I watched the debate tonight with most of my children gathered around my computer and some speakers plugged in so we could all hear it. Between frequent questions from different children wanting information about some of the answers (and there were some topics I didn’t want them to hear too much about), the phone ringing, dinner preparation, etc., I missed some of it, so I can’t write a good synopsis. I did appreciate that it opened with prayer and that the focus seemed to be bringing honor to God, though I believe many Christians are misguided about how that works out in government. I can understand why the four “top” candidates were no-shows, though I think they are cowards and foolish for not appearing in a place where the very important Christian voting base is strongly represented.

I had never heard Huckabee, the hero of many religious conservatives, before, and I was impressed by his humor and sincerity, but not wowed by either as I know that he has not been known for his fiscal restraint as governor of Arkansas. What did stand out to me in what I saw was that all of the candidates, while very likeminded with most of us Christian paleoconservatives, have no compunctions about using the power of the federal government to further their conservative agenda, even if the Constitution does not allow it. Poor Ron Paul came across like a broken record with his repeated assertions that if the Constitution does not allow it, then the federal government shouldn’t do it. He made a very good point that when you start messing around with granting power to the government for your “good” cause, then it might just come back to bite you when you are not in power. Duh. But did they get it? Some of them seemed downright peeved that he would dare to say such a thing to them.

I think he was talking about how wrong it is to have hate crimes legislation when Huckabee said that he was against anything that would weaken our commitment to the Constitution. That was shortly after he strongly stated his support for our unconstitutional, undeclared war. The poll of the attendees gave Huckabee an overwhelming declaration of victory for the event.

Alan Keyes rambled, John Cox came across as a know-it-all used car salesman (Pieter tells me he’s only raised $20,000 in a couple of months), Brownback showed his true colors as far as his pro-amnesty/pro-guest worker position goes. I’d like Tancredo as a candidate if he wasn’t so pro-war.

Some of the questions were disappointing, showing how much religious conservatives don’t understand the limited scope of powers the federal government ought to have. It seems like even the “right” side believes the president is really a king with super powers to transform the nation and make the world safe from evil.

Jessie Paine liveblogged the debate, and he has a synopsis of it here. I would be interested in hearing anyone else’s thoughts about the candidates in the debate this evening.