First GOP Debate Reactions

First impressions of the performance of the candidates.  I list them by how much pre-debate buzz they had generated.



1. Trump.  He was exactly what we expected because that is the only thing he is capable of being.  He may recede in the polls, but that was going to happen anyway. I don't think anyone landed a good punch on him, which may be a sign of maturity. I think the serious candidates know that he's not a real threat.  (Kudos to Fox News for getting the crowd to boo him by asking the candidates if they would pledge to endorse the eventual Republican nominee.)

2. Bush: didn't do great. They may call him Vito Corleone in Florida, but I'm beginning to think he's still called Fredo at family reunions.

3. Walker: Boring, as advertised. But he didn't really need to do much tonight and he didn't have any Perry like "Ooops" moments, and that's probably all he needed to accomplish.

4. Rubio.  The clear winner, in my view. He looked mature and articulate and I think he may get a modest bounce out of this event.

5. Carson: He's a really bright guy who got all of his non-medical information by listening to Rush Limbaugh to and from Johns Hopkins. And any candidate who doesn't know shit about the Baltic Republics is dead to me.

6. Paul.  He obviously was told by his staffers that he needed to make an impression and he came out swinging but I don't think he made much of an impression either way.

7. Kasich. He had obvious home-court advantage but he didn't do much with it.

8.  Cruz:  Wow, did he come out flat. I think he is used to formal, competitive debates and that does not translate well into these televised joint television appearances.  He might be the biggest disappointment of the night. But I also think he will prep like hell for the next one and come out swinging.

9. Huckabee.  Solid but bland. He's destined for the back of the pack so who cares?

10 Christie.  Pretty much an after-thought His whole shtick of being the straight talker has been stolen away by the man at the middle podium.


Upshot:  I think Rubio will close the gap on Walker and Bush in the next few weeks. No one else made much of an impression. Trump will begin to fade over time, but that was going to happen anyway.

What did we learn?  Trump will probably run as a 3rd party candidate and if he does next year's debates will be awesome!

New Rule, Bill Maher has to be for science, or against it.

I enjoy Bill Maher's show.  On specific issues, I agree with him more often than not.  But one of the hallmarks of his shtick is making fun of conservatives for being anti-science.  If the subject is climate change or evolution, he can be absolutely cutting when it comes to making fun of Republicans.  In his movie Religilous, he visited the Creation Musem in Petersburg, Kentucky and made fun of them for showing a Stegosaurus with a saddle on it.  An easy target for sure, but well executed.

More interestingly, he interviews the director of that museum and they talk about the scientific consensus behind Evolution.  Maher points out that if evolution wasn't true, than there must be a vast conspiracy among all of the scientists around the world to promulgate it.

That's a pretty convincing point.  But Mr. Maher simply does not apply this logic to those areas of science that he disagrees with.  The above YouTube Clip is from 2009.  In it, former Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), a physician, takes him to the wood shed about vaccines.  Maher simply ignores the scientific arguments put before him by a prominent Republican and clings to his vague superstitions about the "dangers" or vaccines, using a 50 year old quote from Jonas Salk.  It's every bit as pathetic as grown men saddling stegosauruses.

Two years ago Bill Maher repeatedly and passionately argued for passage of a law that would have required food makers to put labels on food containing Genetically Modified Organisms.  He did this despite the fact that there is NO scientific evidence that GMOs pose any increased health risk to humans.  None.

Last night Mr. Maher had on Christopher Leonard, a journalist who just wrote a book about the industrial farming practices of American meat manufacturers.  During the interview, Mr. Maher brought up a recent story about Azodicarbonamide, a chemical that is used to preserve bread, and is also used in non-food items such as yoga mats.  Maher said "I'm sure they have 'statistics' that say this stuff is safe in small doses but what about those of us who don't want any poison in our food?"

Cute line, Bill.  But you can not speak so derisively of "statistics" and misuse a term like "poison" and still claim to be a champion of science.  Azodicarbonamide may be difficult to pronounce, but it is not dangerous.  The fears about it being in food originate from a blog written by someone with no background in science.  She found a scary factoid- this chemical in my bread is also used in yoga mats, and got a major company to change the way they make their bread.  That sounds like a major accomplishment, but it's not one that will improve the public safety one scintilla.

Please read Dr. Steven Novella's blog entry on this subject to better understand the science behind the use of azodicarbonamide in food..  And the next time you hear Bill Maher makes fun of some back bench congressman from Georgia for saying something dumb about the origins of life on earth, feel free to laugh.  But remember that the joke is being told by someone who spreads fear of vaccinations out of pure superstition.  Mr. Maher needs to understand that some kinds of stupid are worse than others.  Creationism may be dumb, but it's not contagious.  Whooping Cough on the other hand, is.