Here is a fellow at the Atlantic who thinks the debate was won by. . . Rand Paul.
To me, Rand Paul did the worst at the debate, sounding whiny, incoherent, and weirdly resentful. His foreign policy is that of Pat Buchanan (who somehow made his way into my blogroll and now haunts my news intake). And what is staler than Buchanan?
I’m not usually up this early in the morning (about 4:20 a.m. Arizona time), but since roused out of bed by age-related fate, I’ll chance a comment. “The Atlantic” is a competent “intellectual” magazine, good at abstract brilliant thought that often has little relevance to the way the real world works at a practical level.
Rand Paul may have “won” intellectual points on isolated issues like the specific rules of the Geneva Convention and the First Amendment, but his isolationist policy has zero appeal to an electorate frightened by ISIS and Paris and San Bernardino, and isn’t going to get him any Republican votes. (The writers at “The Atlantic” will certainly never vote for him or any other GOP candidate.)
Most pundits on the Internet at this hour seem to think that the two candidates deemed most viable (electable) — Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — came off well, making them real contenders, regardless of certain of their specific views. We’ll see how that opinion holds over the course of the day.
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I really hope that people don’t respond positively to isolationist ideas. They are ridiculous in a globalizing world. You can’t check out of reality, you can’t close your eyes and pretend that makes you invisible. That’s not how the world works.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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