky, he was doing the same thing himself. I really don't want to go into the seedy background of this man, but as one candidate said, if a man is not loyal to his wife, how can you expect him to be loyal to anyone else? Gingrich said that he is now a new man and has converted to Catholicism. Perhaps this is true, not the part that he converted because we know he did, but the part that he was really sorry for what he did in the past and he had mentioned something about being forgiven. Apparently there are a lot of people in the Republican Party that are willing to forgive Gingrich. When the newscaster John King opened up the last presidential debate by asking Gingrich about statements made by his former wife the day before, Gingrich blasted him and apparently the Republicans loved that, because he won overwhelmingly in South Carolina. Gingrich is very verbose, and even when he says things that are not true, he says them with such authority that I am sure many people will believe him.

Rick Santorum Photo Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Photo Author: Gage Skidmore

Rick Santorum is a strange case. He claims to be the only true conservative and talks about his record in Congress and how he was responsible for weeding out some of the corruption that was going on there even though he was in peril of losing his position. The problem is that he talks about a lot of things as being wrong and yet if you go back to his voting record you will find out that he voted for some of the things that he claims he is adamantly against. Santorum was the first one to upset the Romney roller coaster by winning Iowa. He had put more time into working Iowa than just about any other candidate and since he didn't have as much money he spent that time by going from place to place shaking hands and it seemed to have paid off. One of the problems with Rick Santorum is that he seems like a very angry man and I am not sure that anyone would want this type of person for president. While Romney looks a lot more presidential, Santorum looks more like an angry civil rights lawyer.

Dr. Ron Paul Photo Source: US Government

The last presidential candidate is Ron Paul. He has attracted a core of followers and the reason for this is that, of all the candidates he seems to know the most about the economy. The problem with Dr. Paul is that if he would implement everything that he is talking about, it would step on far too many toes. Dr. Paul is the type of man that is probably considered the most dangerous by the rich and powerful. I'm sure the banks hate this man since he has said time and time again that we should do away with the Federal Reserve Bank. He is entirely correct, but if we look at history we see that every time somebody has even tried to stop a private bank from getting into government business, they have had assassination attempts against their life. Dr. Paul also suggests that we go back on the gold standard. This time he is wrong, because it would be far easier for banks to control this country if we were on the gold standard, since there is a limited amount of gold. Ron Paul does not look presidential and as a matter of fact he looks far too old to become president of the United States and even though he has a large core of supporters and may become a factor, because of the delegates he controls, Dr. Paul will not be present.