Cruz and Rubio on CNN Was Welcome Change from Debates
RUSH: I'll tell you, the Republican town hall last night on CNN with Anderson Cooper started off with Dr. Carson and then Rubio and then Cruz. And it was so much better than having these programmed press conferences called debates. Each guy got about 45 minutes Q&A with the host, and then they had audience questions. There was interaction. And what you had last night was on display was two brilliant, substantive Republican senators. Conservatives.
They had all the time that they needed to communicate their political views.
I thought it was impressive. You can nitpick and find some problems with what everybody says, but I'm talking about the difference in format from this pressure debate with the 60-second limit, the 30-second limit -- the buzzers going off everywhere, the audience applauding or booing and interrupting the procedure -- versus what happened last night, which was genuinely substantive. Each person had enough time for a personality to develop, for people watching to get to know somebody and their personality as opposed to just listening to rapid-fire explanations of policy and so forth.
And what a great contrast it was to Crazy Bernie and Hillary Clinton. I keep thinking -- I can't drop this -- had the Republican establishment not just sat down and sat on the sidelines for these last six years, we would have such a much different circumstance going on now. We would have had people the last six, seven years who had been able to demonstrate their chops in terms of opposing Obama, explaining why they oppose Obama, illustrating and exposing Obama and the Democrat Party.
But when the Republican Party sits down -- takes itself off the stage, off the field, out of the game -- there is no contrasting that goes on, and there's no explanation of who the Democrats and the liberals are. And last night, we finally got a little bit of that. It was no circus last night. I don't care what people are saying about the debates and how they are affecting the campaign. It was no circus last night. And I don't know how it's gonna shake out, if it'll mean anything. I don't know how many people watched.
I don't know for average, ordinary people not caught up in all of this, how compelling it was to stick with it for, well, three times 45, so 2-1/2 hours. And they're gonna do it again tonight. Anyway, we have audio sound bites from it that we'll treat you to 'cause I'm sure many of you didn't sit down and watch the entire thing. But we got the highlights.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/republican-town-hall-highlights/
RUSH: I'll tell you, the Republican town hall last night on CNN with Anderson Cooper started off with Dr. Carson and then Rubio and then Cruz. And it was so much better than having these programmed press conferences called debates. Each guy got about 45 minutes Q&A with the host, and then they had audience questions. There was interaction. And what you had last night was on display was two brilliant, substantive Republican senators. Conservatives.
They had all the time that they needed to communicate their political views.
I thought it was impressive. You can nitpick and find some problems with what everybody says, but I'm talking about the difference in format from this pressure debate with the 60-second limit, the 30-second limit -- the buzzers going off everywhere, the audience applauding or booing and interrupting the procedure -- versus what happened last night, which was genuinely substantive. Each person had enough time for a personality to develop, for people watching to get to know somebody and their personality as opposed to just listening to rapid-fire explanations of policy and so forth.
And what a great contrast it was to Crazy Bernie and Hillary Clinton. I keep thinking -- I can't drop this -- had the Republican establishment not just sat down and sat on the sidelines for these last six years, we would have such a much different circumstance going on now. We would have had people the last six, seven years who had been able to demonstrate their chops in terms of opposing Obama, explaining why they oppose Obama, illustrating and exposing Obama and the Democrat Party.
But when the Republican Party sits down -- takes itself off the stage, off the field, out of the game -- there is no contrasting that goes on, and there's no explanation of who the Democrats and the liberals are. And last night, we finally got a little bit of that. It was no circus last night. I don't care what people are saying about the debates and how they are affecting the campaign. It was no circus last night. And I don't know how it's gonna shake out, if it'll mean anything. I don't know how many people watched.
I don't know for average, ordinary people not caught up in all of this, how compelling it was to stick with it for, well, three times 45, so 2-1/2 hours. And they're gonna do it again tonight. Anyway, we have audio sound bites from it that we'll treat you to 'cause I'm sure many of you didn't sit down and watch the entire thing. But we got the highlights.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/republican-town-hall-highlights/