COMMENTARY | As a registered Democratic voter, I've never watched a Republican debate. So it was with trepidation that I tuned in to the Google-sponsored Republican debate on Thursday. The debate went pretty much as expected: Texas Gov. Rick Perry talked about job creation, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich reiterated his belief that "people should not get money for doing nothing" and Ron Paul reminded us all that he basically wants to get rid of the federal government.
But there were three things that stood out for me.
Michelle Bachman changed her tune on Gardasil. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., in attempting to make Rick Perry look bad, slammed the governor for signing an order that required middle-school girls in Texas to get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV). Bachmann claimed the vaccine, Gardasil, was linked to mental retardation, a claim which medical experts dismissed as bunk, according to the Associated Press. When asked about her assertion that the vaccine was dangerous, Bachmann said, "I didn't make that claim nor did I make that statement."
Herman Cain wants a national sales tax. His so-called 9-9-9 plan proposes a nine percent business flat tax, a nine percent personal income tax and a nine percent national sales tax, also known as a Value Added Tax (VAT). This is surprising to me because many countries in Europe, Sweden for example, countries that some Republicans might call "socialist," have a VAT.
The crowd booed a U.S. soldier. Openly gay soldier Stephen Hill, who is currently serving in Iraq, asked the potential candidates their feelings on the repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Some members of the crowd loudly booed the soldier. Instead of thanking the Hill for his service to our country and reprimanding the crowd for being disrespectful, former senator Rick Santorum answered the question by saying, "Sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military," and that, if given the chance, he would reinstate the policy because it gives gay soldiers some unnamed "special privilege."
Did watching this debate make me want to vote Republican? Absolutely not, but it did show me exactly who President Barack Obama will be up against. The responses to the questions were basically what I expected -- canned, safe and extremely conservative--but it was the moments in between the questions that truly showed what this field of Republican presidential hopefuls are about.
