The republican debate at the Reagan library was pretty exciting. This was the first debate that new frontrunner Rick Perry attended and boy did things heat up quickly! What happened? Who stood out? Who won? Within the first 10 minutes of the debate punches started flying between the new and former frontrunners, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Hitting each other back and forth on their records of job creation, it appeared that Perry had a one up on Romney in that exchange, though Romney later explained that the differences between Texas and Massachusetts were so vast that Perry's record may have been less a product of him and more a product of Texas itself. This argument seemed to hold ground, but it was very detail oriented and unfortunately, probably over the heads of many voters. One thing that surprised me was the emergence of Jon Huntsman as much more viable than I previously thought. Huntsman did everything he could to take jabs at the two frontrunners, compare his record in Utah to the records in Texas and Massachusetts, and stand apart as a candidate with a much more moderate point of view. He did his best to make counter points to every argument being discussed and prove himself as able to lead. I was surprised because before this debate, he seemed to be just a fly on the wall with no hope of gaining traction. Last night he proved himself much more viable as a candidate. Unfortunately with him being a much more moderate candidate, his chances of succeeding in winning the nomination when the primary electorate is even more right-leaning and partisan as ever, is slim at best. Another surprising announcement was Herman Cain's new tax plan (I missed it when he announced it on Labor Day). Calling it the 9-9-9 plan, his plan would replace the existing tax code with a nine percent tax on corporate income, a nine percent tax on personal income, and a nine percent national sales tax. This was surprising to me because Cain has always been an adamant supporter of the FairTax. I am not sure if this means he no longer supports the FairTax. My guess is that his advisors told him that he needed a plan of his own and not a plan already out there. I would like to see the numbers run on his 9-9-9 plan to see if they would collect enough revenue. Seems like it would since it is in the middle ground of the flat tax, which is 17% on all income, and the FairTax, which is 23% of all sales. Either way, I adamantly believe that the best and possibly the only way out of this mess is fundamental tax reform. Whether that is a flat tax, the FairTax, or Cain's 9-9-9 plan, I can support either one. The main point is it has to be sweeping across the board tax reform and not tweaks to the existing tax code. The last thing that stood out to me was the debate over Perry's executive order to require young girls to be vaccinated for HPV. Almost everyone on stage came out against Perry on the mandate, both in how it was done (via executive order) and the social implications involved. In what was a rare moment in the debate, Mitt Romney seemed to agree with Perry's intention on the requirement saying, "his heart was in the right place", though he thought doing so by executive order was the wrong way to go about it. To me this is another case of the GOP being anti-science. Perry said, "I hate cancer. Cervical cancer is caused by HPV. " These are the scientific facts, but to many in the party that doesn't
matter. Because HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, the argument is that vaccinating against HPV gives the green-light to young girls that it's now OK to have sex. To me that is a leap. If we had a vaccination campaign against HPV as we did diseases like polio and smallpox, the incidence of cervical cancers would most certainly drop since 70% are caused by HPV. Just another example of how the GOP's stance on social issues gets in the way of science. In the end I would have to say that the winners were Romney and Huntsman. Unfortunately, I think Huntsman is too moderate to win the republican nomination, but life is stranger than fiction sometimes. I would not say that Perry lost the debate. In fact, the first half of the debate he looked pretty good. Towards the end though, he started to stumble and lost focus. Because of that, I would say he didn't lose, but also didn't win. Though Cain came out with his new 9-9-9 tax plan, which I could definitely support, I don't think he has enough support to gain traction. Everyone else on stage, including Michele Bachmann, seemed to be an afterthought both during and after the debate. That makes them the losers this time around.
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