On the evening of August 6, 2015, the election season's first Republican candidate debate took place at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio -home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the overly stressed caucus results. Starring were the ten frontrunners in the GOP race for the primary: FL Governor Jeb Bush, Neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, NJ Governor Chris Christie, TX Senator Ted Cruz, former AR Governor Mike Huckabee, OH Governor John Kasich, KY Senator Rand Paul, FL Senator Marco Rubio, Businessman (and your favorite star of "The Apprentice") Donald Trump, and WI Governor Scott Walker.
Regardless of political affiliation or interest level, I believe it is important to stay as informed as possible about current political issues, namely the upcoming 2016 presidential election. Furthermore, each election brings forth a string of desperate sounding candidates from both parties that claim the world will most certainly implode if the US elects a president of the opposing party. I doubt these claims are right, but just in case, I like to remain as informed as possible. So without further ado, here are some of the important points and moments from the first debate of the season, as well as some of my favorite comedic relief moments:
Economy
Christie: (On entitlement reform) "If we don’t deal with it, it will bankrupt our country or lead to massive tax increases - neither one that we want in this country."
Huckabee: "If Congress wants to mess with the retirement program, why don’t we let them start by changing their retirement program and not have one, instead of talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion to pay for Obamacare."
Paul: "We do not project power from bankruptcy court. We're borrowing a million dollars a minute. It's got to stop somewhere."
Military
Carson: "Well, what we have to stop and think about is that we have weakened ourselves militarily to such an extent that if affects all of our military policies."
Iran Nuclear Deal, ISIS, and Terrorism
Huckabee: "We got nothing. And Iran gets everything they want."
Paul: "ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of US Humvees …We didn’t create ISIS; ISIS created themselves, but we will stop them, and one of the ways we stop them is by not funding them, and not arming them."
Walker: "This is not just bad with Iran, this is bad with ISIS. It is tied together, and once and for all, we need a leader who’s gonna stand up and do something about it."
Diplomatic Relations
Paul: "Each one of my budgets has taken a meat ax to foreign aid because I think we ought to quit sending it to countries that hate us. I think we ought to quit sending it to countries who burn our flag. Israel is not one of those."
Religious Freedom
Paul: "When the government tries to invade the church to enforce its own opinion on marriage, that’s when it’s time to resist."
Rubio: "The Department of Education, like every agency, will never be satisfied. They will not stop with it being a suggestion. They will turn it into a mandate."
Immigration
Bush: "I believe the people coming here illegally have no other option. They want to provide for their family, but we need to control our border....The next president will fix this once and for all so we can turn this into a driver for high-sustained economic growth.…There should be a path to earned legal status for those who are here, not amnesty."
Rubio: "This is the most generous country in the world when it comes to immigration."
Abortion
Walker: "I’ve always been pro-life. I’ve got a position that’s consistent with many Americans out there, in that I believe that that is an unborn child that’s in need of protection out there, and I’ve said many times that that unborn child can be protected, and there are many other alternatives that would protect the life of the mother. That’s been consistently proven."
Qualifications
Rubio: "It's important to be qualified, but if this election is a resume competition, then Hillary Clinton's gonna be the next president, because she's been in office and in government longer than anybody else running here tonight. Here's what this election better be about: This election better be about the future, not the past."
B*tching about Obama
Cruz: "The first thing I intend to do is to rescind every illegal and unconstitutional executive action taken by Barack Obama."
Pomp & Distraction
Bush: (When questioned whether he was aware the Bloomberg Foundation Board he sat on gave funding to Planned Parenthood) "My record is clear....as governor of Florida, I defunded Planned Parenthood."
Carson: "I haven't said anything about me being the only one to do anything, so let me try that. [I am] the only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat me to it."
Cruz: "We need a commander-in-chief that speaks the truth."
Kasich: "America is a miracle country and we have to restore the sense that the miracle will apply to you."
Paul: "Well, let's be clear, I'm the only one on the stage who actually has a five-year budget that balances."
Rubio: "If I'm our nominee, we will be the party of the future."
Walker: "I'm a guy with a wife and two kids and a Harley. One article called me 'aggressively normal.'"
There's Hope
Kasich: "If one of my daughters happened to be [gay] then of course I would love them and accept them because you know what? That’s what we were taught when we have strong faith. … We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have."
Income Inequality
-no mentioning-
Student Debt
-no mentioning-
Climate Change
-no mentioning-
Horror
Huckabee: "The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things."
Comedy
Trump: "What I say is what I say."
Trump: "I've evolved on many things over the years."
Trump: "This country is in big trouble. We don't win anymore. We lose to China."
Trump: "With Hillary Clinton, I said, 'Be at my wedding,' and she came to my wedding."
Trump: "We have a president who doesn't have a clue. I would say he's incompetent, but I don't want to do that, because it's not nice."
And the winner of my favorite quote from the debate
Huckabee: "Life begins at conception. This isn’t just a Biblical view — it’s affirmed by modern science and every unique human DNA schedule, which is present at conception."
Amazing! Why has this term never once come up in my biology major classes?......
