Last Saturday night, six presidential hopefuls (Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman) took the stage in New Hampshire for the 417th debate of this election cycle. Ok, I made that number up, but it sure does feel like it, doesn’t it?
The economy still sucks, Iran has a nuclear program, and we’re dealing with a Mexican drug war along our southern border, so naturally the debate moderators focused on birth control and gay marriage. Wait, what?
Saturday night’s debate was the most social-issue heavy debate thus far, with candidates discussing marriage equality and whether or not states should have the right to ban contraceptives for over an hour before moving onto the economy. Just when things started to get substantive, the debate was cut short and we were moved to post-debate analysis.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney summed up his feelings on the ridiculous line of questioning when George Stephanopoulos asked him about condoms and states rights. Romney dismissed the question as “silly,” saying that no state wants to ban contraceptives, so why bother asking such a dumb question? He said, “Contraception, it's working just fine. Leave it alone.”
Can we please leave lame hypothetical questions out of the debate and talk about something that matters, like how we can balance the budget, or repealing Obamacare, or lowering gas prices or keeping our country safe from those that will attack us? Republican voters are hungry for a legitimate conversation on issues that are forefront in our minds.
Birth control, gay marriage, and anything falling under the ‘social issue umbrella’ needs to take a backseat right now to economic prosperity and national security. We have a president who is spending our way toward bankruptcy, who bows to foreign leaders, who won’t let us drill our own oil, and who believes that Republicans threaten the very core of what America stands for.
Will these gotcha questions continue in the general election after the GOP has settled on a candidate? Will Diane Sawyer ask Obama if he thinks states should be able to outlaw condoms? Or is that above his pay grade?
Get it together, mainstream media. Start asking some real questions, or your relevancy will become completely obsolete.
Image via fibonacciblue/flickr
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Comments 51
@Phyllis - If you can't figure that out, you're probably too old to be on facebook...
@Jice - As long as Republicans use issues like gay marriage and abortion to garner votes, they have an obligation to address them fully. You can't have it both ways.
You are absolutely right, pish on those pesky social issues. Except that whichever GOP candidate you vote for, regardless of his solutions for the economy, foreign policy etc. is going to be bring all of his bigotry with him. Their stance on these pesky social issues could potentially affect my daughters and granddaughters for years. NO THANK YOU to the GOP theocracy. Nice try Jenny, let's pretend that your only reason for this post is to deflect attention to the bat crap crazy ideas they want to bring with them.
do matter to some people, a lot of
people actually. They don't matter to you right now because you already know these people share your social agenda. I guarentee you that if democrats were also in the primary and debating this stuff you would care.
These topics SHOULDN'T be issues yet sadly they are.
These are very important issues. Are you kidding me? Half of these people don't even know anything about birth control. Do I want a persident who has no idea what he is talking about? ummm, no. That was the problem with George W AND his daddy. You don't get to president just because you have money. You need to know what is going on in this country. And have ideas on how to fix it. The job rate has actually improved and is better right now than it has been in about a decade. I see signs advertising jobs all over the place, and I get that alot of them pay less than the assistance that the government is giving people which is why people are not taking them. It doesn't make it right.