My first impression of the Republican Debate last Wednesday is that the candidates live in a different world than I do. In their world, the economy was doing great until Obama became president, 9-11 apparently happened on Clinton’s watch after which Bush the Younger did keep us safe, and the possibility of making a deal with Iran will result in the end of the world as we know it. Trump even said that, if Israel goes to war against Iran, we will have to take Iran’s side.

Everybody expected the debate to revolve around Trump and he did get the more airtime than anybody else – to a great extent because the debate rules gave everybody the time to answer attacks and the other candidates were constantly attacking him – but I don’t think he was the center of the debate. Watching Trump, I was reminded of  the George Cohan quote, I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you say something about me, and as long as you spell my name right. I went into the debate thinking that Trump is an egomaniac and I was not disappointed but I also kept thinking Trump has hit a nerve and the Democrats keep thinking that there is no nerve there, I think that is a mistake.

At one point, Trump and Carly Fiorina tussled and I was surprised at how much Trump knew about Fiorina’s Hewlett Packard career  disastrous experience (I was also surprised that he knew the word persona). We live less than ten driving miles away from HP and Fiorina’s mistakes were big news here and I think Trump was pretty much right. About the time the smart money was realizing that computers were becoming a commodity in a saturated market, Fiorina forced a $19 billion merger with computer manufacturer Compaq that is still haunting the company. If I were going to vote for a business person for President – and I won’t because government and business are very different, business is a dictatorship designed to operate in secret to make money and government should be open and transparent, helping people; it is a stupid idea, just look at Chaney – I would vote for Trump over Fiorina.

As an aside, that is not to say that either Trump or Fiorina are stupid. They both know how to take care of themselves: Trump bankrupted four companies while making money for himself and Fiorina was fired and given a Twenty Million Dollar severance package to get her out of the trashed HP. End aside.

The three people I liked the best were Rand Paul,  Ben Carson, and John Kasich, the Governor of Ohio. Maybe I should say The three people who I started out liking best because each of them would start out saying something that make sense and then they would wander off into fantasyland. Like Rand Paul saying For every Kentuckian that has enrolled in Obamacare, 40 have been dropped from their coverage, or, from Ben Carson, A lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay, or my fave from Rand Paul, again, saying The president is advocating a drone strike program in America. 

The three people I liked worst were Jeb! Bush who wants to put Margaret Thatcher on the ten dollar bill – WTF? – Mike Huckabee who wants to make the USA a theocracy, and Ted Cruz who wants to shut the government down.

It is a sobering thought that one of these guys will end up actually running for President.