Debates = zzzzzzz....

So I have been watching these debates, which even a former White House Press Secretary agrees that there have been too many, in fact "There have been 18 Courtney! 18!" is what he expressed to me today when I ran into him, and let's face the facts that Americans are tuning out of these televised way too heavily covered debates. 

They have produced the same talking points from every major network out, some more than one time, and consequently the same answers. If the American public tuning into these debates or watching and reading the commentary about them has not grasped the message that Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, or Ron Paul yet then there is something wrong with our citizens. 

Focusing on the bore that was last night's debate, covered by NBC, moderated by Brian Williams, and tuned out by most viewers after about 10 minutes, I was concerned with the moderators policy questions. He did not mention the name of President Barack Obama until the last question. This I found very interesting as this could have been the perfect time for the candidates to hit on what they would mention if they had a State of The Union address today. You know, maybe challenging their real qualities to be a leader of the free world. Williams chose to focus more on the social issues, which the Republicans have not shown their strongest suit in. The audience was not allowed to participate by applauding, which resulted in zero energy for the candidates to feed off of. Overall a dull debate that brought the new term "self-deportation" into the mix as Romney stumbled over an immigration question. Ron Paul again had hardly any questions or answers given, go figure. Santorum showed that he should be the new face of the Republican party with a well formulated answer at the end of the debate steamrolling Gingrich and Romney's answers of the evening. 

I was left to wonder after the debate if there was going to be a rumble between Romney and Gingrich or if NBC chose to not even mention the State of the Union so the Republican candidates could not compete with the headline that is supposed to belong to Obama today? hmmm....