Saturday, July 15, 2023

Iowa

 It appears that Tucker Carlson unleashed from Fox News, might really be as effective as his previous ratings showed.    He single-handedly seems to have dashed the slim presidential hopes of 2-3 GOP candidates and perhaps slightly enhanced Vivek Ramswamy, whose answer about J6 was pretty impressive (It also had the benefit of paraphrasing the excuses offered for the 2020 riots).    I know he's not going to get the nomination, but he seems to have much of what people see as positive in Trump, with fewer negatives.   

Speaking of Trump, he wasn't at this event.   I can't help but wonder (in hindsight) if he wanted to avoid the interview with Carlson.   Or it's because that Iowa GOP seems to strongly dislike him because he's taking credit for getting the Iowa governor elected.  

3 comments:

Marshal Art said...

Just having arrived home after spending time in Illinois with the family and other close friends, I've yet to track down Carlson's interviews with the candidates. I've read a bit about it through a couple of articles at American Thinker, and in the comments I saw a good one regarding Ramaswamy's "Soros connection". He apparently has one and is trying to avoid talking about it and erasing all mention of it on his personal sites. I haven't dug into it, but it could by that his "connection" was more on the indirect side...benefiting without realizing how Soros is tied to it, or perhaps didn't realize what Soros is until after having availed himself. Then again, it could be something more...shall we say, "disagreeable", which should be addressed and resolved. Overall, I think the kid's pretty sharp, is likely to achieve many of his stated goals in the unlikely event he becomes president, but I would like to hear what he has to say about this "connection".

I believe I read that Trump had decided to avoid debates this time around, believing the other candidates need to prove themselves over his status as a known quantity. Not really a bad strategy on its face, but most would prefer he'd be out there duking it out. More so, I would have loved to hear what Carlson would ask him. I kinda think he'd pin him down on if he really thinks the "vaccines" were as beneficial as he seems to insist they were. That would be one line of questioning I think we'd hear. But I don't think the Iowa GOP would matter as to his decision. Just my opinion.

Craig said...

I think that Trump's decisions to avoid any debates or interviews that might be difficult for him, undermines the image he likes to portray of his being a fighter. If all he does is sits for interviews with people who aren't going to press him, then he's no better than Biden. From what I've heard the Iowa GOP is annoyed with him for his insistence that he's the only reason why their current governor won. I'd love to hear Carlson press him on that, his failure to "drain the swamp", his horrendous failures on the deficit (I know COVID drove part of that) and he recent claim that he's going to double down on the Biden proxy war in Ukraine. I'll be shocked if he's ever seriously pressed on these issues, and not shocked if it hurts him.

Marshal Art said...

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see his feet held to the fire, but I don't think he fears it so much as sees it as a losing proposition when his current situation finds him sitting pretty. Not an unintelligent move, actually, but it does leave others with the opportunity to turn the spotlight on themselves.

I've not heard that he's going to "double down on the Biden proxy war in Ukraine" given his history regarding foreign wars. Do you have some link to that you could offer?

I don't need Carlson to ask him about draining the swamp. Every candidate makes promises about what he's "going to do" with the justified presumption he won't be doing it alone. As an outsider, it's not unreasonable to accept that Trump didn't quite understand the extent to which the "Swamp" was at the time. Who would expect that opposition by members of one's own party during a primary campaign would continue during one's time in office? The extent to which that was true, I believe, was rather unprecedented. In addition, this is one of those unfulfilled promises which might have been fulfilled with another term immediately following the first which was unjustly denied him.

I always thought his spending was too much, so I'd love to hear his response to questions addressing the deficit, too.