2023 Republican Face-Off: A Fresh Perspective

The Real Clear Podcast with Dr Lucas Klein is the in-depth analysis and commentary on current political events through a psychological lens. The Real Clear podcast covers a wide range of topics, from the latest election results to policy debates, to exploring the impact of current events on the political landscape.

Transcript

Hi folks, here's my reaction to the first GOP debate of 2023. Starting from the outside, there were two very old, strange men not worth talking about, one of whom was nice, one of whom was kind of odd. It's not clear why either of them are in the debate and we're not going to pass comment on them. They're probably in just for some downstream effect of a donor notoriety. Okay, moving inward, we then have Chris Christie the bruiser and Tim Scott on the other side. Tim Scott did just fine. He made some great points regarding family structure and resilience, and he'll be a person to watch. Chris Christie is there obviously only to beef up his own public salience so that he can negotiate more for his commentary contracts on cable news. Other than that, I don't know why the man's there. He made one quippy comment about Ramaswami and that's all he had to give. Ramaswami, of course, is the man to beat at this point in terms of publicity and debate handling. Okay, so he was on fire. He was a little too much on fire. Ramaswami campaign. If you're listening, tone it down a little bit. I get it. He was excited. He's really smart, he's really quick, but he's got to tone it down a little bit, so he gets that kind of peaceful vibe. You know that you could sit down and have a beer with a guy and kind of chill out. Right now it seems like he's always on a rocket ship, but the rocket ship is really impressive. The man cannot be smited out. Christie failed, pence failed and they all tried Haley even tried to get him. It didn't work. The man, he's just too resilient, he's too smart and he's my guy. In case you haven't guessed it, he needs to convince the country a bit more on foreign policy. I think people are questioning what he really is going to do at the level of statehood regarding Russia and China and Taiwan and Ukraine. He needs to flush that out and make it more digestible. Okay, mike Pence oh God, I forgot what a good debater he is. Actually I don't want to be too hard on the guy as a tactician. He's a very solid debater, but what a holy roller. Here's an actual clip that I put in my podcast regarding Mike Pence's performance. Here it goes.

Speaker 2:2:49

I had Jesus Christ visit me last night and tell me that I should tell the American people that once again I am God's choice for President of the United States. Through all humility, through all humility, I have to say that when I open the Bible I swear sometimes they're talking about me and I really mean that through all humility. I walk down the streets of Christ's America every day and I know I should be your president.

Speaker 1:3:17

Okay, guys, we don't need that anymore. Let's give it up. Let's send the holy rollers back. That's just not the man for the times. Please get them off the stage. Okay, and my guy, ron DeSantis what a disappointment. Maybe he showed that he rose above the fray because he really didn't get into it. There's a strategy there. I thought he was going to be going after Vivek, because his campaign, a super PAC strategy, literally stated that one of their bullet points was Hammer Vivek, and he really didn't do that and he didn't get hammered himself. So he's kind of going the diplomatic route, which has its points to it, but in his delivery he was muted. He was really not very charismatic. He didn't deliver things with power. He came across kind of like a Boy Scout with taglines. So I was disappointed to see that. Although on substance he did fine and we'll see what happens, whether he can wake up and start sparking a bit more what this is likely going to come down to is Ramaswami, haley and DeSantis in a final three, and we'll see what happens there. Tim Scott may surprise people and stay in and mix it up with them. So okay, folks, that's where we are now and in terms of running mates for the likely Trump tickets, going to be Ramaswami or Scott as far as I see it, although there could be an outsider that we haven't thought of yet. Okay, see you next time.