Last night, my daughter and I watched the Republican debate on the Youtube Fox News channel. This is the first time that I have seen a live broadcast on YouTube. “Can’t you put it on pause?” my daughter asked me, when I shushed her for interrupting. “No, I can’t,” I told her: “This is happening right now. It’s just like watching TV!” This impressed her for a moment, but clearly, it wasn’t the Disney Channel, and she did not find all of it to be equally entertaining.
We don’t get any television reception, we don’t pay for cable, and we don’t subscribe to a newspaper, so we are pretty much cut off from mainstream culture in real time. My daughter gets to watch TV when she visits friend’s houses, or at her grandmothers, or she can watch whatever happens to be available on YouTube. It’s been years since the antenna on our roof served any useful purpose. Now it acts as a lightning rod or a weathercock.
My daughter was impressed with Michele Bachmann when she said that our money is our own and we don’t have to give it to the government. I was not equally impressed, though, as Bachmann clearly wasn’t articulating a platform of zero taxation. Businessman Herman Cain, the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, was another new face we had not seen before. He has a very appealing personality and his 9999 flat rate taxation plan is better than some. However, my favorite remains Ron Paul. Here’s a clip of Ron Paul at the debate:
Notice he answers the question about the tenth amendment directly and is willing to stop right there. He doesn’t feel the need to engage in useless rhetoric. He isn’t like all the other politicians. He gives an honest answer to a direct question.
Perry and Romney were taking swipes at each other all night, believing themselves to be the front runners, and feeling no need to worry about the other candidates. But my eye is on Ron Paul. I’m not the only one. Every time Ron Paul finished speaking, the applause was deafening.
© 2011 Aya Katz
