ABC News Republican Debate

I watched the ABC News Republican debate last night with hopes that I would come away with a stronger sense of who my choice would be for the Republican nominee. Alas, that did not happen. Instead, I came away feeling that when I cast my vote on March 13 I will be holding my nose to pick the anti-Obama candidate more than anything else.

I personally like the format of the debate, though some of the questions were a bit annoying. George Stephanopoulos’s question to Mitt Romney on states infringing on the right to contraception was the most annoying. Not that the question itself was out-of-place, but his many attempts at getting a yes or no answer out of Romney were. Had he accepted Romney’s first answer, and moved on to other candidates with the same question, it could have come off as being a mildly insightful question rather than a liberal attempt at a politically biased hack job. Even though Stephanopoulos’s question took this annoying turn, it did show that Mitt has no depth. A candidate’s beliefs about the limitation of the Federal Government’s power is very important and it seemed that Romney could not come up with an answer to the question without his handlers giving him one before going on stage.

In fact, none of the candidates that responded to that particular question got it right, at least in my view. I was hopeful that the Constitutionalist on stage, Ron Paul, would hit that one out of the park. He didn’t. He fell into the same misrepresentation of the constitution and the intentions of our founding fathers that rest of candidates did. He went for the “right to privacy” answer, supposedly found in the fourth amendment, and by doing so he represented his beliefs that the constitution contains an “exhaustive list” of our rights as citizens. This could not be more wrong.

For those of you who have not read my other pages, let me give you a little history. As most of you may know, there was a heated debate amongst our fore-fathers surrounding the idea of including a bill of rights in the constitution. The argument was not one of some wanting to guarantee certain rights and other’s not wanting any guarantees. Instead, the argument was about the federal government not having the power to enumerate any rights to begin with. The Federalist argued that a bill of rights was not needed since the constitution clearly stated that the federal government would have no power not specifically granted to it by the constitution and therefore would have no power to enumerate rights. The Anti-Federalist agreed with that basic premise but felt it was important to ensure that certain rights – mainly those that were denied them by England – were guaranteed in the constitution. The Federalist counter-argued that if a bill of rights were included it might become an exhaustive list of rights (this is what happened with the Magna-Carta in England) and the people would have no other rights but those. The final compromise was a bill of rights which included the 9th Amendment.

‘The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people’ – 9th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Unfortunately, what has happened is exactly what the Federalist were concerned with as demonstrated by the candidates last night. In order to “allow” the people the right to contraception we must first “find it” in the Bill of Rights.

What Ron Paul should have said is this:

“The federal government was never granted the authority – by the constitution – to enumerate the unenumerated rights. Therefore, for the federal courts, or any branch of the federal government, to say that any unenumerated right exist or does not exist is unconstitutional. The constitution clearly leaves the delineation of unenumerated rights in the hands of the states or the people per the 10th Amendment. In order to decide whether or not the people have a right to contraception, one must first look at the state’s constitution. Did the people of the state in question give the state government the authority to enumerate the unenumerated rights? If they did – there are none that I know of – but if they did then the state gets to decide. If they did not then the right exist simply by virtue of being claimed by the people. At that point it is not a question of whether or not the right exist but whether the infringement of that right by the state is justified in order to protect the rights of others.”

Well, one can dream…

Newt Gingrich had a few good moments which he could capitalize on. The rebuke of the media for its’ bias on failing to report the effects of gay marriage laws on Catholic adoption services in Massachusetts was a powerful one. However, I don’t think that Newt understands how much his stance on the courts and his desire to abolish some of them has hurt his candidacy. To have the President of the United States abolishing federal courts would be an over-reach of executive power that would make Obama’s health care mandate seem miniscule by comparison.

Rick Santorum did okay, though, I found no reason to throw my support behind him. His statement that marriage is mainly a federal issue was non-sensical. It could be, if an amendment to the constitution is made defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Otherwise, the only federal issue to be found in the gay marriage debate is whether or not the “Full faith and credit” clause of the federal constitution applies to it, and that will be decided by the courts.

Rick Perry performed at his usual hoe-hum level. He is someone I simply cannot vote for. I feel that he will jump on any wagon that he thinks will take him to the White House. His is the conservative version of Obama – though without the charisma.

John Huntsman showed nothing to me that would suggest he should be the next president. When he answered criticism of him by Romney by saying, “he does not understand the situation,” in Chinese, he only showed himself to have the emotional maturity of a high school student.

After the debate, the general consensus of ABC’s talking head pundits was that Romney had won the debate simply by virtue of not screwing up. Unfortunately, they might be right. However, I came away from the debate with a stronger desire for an anti-Romney candidate then ever  before. Romney stood on stage with a fake smile plastered across his face for most of the debate, hands folded in front of him, looking more like the plastic Ken doll that I believe he is. I’ll have to make sure that I stock up on soap, because if I find myself voting for him for president it will take numerous showers to remove the stench.