Don’t Sit Out the GOP Debates

By Ed Hoffman

Tonight, the top 10 Republican candidates will gather on a stage to publicly debate each other for the first time. Although two of my personal favorites did not make it into the top 10 – former Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, both of whom will participate in a lesser forum at a time of day when most people in our area are still at work – I’ll be watching the first debate tonight at 6:00 PM on the Fox News Channel, and so should you. Here are the things I’ll be looking for:

• Strength – I’m looking for strong, not smooth.
• A flat tax – Someone who wants to abolish the IRS.
• A plan for ISIS – Eliminating them, that is.
• Iran – As in, no deal for them.
• Energy independence – Someone who wants to drill on U.S. soil so we can make our own oil, rather than buying it from nations that harbor terrorists.
• School choice – No more teachers unions. I think we all know which candidate will be happy to talk about that.
• A spiritual foundation – I want an electable candidate that still has a strong spiritual foundation, with no spineless bowing to Muslim extremism.

Now, back to why you should watch no matter what. It doesn’t matter if Donald Trump offends you, you find Dr. Ben Carson boring or you’re still mad at Chris Christie for hugging the President four years ago. It doesn’t matter if you think Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and John Kasich are too soft on illegal immigration. It doesn’t matter whether you prefer “real conservatives” Scott Walker or Ted Cruz, or whether you wish Mike Huckabee had just kept his TV show and stayed out of the race.

Am I saying that your principles don’t matter? No, I’m saying that your personal feelings about the candidates don’t matter. What matters now is that these are the 10 people who have the best chance of preventing a Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders presidency.

If you love having your tax dollars funneled into more federal poverty programs that don’t work, Pell grants for prisoners to go to college, and national organizations that adjust their pregnancy termination techniques so they can get more money for “intact specimens” (also known as human babies), then go ahead and refuse to watch the debate. None of these candidates are going to further initiatives like these, so they probably don’t deserve your time. If you love full blown socialism and your moral compass is fairly dubious, then by all means, sit this one out.

And then, feel free to stay home on June 7, 2016 when it comes time to choose one of these candidates to be the Republican nominee. Of course, if you fit the description above then you’re probably not a registered Republican anyways – but you understand my logic, right? If you love the prospect of a Hillary Clinton coronation or a full-blown socialist like Bernie Sanders becoming president, then I guess you have no reason to watch the Republican primary debates. But if these possibilities scare you as much as they scare me, and you want something different for yourself, your family and America at large, then I guess you better watch – and vote. Brave men and women fought wars and died so that you could have the freedom to participate in a democracy – not so you could stay home and cling to your misguided principles.

Ed Hoffman is host of The Main Event on AM590, which airs Saturday 9:30AM- 10:30AM and Sunday 4:00PM- 5:00PM. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event 590.