Mr. and Mrs. GorT watched about two-thirds of the second Republican debate last night.  We both found it amusing, insightful, and a bit of a train wreck.  GorT jumped on Twitter for a while – and his secondary processing unit actually hit 4% utilization to process the heavy volume on our twitter stream.  Below are a few of our thoughts and reactions from the event:

1. Winner:  Carly Fiorina – she clearly set herself apart from the others.  She answered questions (with maybe one exception) well, steered the debate (see #4), stood fast against both the career politicians and Trump, and demonstrated her comprehension and position on a wide range of issues.  Chris Christie’s swipe at Trump and Fiorina’s back-and-forth over their corporate experience was aimed incorrectly – either by Christie or the subsequent interpretation – it was Jake Tapper and the CNN format that allowed that exchange.  Many of the politicians on the stage, including Christie, gave resume rundowns of what they did – including Christie.
2. Loser: Donald Trump – Never answered any question with a substantive answer.  Repeatedly dove into petty jabs at his opponents.  And here’s a little tip to “the Donald” – we have a sitting president who wasn’t really up on everything, didn’t give a lot of specifics, and said he would assemble the best team to help him.  Hmmmm.
3. Runner-up:  Marco Rubio – looked like a foreign policy rock-star.  He also steered clear of the mud-slinging for the most part.  His answers were clear and forceful.  Many tweets flew by on our feed touting an interest in a “Rubio/Fiorina” ticket for 2016.
4. Most Embarrassed:  CNN and Jake Tapper – look, GorT knows that Tapper isn’t really a hard-left media figure so I’m not calling CNN and Tapper out on a bias issue.  The issue was the format and moderation (or lack thereof).
   • One minute for a thoughtful and complete answer to the types of questions that were asked was too short.  Some candidates appeared to either ignore or weren’t beholden to the one-minute window.
   • The questions were, like I think Rubio pointed out, like a scene out of Mean Girls when the GOP’s Burn Book gets revealed.  The candidates, in many cases, took the better path and turned to the questions’ subjects and ignored the personal attacks.
   • Mrs. GorT pointed out that many were sweating – likely poor air handling under the bright (and hot) TV lights.  No one had a Nixon-esque failure and looked bad and I think it was corrected partway through the evening.
   • CNN’s intro was weird – it was as if they were covering someone else’s event with Wolf Blitzer on the floor and other hosts talking over the set up and introduction by Rance Priebus.
   • Jake Tapper had a difficult time controlling the flow and, at one point, GorT turned to Mrs. GorT and said, “So we’re talking about Planned Parenthood, Iran, Putin and illegal immigration all within the same original question”.
   • It was too long.  Period.  ’nuff said.

Here are some recommendations across the board:

1. Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Ted Cruz and all the candidates who didn’t “make the cut” for the primetime debate should pack it up and stop now.
2. Ben Carson – I like the idea of a total non-politician running for President* and Ben Carson has some great ideas.  He just, unfortunately, doesn’t have the right personality or delivery for the role, in my opinion.  Maybe some sort of cabinet post….?
3. Jeb Bush – it struck Mrs. GorT and I last night that, in fact, the last two Republican presidents were Bushes.  I don’t know if we need another Bush.  Even if he is “his own man”.  I think there is baggage there and a break from the same-ol’-same-ol’ would be good.  Please Stephen Colbert totally ruined (in an amusing way) any appearance by Jeb with his take on Jeb’s logo.  Jeb!
4. That leaves: Trump, Fiorina, Rubio, Walker, and Christie.  The latter two should stay for now, but get ready to angle for a cabinet post or look to keep their day-jobs.  Trump, in my opinion, will fail to produce realistic and substantial plans for the issues we face.  He’ll continue to tout generalizations (“I can build that wall.  I’ll just do it” – great Nike ad, but not a campaign)
5. I’d like to propose the following debate format to be held in the grand ballroom at Castle Gormogon.  The remaining five candidates above will be invited.  Topics will be sourced by public input and formulated and condensed by your esteemed Gormogons and presented in a brief summary statement that asks for the candidates’ platform and ideas.  Candidates will answer the questions within a two minute window with visible and audible warnings at 45 seconds, 30 seconds and the final 10 seconds.  Once time is expired, their microphone will be silenced.  If they continue to talk past 5 seconds over, a Get Smart-like Cone of Silence will drop over them.  In between each question, the panel of Gormogons will state whether the candidate addressed the topic…think: “Mr. Trump failed to address the question on the Iran nuclear deal.  Next up: Mr. Rubio”.  Candidates are free to use their two minutes as needed, with the caveat that they are subject to mocking and calling out by the Gormogons after each question.  Questions will be answered in turn, so each candidate answers, one after the other, and with each new question the order will be shuffled such that each candidate will have equal positioning in answering.

* Yeah, I know that Trump and Fiorina aren’t politicians as well….but Carson is closer to a Joe Somebody who hasn’t been part or privy to the political machine.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.