We Have Had Enough Debates

Nineteen debates televised nationally is too many. If the people of Florida or any other state want to attend a debate, or watch it on statewide TV, before a GOP primary, I would agree wholeheartedly.

But, 19 national debates is finally :

-         boring because everything has been said a hundred times,

-         degrading for the participants, because as they search for new ways to express their views and to attack the other participants, things necessarily turn into personal diatribes that have little to do either with the election’s key issues or the personalities of the candidates.

-         very likely to make the TV viewers wonder if any of the candidates is qualified to be President because of the personal attacks, negative innuendo, and revelations that are not documented, proven or even true most of the time.

I admired Ron Paul’s and Mitt Romney’s good natured participation in last night’s Florida debate. It must be very difficult to begin a debate in the knowledge that one will be excoriated for being a normal human being, a description that I cannot in all honesty apply to either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. But Paul and Romney took the heat, responded as logically as the attacks permitted, and smiled as they watched the theatrics of Santorum and Gingrich.

Finally, just one good word for Rick Santorum. He was right last night in asking if all the candidates could please get on with talking about the issues instead of hashing over who is rich or a lobbyist.

I sincerely hope that the good people of Florida have had enough of Gingrich’s squalid personal attacks on Mitt Romney in the two debates in their state and will find that the only reasonable course of action is to vote for Romney - because we need to put these debates behind us. They have served their purpose in winnowing the field and in highlighting each candidate’s opinions, policies, personality and action under pressure.

It is now time to take the debate to Barak Obama, because that is where the real issues lie and where the election will be won or lost for America.