Kiddie Table

When Fox News decided to only invite 10 candidates to the main stage for the first Republican primary debate, one really interesting side effect was that it created seven leftover candidates who didn't make the debate.  I don't know if this was the plan from the start, or if they decided to do this later, but Fox decided to have a sort of JV debate a few hours before the main debate. 

It's one of the saddest things I've ever seen in politics.  They're in the same arena as they're using for tonight, but it's completely empty right now.  And they're using the exact same set, including not even removing the three podiums that are empty because this debate has three less people.  These guys are basically doing the sound check for the real debate.  Ouch.

The kiddie debate is being moderated by Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum.  Oy.

5:01PM - Hemmer is on fire right off the bat, referring to Bobby Jindal as the "acting" Governor of Louisiana.  The phrase Bill was looking for was "sitting Governor", or "current Governor".  Acting Governor is the guy who takes over in the interim when we find out that Bobby is actually a little kid and four raccoons in a man suit.

5:03PM - MacCallum starts off hot for real by asking Carly Fiorina if comparing herself to Margaret Thatcher was "a stretch".  You said it Martha.  Carly dodged the question and rambled about leadership for a while.  She said she knows more world leaders than any other candidate except maybe Hillary Clinton.  So does Bono, but he's not going to be President either.

5:06PM - Bobby Jindal's answer to why he's so unpopular in his own state was that he didn't run for Governor to be popular.  The more people hate me, the more they'll probably vote for me...Jindal 2016!

5:07PM - Hemmer asked Lindsey Graham how Republicans can trust him since he actually thinks climate change might be a problem.  Lindsay, giving a genuinely solid answer, says that he's a good candidate because he won't spend time arguing with Hillary Clinton about the science, he can argue with her about the solution.  His solution?  Find more fossil fuel in the United States, but use less.  Awesome plan.  There's literally no way that could go wrong.

5:10PM - Pataki just said we need to end crony capitalism.  Someone needs to revive Lindsey Graham. 

5:10PM - Jim Gilmore says that Rory and Lorelai had one of the most realistic and relatable mother/daughter relationships in the history of television.  I don't know about that, but like I've said before, dark hair and blue eyes works just fine for me.  I wish Jim would make another show about that.

5:12PM - It took the moderators 12 minutes to ask these people about Donald Trump, who isn't actually in this debate.  Rick Perry took the opportunity to talk about Texas border security.  Fiorina suggested that we ask Trump how he would govern.  Megyn Kelly shouted "no thank you" from the back of the room.

5:15PM - Jindal says we need to take the political handcuffs off the military.  Bobby Jindal's rules of engagement appear to be "kill whatever you see!".   I'd hate to be the President who has to clean up whatever mess Bobby would make.

5:16PM - Graham says we need to destroy ISIL before they come to America, and says our strategy for ISIL should be "whatever it takes, as long as it takes".  OK so put Lindsey down for indefinite war against an enemy he in no way understands.

5:21PM - MacCallum asked Pataki if he would put mosques under surveillance.  She added "keep in mind that conservatives are very concerned about religious liberty".  Right, but that's not really the kind of liberty they're talking about, is it?  Not surprisingly, George didn't answer the question.  He did mention that he was the Governor of New York on 9/11.  I had completely forgotten that, so you can tell he really made an impact.

5:24PM - Fiorina says it's disturbing that after terrorist attacks we usually find out that there were warnings and dots that weren't connected.  Gilmore Girls took that opportunity to point out that we had warnings about the 9/11 attacks before they occurred.  He's really asking for a Dick Cheney face shooting.  Bill Hemmer quickly jumped in with "shhhhh Jim, we don't talk about that here".

5:28PM - Rick Santorum says his dad was willing to wait to be an American, and immigrants today should be willing to wait because we're a nation of laws.  Can we at least admit that the world was slightly different 100 years ago, and that maybe not everything can just be the same as it was then?

5:30PM - Perry just pointed out that Reagan signed a law that amounted to amnesty.  Don't these guys get any of the Republican memos?  Also, Texas apparently has some kind of border protection plane that flies around and watches the border.  Who gave Texas planes?  That was a bad idea.

5:35PM - MacCallum asked Graham how you get Americans to take a job instead of a handout.  Oh Martha, I had such high hopes for you.  Graham, to his credit, didn't take the bait and said that Americans will work if given the opportunity, and then took the opportunity to attack Hillary for 90 seconds and point out that he'll monitor mosques if he has to, even though nobody asked him that.  So that answer was sort of a mixed bag from Lindsey.

5:37PM - MacCallum went fishing again with the same question, this time to Santorum.  Rick also mostly didn't take the bait.  Rick took the time to talk about his plan to grow manufacturing jobs by instituting a 20% flat tax.  I'm not sure a giant tax hike for poor people is the best way to help them, but I'm not a fancy economist.

5:39PM - Gilmore wants to cut everyone's taxes, but especially rich people.  They get a cut all the way down to 20% and no more estate tax.  I was just getting a little hopeful about Jim.  Can we just get Rory Gilmore next time?  She's so pretty.

5:41PM - Jindal points out that Barack Obama has weakened America by running up our huge national debt to China.  I keep forgetting that we had no debt until 2009. 

5:43PM - Hemmer keeps asking people if they would have expanded Obamacare in their state like John Kasich did.  Pataki talked about how he created workfare in New York but let people keep their health care, but then still said he would repeal Obamacare.  George has complicated feelings about poor people and health care.

5:48PM - MacCallum asked Perry why it's OK for us to be allies with Saudi Arabia, which funnels money to anti-American groups, but it's not OK for Iran to have money to funnel to anti-American groups.  Rick very angrily responded that it's not OK for Iran to get a nuclear weapon, so there.  Rick then said Carly Fiorina would have gotten a better deal with Iran than John Kerry did.   Carly's main argument on foreign policy appears to be that she knows everyone in the world.

5:52PM - Oh Rick.  You know, I want to believe Rick Santorum can conduct himself like a serious grown up.  But then he stands up on TV and, with a straight face, says that the Supreme Court's recent same sex marriage decision was just like the Dred Scott decision.  Those two court decisions are literal opposites.  I regret everything I said last week about Rick possibly being a serious candidate.  Apparently, he really can't help himself.

5:54PM - Hemmer asked Gilmore if he would impose an abortion litmus test on Supreme Court judges.  His answer involved creating a middle east NATO.  I think Bill and Martha are losing control a little bit.

5:58PM - Pataki points out that you don't have to be pro-abortion to be pro-choice, but somehow he would still defund Planned Parenthood even though no federal money goes to funding abortions at Planned Parenthood.  Republicans feel the same way about Planned Parenthood as I feel about Hillary Clinton.  They don't like it and you can't penetrate their feelings with logic.

6:01PM - Bobby Jindal says he would use the whole federal government to attack Planned Parenthood if he became President.  Bobby's first day would be pretty eventful.  He later said he'd also sign an executive order making sure Christians don't face discrimination. 

6:02PM - Graham says we should take the money from Planned Parenthood and put it toward women's health care without having to harvest organs from little babies.  Is that how it works?  Do you have to harvest some organs before you get any health care at Planned Parenthood.  Shit.  That sounds terrible. 

6:02PM - Graham also pointed out that if you want to see a real war on women you should go to the middle east.  Way to raise the bar Lindsey.  We treat women better than ISIS does.  Hooray!

6:04PM - Graham says he'd restore the NSA to what it was on his first day in office.  It took five guys to stop Rand Paul from running onto the stage.

6:06PM - Santorum would also sign some kind of first amendment protection order to stop everyone from discriminating against Christians.  This is such a weird persecution complex.  America is awesome for Christians.  I should know, I went to Catholic school.  I was never discriminated against for being a Christian, not once, not in my whole life.  Never.  That literally never happened to me.

6:07PM - MacCallum mentioned Reagan and all the candidates swooned.  MacCallum challenged every candidate to say something inspiring like Reagan would.  Santorum referred to himself as a child of Ronald Reagan.  I think we just broke some news.

6:10PM - Graham has said "whatever it takes" about the war on terror at least 5 times.  Lindsey made a really impassioned argument in favor of social security.  It was genuinely touching and completely unexpected.  Politics is weird sometimes.

6:12PM - Hemmer asked all seven people to describe Hillary Clinton in two words.  Not one of them was able to stick to two words.  That pretty much sums it up.

6:12PM - Santorum and Perry are wearing the exact same outfit. 

6:14PM - Perry says we need a "corporate executive type" as President.  There are multiple corporate executive types in the Republican field, but Rick isn't one of them.  Classic Perry.

6:17PM - Fiorina reminds us that she is not a member of the political class.  I have no idea what I'm doing...Fiorina 2016!

6:17PM - Everything Graham says sounds like he's on the verge of tears.  Is that how people talk in South Carolina?  That would be a really confusing and alarming place to live.

Speaking of alarming and confusing, the first part of tonight's Republican festivities is over.  I said last week I'm going to have to vote for one of these 17 Republicans.  Well, you cross these seven off the list.  Luckily, Fox pretty much already has.  See you later tonight.

Willard's House of Zingers

If you haven't been following political news over the last few days, you may not be aware that Mitt Romney has spent the last couple of months memorizing zingers for the Presidential debates.  I guess they figured Mitt's own comedy stylings about how poor people are lazy and useless wouldn't play to a national audience.

I honestly can't think of a better example of how the Romney campaign is a total disaster.  First, they take a candidate who already seems wooden and robotic and try to pre-program him with witty one-liners, as if that will do anything other than make him sound more robotic and disingenuous.  And then, they leak the story before the debates.  So now, even if Mitt actually does think of something spontaneous and funny to say all on his own, nobody will believe it was spontaneous, or that Mitt thought of it.  Well done.

I grew up believing that Republicans were the grown-ups.  That maybe they didn't always have the best ideas, but they were always the best at running campaigns and winning political fights.  The McCain campaign was a three ring circus without a ring leader, and the Romney campaign is making the McCain campaign look like it was run by a highly skilled team of Nobel laureates.  This doesn't bode well for the party, is I guess what I'm saying.

Anyway, it's time for another debate.  Unfortunately, it's just Romney and Obama this time.  I don't know why they couldn't have invited some of the other Republican candidates just for fun.  I miss Herman Cain shouting random numbers at me, and Michele Bachmann staring me down with her crazy eyes, and Rick Santorum spewing hate from behind his comfy and safe sweater vest.  Actually, I don't really miss that last one. 

On a more serious note, why doesn't Gary Johnson get to play tonight?  He's on the ballot everywhere.  How did we wind up with such a rigged system?  I hope Gary Johnson charges the stage from the audience like an NBA draft pick who wasn't invited to the green room.  If it happens, Gary has my vote, even if the Secret Service kills him.

Here we go...fair warning, I expect this to be pretty boring and quite maddening.  Proceed with caution.

9:00PM: Tonight's moderator is PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, so each candidate will be leaving with a complimentary tote bag.  (I've been practicing my zingers too...Zing!)

9:01PM: I'm watching on CNN tonight because, well, because I feel sorry for CNN.  I might switch to Fox a few times just to see if they're doctoring the audio or digitally darkening Obama's side of the stage.

9:02PM: Lehrer's review of the rules was already PBS-caliber long and boring.  He says the crowd has promised to be silent.

9:04PM: We're starting with the economy.  Ohhhh!  The one thing neither of these guys wanted to talk about.

9:04PM: Obama just wished his wife a happy anniversary.  I couldn't be less interested in that, -1 point.

9:05PM: The first question was simply "what are the major differences between the two of you on how you'd create jobs?".  Obama went first and spent 0 seconds answering that question, finishing with "I'm looking forward to having that debate".  Psst...you're having it right now!

9:07PM: Romney's got a five point job plan.  #5 was about small businesses and, as far as I could tell, was the only one that actually sort of related to jobs.

9:09PM: Both of these guys have already talked about improving our education system.  I suspect neither of them have any idea how to do that.  I also have no idea, but I'm not running for President.

9:10PM: Obama keeps saying he agrees with Governor Romney on stuff.  He knows this is a debate, right?

9:11PM: Mitt Romney just said he doesn't have a tax cut in his economic plan.  I'm 100% positive that isn't even remotely true.  Also, did you know the President is personally responsible for gas prices?  I didn't know that either.

9:13PM: Three minutes later, Romney said he wants to lower tax rates.  My head hurts already.

9:13PM: Romney, "I like coal".  He added, "clean coal".  OK, but just to be clear, clean coal isn't a real thing.

9:16PM: Romney swears he doesn't want a 5 trillion dollar tax cut, and he won't "reduce the taxes paid by upper income Americans".  But then again said he wants to bring down rates.  I think Mitt's struggling with what words mean.

9:19PM: Obama is hammering Mitt with math.  Americans don't like math Mr. President...and, from the looks of it, neither does Mitt.

9:20PM: I just noticed that Mitt's American flag lapel pin is at least twice as big as Obama's.  Breaking news on Fox, Mitt is at least twice as American as the President.

9:21PM: According to the focus group response lines on CNN, the ladies love them some Obama.

9:22PM: Breaking news from Mitt, businesses don't want businesses to have to pay higher tax rates.  Important point about Mitt here, he looks at governing in terms of what businesses want, and what's good for businesses.  If you like that, you should probably vote for Mitt.  Me?  I'm not voting for Mitt.

9:23PM: Obama says he has math, common sense and our history on his side.  Yeah right, three things that all have a well known liberal bias.

9:27PM: Mitt promises to cut all government programs that aren't worth borrowing money from China to pay for, including "Obamacare" and PBS.  He said he likes Big Bird, but still no funding for PBS.

9:29PM: Mitt is smirking while Obama is talking about how the last Republican President burned down the economy and left it for Obama to clean up.  See, it's funny because Mitt wants to do the same thing again.

9:31PM: Romney thinks the President should have jumped on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan.  Mitt doesn't actually support Simpson-Bowles, but he thinks the President should have.  He probably thinks the President should have supported it a year ago and then changed his mind a few times.

9:33PM: Mitt is throwing a medium sized tantrum about raising taxes.  Another important distinction here.  Obama wants to get more revenue by collecting more revenue, Romney wants to get more revenue through the magic power of tax cuts.  One of those things sounds more plausible.

9:36PM: Apparently Obama met a stripper in Vegas with 42 kids, or, er, a teacher in Vegas with 42 kids in her class.  Whatever, I hate these stupid stories about random people candidates met.

9:37PM: Romney just got a text message from Rick Santorum, who is infuriated because Mitt hasn't yet mentioned how the gays are destroying America.

9:38PM: Romney just mocked the Obama administration for investing in alternative energy.  Yeah, fuck that shit!  Oil and coal are an infinite resource, we just have to keep digging.

9:40PM: It's very important to Lehrer that we understand which segment of the debate we're currently in.

9:43PM: Mitt just invited people over 60 to stop listening.  Don't worry Mitt, they're mostly asleep by now, along with pretty much everyone else.  Come on, Mitt!  What happened to the zingers?

9:44PM: They're talking about social security and medicare now.  This is basically just a competition to see who can do a better job of demonizing the other guy.

9:45PM: Mitt wants to be very clear that his terrible plan to turn medicare into a voucher program will only screw "future people".

9:46PM: I would describe Mitt Romney's performance tonight as smirktastic.

9:48PM: Important point here.  Romney claims his medicare idea will give people a choice between the current medicare model or private plans, but that's not really true because sucking money out of the current model and putting it into private insurance will weaken and ultimately kill the current model, leaving people with no choices, which is approximately when the prices go back up.

9:51PM: Romney says he would repeal and replace Dodd-Frank.  I mean, you know, he'd get around to replacing it, eventually.

9:53PM:  If Mitt's been practicing his zingers, Barack's been practicing his incredibly long, slightly exasperated pauses.

9:55PM: Blaming people who took out mortgages they couldn't really afford for the financial crisis is one of the stupider Republican talking points.  "Yeah!  How dare those poor people try to have a place to live!"

9:56PM: Mitt wants to repeal Obamacare because businesses can't afford it.  You hear this from Republicans a lot, and it's a scam.  Republicans are the ones who made sure the Affordable Care Act did nothing to lower costs, and now they're bitching because it didn't lower costs.

10:00PM: I predict Republicans will hammer the President after this debate for attacking profits.  It'll be a lie, but they'll do it anyway and it'll probably work.

10:01PM: How did it become the President's fault that he had to do everything without any Republican support?  "Yeah, it's that mean President, he turned us all into a bunch of crying toddlers!"  Doesn't the President actually deserve credit for doing things with the legislative equivalent of one arm tied behind his back?

10:04PM: Obama just said Cleveland Clinic is one of the best health care systems in the world.  I'm sorry, I refuse to believe anything associated with Cleveland is the best in the world at anything.

10:08PM: Nobody in the federal government is taking over health care you crazy idiot!

10:10PM: Obama just asked if Romney is keeping all of his plans secret because they're just so good.  I think I saw Mitt writing that one down.  Best line of the night.

10:12PM: Romney appears to be talking hypothetically about a number of possible things a President Romney could do about health care, but he's unwilling to actually pick one because he says he shouldn't go into office with a plan that he wants to ram through.  That's not a terrible approach as long as you have a Congress to work with that's useful and competent.  We have one of those, right?  Right?

10:13PM:  I'm pretty sure the camera just caught Mitt flirting with the audience, or Lehrer.

10:17PM: Mitt still hasn't mentioned how the gays are ruining everything, or how using birth control makes a woman a slut.  Does he know he's a Republican?

10:18PM: Romney. "it's time for a new path".  He added, "I mean, I'm proposing the same path we were on like four years ago, so it's more like a certified pre-owned path, but still".

10:22PM: I'm not 100% sure Mitt is familiar with his own platform.

10:23PM: My biggest take away from this debate is that Mitt Romney LOVES him some business.

10:27PM: Obama just used the word "principled".  Someone get Mitt a dictionary.

10:29PM: I didn't hear one zinger tonight, but maybe we just don't know what Mitt thinks a zinger is.

Final Thought: I don't understand how Romney can spend 18 months running as a fringe conservative and then show up tonight talking like some kind of bi-partisan moderate.  Sadly, I suspect people who weren't paying attention before now may fall for it.  But then again, you never really know who the real Mitt is.  Maybe it's the fringe conservatives that fell for it.  Mitt's a puzzle.

The media literally can't wait to tell me how Romney dominated this debate.  As someone who's been paying attention the whole time, I didn't really see it that way because I know Mitt lied a bunch of times, but I can see how someone who just starting paying attention would see this as a pretty solid Romney win.  Which leads me to ask, was the media not really paying attention before now?

Maybe I'll spend some time tomorrow night putting together some coherent thoughts about what I just saw, or maybe not, I don't know.  Either way, see you at the next debate.

Planet Mitt

I once had a job where I answered phones all day.  It was really fun and when we worked on weekends we'd play spades sometimes when the phones weren't busy.  If you get a bad hand in spades, you can bid nil and then instead of trying to win tricks you're trying to not win any.  There's a bonus if you succeed in not winning any and a penalty if you don't.

I'm wondering if maybe Mitt Romney bid nil on this election and forgot to tell us.  I've been thinking for weeks that people shouldn't rush to judgment so quickly every time Mitt does something stupid.  There's still so much time left, and three debates and all that.  But man, there's a limit to how much stupid you can make up for in debates, especially since the President is awesome at debating and Romney spent a year arguing with that clown car full of idiots (and Ron Paul). 

The other side of the argument is expectations for Mitt in the debates are so low that anything short of setting the building on fire or actually killing a poor person on live TV will be a win for him.  I don't know though, I think he needs some new ideas.  Romney campaign people, get ready to start writing (assuming you can read and write which, judging by the campaign you've run so far, may be a poor assumption).

Idea #1
Replacement Mitt.  Do you know how much I used to hate NFL referees?  If you had asked me, just last year, if I believed trained chimps could do a better job officiating games than the NFL referees, I would have said "of course!  They certainly couldn't be any worse!"

Now?  I mean, holy crap!  I was one of those people who thought I wouldn't miss the referees.  The last time I was that wrong about something I was telling you that Charlie Crist was going to be the next Senator from Florida.  Charlie Who?  Exactly!  How much better would Mitt look if he let Rick Santorum take his place for a couple of weeks?  Rick Santorum makes Mitt Romney look like Franklin Roosevelt.  How do you think Mitt got the nomination in the first place?  There may not be enough time left for Mitt to pull this strategy off successfully, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Idea #2
Helper monkey.  The best part about the helper monkey strategy is Mitt wouldn't have to change anything else.  Look, Mitt's biggest problem is still that nobody likes him.  Now imagine you're watching a Romney speech.  Everything is the same as always.  Mitt's spouting nonsense talking points, not really saying anything, wishing someone would come along and change him into a real boy.  All of that is still happening, but also, there's a little monkey running around getting Mitt juice and holding up his cue cards.  How much more would you like Mitt at that point?  A lot more, you say?  Exactly.

Idea #3
This is a little something I like to call "pulling a Sting".  Remember WCW in the mid 90's after they started the NWO.  Before the NWO, Sting was one of WCW's top stars.  Once the NWO came along, Sting stopped talking for like a year.  He just hung out in the rafters of the building pointing his baseball bat at Hulk Hogan. 

Wouldn't Mitt Romney be better off if he shut up until November and just hung around Obama events pointing a baseball bat at the President and looking menacing?  It certainly couldn't make things any worse.  Although, with Mitt, a regular wooden baseball bat wouldn't really be appropriate.  I'm thinking more like a cricket mallet made of solid gold.  No wait, cricket is a little Europeany for Mitt.  I've got it!  A lacrosse stick made entirely of diamond! Not diamonds.  Just one huge diamond, cut into the shape of a lacrosse stick.

Idea #4
Go to war with Iran right now.  I've watched as much election coverage as anybody who isn't paid to watch election coverage and I only know two things about a Romney administration.  First, he'll cut taxes for rich people.  He's been super clear about that.  Second, we're going to war with Iran.

But why wait?  Mitt's got tons of money.  He could easily put together his own army.  It wouldn't be as good as the US Army, but it'd be better than the Kiss army, and that's probably good enough to deal with Iran.  Or at least good enough to deal with Iran the way Mitt would, which would just be bombing them and waiting for good things to magically happen after.  And even if this doesn't get Mitt elected, he still did half of what he wanted to do.

Idea #5
Mystery candidate.  We'd have to be pretty stupid to fall for this, but luckily, we are pretty stupid.  Mitt drops out of the race and they replace him with a mystery candidate.  It would be just like old game shows where contestants had to choose between the perfectly adequate prize they could see or the mystery prize in the mystery box.

Which candidate do you want?  You want the one in the mystery box!  You know you do.  Nobody can resist the mystery box!  We'll be disappointed when we find out that it's still just Mitt in the mystery box, but by then it'll be too late and we'll be kind of relieved because at least it wasn't Newt Gingrich.

Idea #6
New ideas.  Mitt could start learning stuff and embracing policies and ideas that actually make sense.  He could start saying intelligent things and acting normal.  He could....I'm sorry...no...this definitely won't happen.

Idea #7
Free iphones.  Everyone who votes for Mitt gets a free new iphone.  It's just that simple.  I'm surprised he hasn't thought of this yet.  I'm pretty sure Karl Rove's super pac has enough money to buy everyone in America an iphone.

Idea #8
Bacon.  Did you hear about the upcoming bacon shortage?  I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm pretty sure millions of Americans are terrified.  If Mitt can present a comprehensive plan to save us from a baconless future, he'll win by 10 points.  Now, Mitt has yet to present a comprehensive plan about anything, but bacon is simpler and more delicious than the economy, so maybe he can pull it off.

Idea #9
The Republican party could engage in a long term strategy of voter suppression focusing on minority communities, young people and other core Democratic constituencies.  Maybe some kind of weird push for new voter ID laws based on completely false claims of voter fraud.  Something like this, if done effectively, could easily push states like Ohio and Pennsylvania over into Mitt's column.  I wonder why nobody in the Republican party has thought of this.  Hmmmm.

Idea #10
Planet Mitt.  This one is pretty self-explanatory.  Mitt can use his fortune to turn Mars into a habitable planet and then move all of his supporters there, where he can be president of them.  Actually, this might work out pretty well for everyone.  Let's go with this one.

Let Them Eat Tax Cuts

I'm supposed to be surprised, right? 

Mitt Romney doesn't care about poor people who "think they're entitled to food".  Mitt Romney knows that if starving people are just too lazy to ask their butler to go downstairs and tell their personal chef to fix them some breakfast, it's not the government's job to bail them out.  Get an intercom, jerks!  Or even better, just have a standing breakfast order with your personal chef and then you don't have to tell him to make you breakfast every day, he'll just bring it to you.  If starving people weren't so lazy and stupid, they'd be less starving, like Mitt.

But why am I supposed to be surprised by this?  This Presidential election has been going on since 1914.  Can you tell me one time when Mitt said something that made you believe that he thinks anything other than what we now have video of him saying?  I honestly can't.  There's no magical time before today when I can remember thinking Mitt Romney had any compassion for poor or working people, or any plans or ideas for how to help them. 

It's been a tough couple of weeks for Mitt.  His opportunistic and unbelievably stupid reaction to stuff being on fire and people being dead was a catastrophe, even for him.  It wasn't so much that he jumped on a national security crisis to try to score political points before it was even over.  It wasn't so much that he did it on September 11th (after all, Barack Obama didn't take a day off from emailing me and asking me for money on September 11th, which I thought was pretty stupid).  It was really two things.

First of all, Mitt failed so miserably at capitalizing on a national security crisis.  Nothing he said even made sense.  Listening to Mitt Romney talk about foreign policy is like listening to a four year old tell you where babies come from.  It's just rambling and incoherent and makes you wonder why his parents would bother telling him anything.

More importantly, Mitt doesn't have anything valuable to say about foreign policy at all.  That's what makes his little adventures into stupidity so infuriating.  Anybody can say something stupid, but when you don't have positions to fall back on that people can look at and say "well, he wasn't on his game today, but he's clearly not an actual moron", people start to wonder about you. 

Take Mitt's other comments about how maybe there's no peaceful solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  If someone smart said that, my reaction would be "shit, maybe they're right".  But when Mitt says it I just think "Middle East peace is hard, huh?  Thanks for the update captain dumbass."

But, again, I'm not surprised.  At no time during the 600 Republican primary debates did Mitt say anything that suggested his interest in foreign policy went beyond talking tough and promising not to apologize for things that nobody ever suggested apologizing for.  I just don't think he cares about it that much.

The same is true for Mitt's comments about 47% of Americans.  It wasn't that Mitt was saying things that were condescending and arrogant.  Barack Obama says condescending and arrogant things all the time, it's one of my favorite things about him.  The problem is that Mitt's actual economic policies square up with what he was saying so perfectly.  If your economic situation can't be significantly helped by tax cuts, then Mitt Romney doesn't really understand why you're bothering him. 

But again, there's just nothing surprising about this.  Mitt believes in the magic power of tax cuts.  If you're struggling to feed your family, Mitt's going to cut your boss' boss' taxes.  If you don't have a boss because you don't have a job, then Mitt's going to cut the taxes of some guy in your town who owns a business, and maybe he'll hire you...probably not though.  If your house is on fire, Mitt's going to put it out with tax cuts. 

And if that doesn't work, well, Mitt's pretty much out of ideas, and so is the rest of his party.  Well, except maybe jesus can help out too, that's always Republican plan B.  But he can't really help out, because he still isn't real.  I don't know if Mitt's mormon god, or gods, or whatever it is he believes in, are the kind of gods that are supposed to help with stuff, but unless Mitt's willing to lend you his magic underpants, I wouldn't hold my breath.

This is what Republicans believe in now.  Magic and fantasy.  If it can't be fixed by tax cuts or praying, then it can't be fixed by Republicans.  People are always whining about how Mitt doesn't give any specifics.  He doesn't have any!  It's like asking a magician to give you specifics about how he made the elephant appear out of nowhere.  He can't give you specifics, because that shit didn't actually happen.

And the people left in the Republican party with working brains are starting to chirp about the amazing lack of substance, common sense and basic competence from the Romney campaign.  Some of them have a right to complain, but most of them deserve to be blamed.  They embraced Sarah Palin.  They embraced the tea party.  How exactly did they think this story was going to end?

Last week, Rick Santorum said at their little apple pie and gay bashing rally that the "smart people" will never be on their side.  You said it, Rick.  

Words Don't Matter

I've only watched the Republican convention in bits and pieces.  The conventions aren't worth watching if you've been paying attention to the campaign before now.  They're just week-long infomercials for the party talking points.  What's that you say?  The Republicans think Barack Obama is a bad President?  And they think Mitt Romney would be less bad?  Stop the presses! 

I don't need to spend hours watching TV to find out that the people speaking at Mitt Romney's convention are mostly in favor of voting for Mitt Romney.  I wanted to watch Chris Christie, just to see if he was able to get through a 20 minute speech without taking a snack break, but I honestly forgot it was happening.

Having said that, the little bits of Republican convention I've seen have been really strange.  Tuesday night I watched my old buddy from the primary debates Rick Santorum run his mouth for a while.  I just couldn't resist.  My blog and I miss Rick so much.  I tuned into MSNBC literally about 4 seconds before Rick started, just in time to hear Rachel Maddow say "he's not telling the truth.  Let's listen".  Now, I'm sure Rachel was finishing a sentence that went something like "If Mr. Santorum says (insert stupid Republican talking point here) during this speech tonight, he's not telling the truth.  Let's listen", but it was still hilarious and a perfect introduction for the man who the second half of the 20th century forgot.

Anyway, Rick rambled and rambled about his god and all that.  He didn't mention Mitt Romney a whole lot, which seemed strange.  I wonder if they've told Rick that Mitt won.  Or maybe Rick won't believe it until his god tells him personally.  Then Rick said America holds out a loving hand to all of his god's children.  He forgot to add "except if you're gay, or black (or really any minority for that matter), or not super into jesus, or if you're a lady who doesn't understand that men are supposed to be in charge of your lady parts.  If you fall into one of those categories, well fuck you, but loving hands for everyone else".  They must have left that part off the teleprompter. 

Like I said before, I completely missed Chris Christie, but I'm given to believe that he didn't start a fight or eat anyone, so I guess he more or less nailed it.  I don't know why I'm so mean-spirited about Christie, well except for the fact that whenever I see him on TV he's belittling someone or yelling at a reporter.

Wednesday night was even stranger, and I honestly only watched a total of like 12 minutes.  I caught about half of John McCain's speech.  The Republcan party is supposed to be the fiscally responsible party, but Senator McCain's speech would have been shorter if he had given us a list of countries he doesn't want to invade.  Unless he thinks we're going to find buried treasure in Iran or Syria (which is funny, because that was essentially the Bush administration argument about oil in Iraq), we're going to need a way to pay for John McCain's ever-growing list of fun new wars.

Quick McCain sidenote:  Everyone on MSNBC's convention coverage panel after McCain's speech felt obligated to heap the praise on McCain for not playing ethnic politics with Barack Obama during the 2008 election.  First of all, I seem to remember some crazy lady from Alaska running around trying to paint then Senator Obama as "pallin' around with terrorists".  I'm pretty sure she was connected with the McCain campaign in some ancillary way.  More importantly, is the bar really that low now?  Is not stooping to the lowest possible level now all you have to do in politics to get praised as a great guy with tons of integrity?  Sigh.

Anyway, then I watched like three minutes of Condoleezza Rice.  First of all, with her and Herman Cain, the Republican party now has two black friends.  Two!  And I'm not even counting Michael Steele, who's more of a high school acquaintance that the Republican party is facebook friends with, but wouldn't actually go hang out with.

Secretary Rice talked about education and the importance of good schools and good teachers.  It sounded really good, but also highly suspect coming from a party that:
1) has spent the last two years busting teachers unions in every state they control.
2) has spent the last 32 years demonizing science, learning, knowledge, facts and the very idea of being educated.
3) has ruined textbooks for the whole nation by doing stupid things in Texas.
4) wants to cut the entire Department of Education.
And I realize that they think #4 will actually help, but the fact that they think parents and local school boards know more about education than, ya know, professional educators, just circles right back to #2.

I'm not really sure how Condoleezza Rice got stuck being the one who had to talk about education, but I guess when you're the Secretary of State you kind of have to know about everything. 

Then Paul Ryan started.  I thought he was supposed to be all energetic and exciting.  He looks like a muppet and I was still bored.  I spent the first three minutes thinking of new Romney/Ryan campaign slogans, like "Hey ladies, Mitt and Paul would like to have a word with you about your uterus." or "you might as well vote for us, because if you're planning to vote for the other guy, we're not even going to let you register".  Catchy, no?  Anyway, after three minutes I went back to watching Almost Famous on cinemax, and I had already missed the airplane scene.  Stupid Paul Ryan.

I'm not planning to watch Mitt Romney tonight.  It's going to be dull, and I already know what he's going to say.  Plus I hear he's going to try to tell us who Mitt Romney the person is and let us get to know him a little, and I really couldn't be less interested in that.  But mostly, I'm not watching because the words don't matter.  Conventions are about stagecraft.  It's four days (or, if you decide to have your convention in Florida during hurricane season, sometimes three days) of patriotic backdrops, silly songs, weird video packages and mindless cheering. 

I'm told the Republican party has a platform that they've agreed upon.  I'm also told Mitt Romney doesn't agree with some of it, but I'm told that doesn't really matter.  Other than the tax cuts (which I swear is the only thing Republicans really believe in) I haven't heard much about this so-called platform.  The actual Republican platform, the one about outlawing all abortion and telling poor people to go fuck themselves if they get sick and cutting taxes but never actually getting around to the whole cutting spending thing, that's sort of like Republican fight club.  They all know about it, but they're not going to talk about it.  It's like how Barack Obama is going to take away everybody's guns in his second term, but he's not saying it now, because he's all smooth and shit.

And this is why I'm not watching Mitt Romney, because the words don't matter.  It's all nonsense.  Mitt Romney isn't going to stand there tonight and tell me what he's going to do as President, I'm not sure he even knows yet.  He'll sit there and tell me about his family background or whatever, and he'll talk about all the terrible things Barack Obama has done in the alternate Republican universe, and he'll make uncomfortable jokes that uncomfortable delegates will laugh uncomfortably at, but he won't actually tell me anything.

I honestly don't know if the Democratic convention will be any more informative (I doubt it).  Sometimes I wonder why I bother paying attention.  I was watching Chris Matthews as I was finishing this up, and he played a clip of Paul Ryan from last night talking about "the strong protecting the weak" and "caring for the least among us".  Now those are some good talking points.  So what if his economic policies do the exact opposite of those things?  I mean, his mom thinks you should vote for him, and look how cute his kids are!

Intervention!

Really, Republicans? Rick Santorum? Really? Listen, I know you don't like Mitt Romney. Nobody likes Mitt Romney. That's why he had to create that weird army of cloned sons to follow him around everywhere. Because when he had real sons even they were sort lukewarm about him.

I get it, OK? Democrats went through the same thing in 2004. They were cruising toward an easy victory over President Numbnuts when all of a sudden they were staring down the barrel of John Kerry as their nominee. John Kerry is so boring he can bore you to death just by sitting there while someone else is talking.

Now Mitt isn't as boring as John Kerry, nobody is. But, what Mitt lacks in lack of excitement, he more than makes up for in lack of being a real person. It's one thing to joke about a guy being sort of robotic, it's another thing for a candidate to show up in his home state and talk about how the "trees are the right height" and how he "loves the lakes" in "the parts" of Michigan.

Having said all that, Romney would most likely be a perfectly adequate President, or at least the country would probably still be here after four years of Romney. Santorum, on the other hand, would be a total catastrophe.

Of all the idiotic things Rick Santorum says everyday, all the misogyny, all the homophobia, all the nonsense, the thing that got me the most was what I recently heard from him about satan. Rick Santorum thinks satan is a real thing. The fairy tale monster from the bible, Rick thinks it's a real thing, out there somewhere plotting against America. Somebody should ask him if he thinks we ought to be on the lookout for grendel.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Rick. He's probably not the only candidate who thinks satan is real. Hell, the President might even believe in satan (though I continue to hope the President is a secret atheist). But I think Rick is the only one who actually spends time worrying about it, like satan might actually show up one day.

It's time for Republican primary voters to focus up. Consider this debate an intervention. Watch these two hours and ask yourselves, can you really do this? Really? Rick Santorum? Really?

8:00PM: CNN's John King starts off the debate by looking into the camera and saying "we're seriously doing this again? This isn't some kind of joke? OK, fine! Let's get it over with".

8:01PM: If you didn't see this on TV, you're just going to have to take my word for it. Rick Santorum showed up for the debate covered from head to toe in ash wednesday ashes. It was magnificent.

8:02PM: Ron Paul just promised to change the national anthem to Award Tour by A Tribe Called Quest if he's elected. Put me down for one Ron Paul vote.

8:03PM: OK...OK...I made all that shit up to entertain myself during CNN's ridiculous opening video montage. I hate you, CNN. I really do.

8:04PM: King tells us that they recited the pledge of allegiance right before they went on TV. Am I the only one who thinks the pledge of allegiance is kind of a weird thing? We used to say that before school everyday. That's kinda weird, right?

8:06PM: Why does CNN always feel they need to give the candidates an example of how to introduce themselves? They're Republicans, not four year olds. I'm pretty sure they know what "introduce yourself" means.

8:07PM: Romney says President Obama has broken the promise of America. That's right, nothing bad happened before 2009. It's all the black guy's fault.

8:09PM: Santorum fails to get through even one answer without saying something stupid when he it takes him two sentences to get to repealing obamacare, but not cutting defense spending at all, ever, no matter what.

8:11PM: I'm chatting with Dave again during tonight's debate. He just reminded me that Mitt Romney is reminiscent of that Simpsons episode when the aliens take over the bodies of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. First of all, Dave's dead on. Secondly, can you believe the Simpsons has been on since Bob Dole ran for President?

8:12PM: Romney just used the phrase "government servants". That doesn't sound right.

8:14PM: Romney and Santorum appear to be fighting over which one of them is a bigger liar.

8:15PM: Newt just quoted Alexander Hamilton. Well, he didn't quote Hamilton so much as he made up something he thinks Hamilton would say. I think Hamilton would say "Fucking Aaron Burr! I hate that dick!"

8:16PM: Ron Paul when asked why he has a new TV ad labeling Rick Santorum as a fake..."because he's a fake". Zing!

8:18PM: Santorum looks genuinely annoyed that Ron is pointing out what a giant hypocrite he is. When he got a chance to respond, he didn't really dispute anything Ron said, he just kind of rambled for a while.

8:20PM: Santorum says the conservative based is "riled up". Ain't that the truth.

8:23PM: Newt looked genuinely baffled by John King's pretty simple question about Romney's tax plan. He must have been trying to think of a way to use the question to blame King for Newt being so stupid, but he couldn't come up with anything.

8:25PM: Newt seems pretty sure he can solve all of Arizona's problems by keeping Mexicans out. I'm not so sure. Their Governor is a moron, so that's at least one problem you can't solve by chasing Mexicans back across the border.

8:28PM: Romney after two minutes of Santorum rambling..."I didn't follow all of that". Neither did I, but I'm not running for President. Mitt should probably focus a little.

8:30PM: While defending earmarks, Newt makes a point I've been making for months. Republicans don't really have any problem with big government, they just don't like it when some other guy is in charge.

8:32PM: Luckily, one of these guys lives in the real world. Ron just pointed out that earmarking (allocating how the money is spent) is sort of Congress' job and isn't a problem unless you're spending the money on stupid things.

8:34PM: Santorum says he opposed the Wall St. and auto industry bailouts. Easy for him to say, considering he didn't actually have to cast any votes back then. It's super easy to oppose something when you don't have to actually do anything about it.

8:38PM: Romney appears to be blaming his opposition to the auto bailout on the auto workers union. Ummm...OK.

8:45PM: Piers Morgan will be interviewing Newt Gingrich Friday night. Be sure to set your DVR's to anything but that.

8:47PM: These guys still think birth control is somehow a topic about religion. It still isn't. Just because your church has some ass backwards, 13th century view about women doesn't mean all the other people just trying to be normal are attacking your church.

8:50PM: Santorum says over 40% of children in America are born out of wedlock. I don't know that's bullshit, but it certainly sounds like bullshit. Either way, the fact that Rick went directly from birth control to children being born out of wedlock demonstrates that he doesn't really give a shit about religious freedom, other than the freedom of his religion to tell everyone else what to do.

8:52PM: Mitt says this isn't an issue of contraception, he's still wrong. Mitt added "OK, so maybe we're afraid of lady parts...and by "we", I mean human men, because I am a human man".

8:54PM: Mitt was so angry when the Massachusetts legislature wouldn't let him discriminate against gay couples when it came to adoption. I hear ya Mitt. I live in Massachusetts now, they're always trying to treat the gays like regular humans up here. Jerks!

8:57PM: Santorum just referred to abstinence based programs as "programs that actually work". I'm not sure he understands what "work" means.

8:59PM: Santorum says he voted for title 10 but then he fought it with title 20. Dave adds "oh yeah Rick, well I'm going to come up with title 40!" You don't need to know what was in any of those titles. I certainly don't. It's still funny.

9:01PM: Romney nails Santorum for endorsing some liberal douche named Mitt Romney four years ago. Take that, Rick!

9:03PM: Santorum just pointed out that Mitt balanced his budgets in Massachusetts because the state Constitution required him to. I just want to say that Dave made that point like 25 minutes ago.

9:05PM: Why do they let audience members ask questions? As evidenced by Rick Santorum, you don't really have to be that bright to get on the stage for one of these things. Why would we want to hear from the people who couldn't even get that far?

9:06PM: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! (this is what it sounds like in my head every time they start talking about immigration)

9:08PM: Rick Perry is in the audience. Dave asks how Rick found his way to Arizona. I'm pretty sure he just got lost on the way to a Dillon Panthers game.

9:10PM: I've completely stopped paying attention.

9:13PM: Newt on whether or not some conservative rhetoric on immigration is harsh or intolerable..."I don't know, but Barack Obama sucks, right?" I may be paraphrasing a little.

9:14PM: King just said "one of these men could be President 11 months from now". I just got a chill. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em America.

9:19PM: King asks each candidate to define himself in one word. Too bad Rick Perry dropped out, I would have liked to have heard him answer "ummm".

9:21PM: Romney on women in the military..."the gals can fight if they want, it's cute, but more importantly, the President sucks". Again, paraphrasing a little.

9:22PM: Newt says we should leave women's role in the military up to the "combat leaders", whatever that means. Such a good point, women's rights should definitely be left up to the dudes running the military. That sounds like an awesome plan.

9:24PM: Santorum says he didn't say it was wrong for women to serve in certain military roles, he just has concerns. I'm not saying Rick Santorum is an idiot, I'm just saying I have some concerns about his idiocy.

9:28PM: When Newt talks about a madman getting his hands on nuclear weapons, I always assume he's talking about what would happen if he actually became the President.

9:29PM: Mitt is criticizing the President for not wanting Israel to start world war 3 with Iran. Yeah! What a dumbass!

9:30PM: Santorum says he's "been on the trail of Iran" for 8 years. For some reason, it immediately reminded me of elmer fudd hunting for bugs bunny. Shhh...wick's hunting wabbits.

9:32PM: My man Ron gets booed for trying to introduce facts into the Iran debate. Stupid Ron! Nobody wants to hear your facts.

9:34PM: Ron on Cuba sanctions..."50 years and Castro is still there. It doesn't work". Santorum added, "well not yet, give it another 50 or 75 years".

9:35PM: Santorum says President Obama is "timid". That's somewhat difficult for me to accept, considering Obama's whole shooting terrorists in the face policy.

9:36PM: Newt says we should have our allies "covertly" doing things. Does he know what "covertly" means? Does he know he's on TV?

9:40PM: Stop taking audience questions! What are they paying John King for? Did he not come prepared with questions? Does he need to tag Blitzer in?

9:41PM: I predict this will be a very bad moment for Santorum. He just explained his vote for no child left behind by saying it was against his principles, but sometimes you have to be a team player because "politics is a team sport". If the Obama campaign doesn't already have a commercial ready about how Santorum cares more about the Republican party then he cares about his own principles and the American people, somebody isn't doing their job.

9:45PM: Newt objects to building self-esteem in children over actually teaching them to read. He's right. It's terrible when you keep telling someone that he's "really smart" and "a big thinker" and "a genius" when he's actually just a fucking moron. It's actually kind of cruel.

9:51PM: Last question for each candidate...what is the biggest public misconception or myth about you right now?

9:52PM: Ron says it's a myth that he can't win. Sorry Ron, I wish you were right. You're not though.

9:53PM: By the time we got to Romney, he completing ignored the question and just gave his usual closing answer. When King pressed him on it, Mitt said he gets to give the answers he wants. That's not really how debates work, but OK.

King said a couple of times that this might be the last debate. We can always hope.

Big Finish

According to the schedule, this is the last debate for about a month.  Who knows where we'll be by late February.  Rick Santorum almost certainly won't be there.  There's no way Rick has the money to continue campaigning seriously (seriously being a relative term when dealing with Rick) after Florida.  Ron Paul won't quit, but we're getting to that time in the primary season when they stop telling him where the debates are. 

Sadly, that means we'll most likely have just Mitt and Newt next time.  What a disaster.  This is what Republicans are stuck with.  Stay Puft Newt vs. Mitt the Robot.  If you know a Republican, give them a hug, it's gonna be a long year.

We're back with CNN tonight.  Blitzer is taking over for John King, who was obviously fired after his failure in the last debate to change Newt's diaper in a timely fashion sent poor Newt into an uncontrollable fit.  Also, during the pre-debate show, we found out that Newt's assertion last time, that he had all these character witnesses to refute his second wife's story from last week, was just another in a long string of blatant Newt lies.  Sidenote, if you google "Newt Gingrich" and "blatant lies", your computer explodes.

8:00PM: We start with the obligatory ridiculously over-dramatic CNN video package, ending with the claim that this will be the most important debate yet.  Well, it'll be the most important debate today...probably.

8:03PM: Blitzer says we're welcoming viewers in the United States and around the world.  People around the world are watching this?  Man, that's embarrassing.

8:04PM: Seriously, when Rick Santorum makes your final four, something has gone horribly wrong.

8:05PM: The University of North Florida glee club (Blitzer didn't call them a glee club, I made that part up) is singing the national anthem.  The female singers appear to have just come from Amish night at a local frat.

8:07PM: Hey Wolf!  I don't think these guys need you to go over how a debate works, they've done like 100 of these things.

8:08PM: Santorum's mom is in the audience and he pointed her out.  That's the most likable thing I've ever seen him do. 

8:08PM: Mitt's oldest son is named Tag.  I think I knew that already, but it's still ridiculous.

8:09PM: We're starting right in on immigration.  BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!  Stop letting the audience ask questions!  What is Blitzer here for?  I could hire a monkey to just stand there and point at the candidates while audience members ask stupid questions. 

8:12PM: Newt says it should be very easy to deport gang members.  How did gang members get involved in this?  What is he talking about? 

8:14PM: I think Romney just said we have a group of immigrants here brought here by coyotes.  That can't be right...hmmm...apparently it is. "Coyote" is apparently slang for people who smuggle immigrants illegally into the United States.  It seems like it would just be easier to call them smugglers.

8:17PM: Newt gets a big cheer for making English the language of government, and then calls Romney the most anti-immigrant candidate on the stage (apparently, Newt's the most anti-irony candidate on the stage).  Mitt scolded Newt for a full minute for his "over the top rhetoric" and demanded an apology.  Spoiler alert: Mitt's not getting an apology.

8:20PM: Mitt is wiping the floor with Newt right now.  Newt just spent a minute talking about immigrant grandmothers being able to stay here legally, Mitt responded with "our problem isn't 11 million grandmothers".  Zing!  Mitt got a laugh.  Really.

8:25PM: There goes crazy Ron again, suggesting that maybe we shouldn't run around the world telling other countries what kind of governments they should have.  This is one of the main differences between these four guys.  Ron doesn't think we should have an empire, the other three seem to think they're running for emperor of the world.

8:29PM: About ten minutes ago, Romney claimed an attack ad Blitzer asked him about wasn't his.  Blitzer quickly found out that it is, in fact, from the Romney campaign.  Tough break, Mitt.  If only there was a way to know what your own campaign was doing.

8:31PM: Newt says Mitt's investments (Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, for example), are foreclosing on houses in Florida right now.  Mitt says Newt has investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac too.  We get it, you're both whores.

8:34PM: After five minutes of nonsense about which one of those guys made more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Ron says "that subject doesn't really interest me".  As always, Ron's the best.

8:36PM: Santorum follows Ron by suggesting that we get away from the distractions of personal attacks and focus on issues.  Score another point with the crowd for Rick.

8:41PM: Blitzer asked Newt about Romney's tax returns.  Newt immediately turned it on Blitzer by calling it a nonsense question.  Blitzer, unlike John King, did not back down, pointing out that Newt raised the issue in the first place.  Newt's final argument was that he's perfectly happy to attack Mitt on a TV show, but not in a national debate.  Yeah!  Why should Newt have to defend things he's said in front of small, friendly audiences when people are actually watching him?  Stupid Blitzer.  (seriously, Blitzer kicked Newt's ass, he should moderate all future debates)

8:43PM: Newt doesn't like Mitt that much, but he can't wait to cut Mitt's taxes if he gets the chance.

8:46PM: With Huntsman gone, Santorum seems to be the one left on the stage with the most logical tax plan.  In fact, it isn't even really close.  What's happening here?

8:48PM: Ron talked for a little while about how we need to stop the transfer of wealth to the wealthy.  Another crazy idea from crazy Ron.  Then Blitzer asked Ron about his health records (because Ron's 76) and Ron challenged the other three to a 25 mile bike ride through Texas.  I'm really going to miss Ron.  I hope he comes back in 2016.

8:50PM: Mitt says putting a base on the moon is too expensive.  We're seriously talking about Newt's moon colony now. 

8:52PM: Newt asks "what does the Washington office of NASA do?".  Well Newt, it mostly sits there and gets it's budget cut by idiots in Congress.  What do you do?

8:53PM: Newt is advocating for private investment in the space program, arguing that "Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic for a $25,000 prize".  You can't just throw together a moon colony in your garage like a science experiment Newt. 

8:54PM: Senator buzzkill says we can't have a moon colony because we don't have any money.  Ron doesn't want to go to the moon either.  Actually, now it kinda sounds like he does.  I think maybe Ron doesn't give a shit about the moon. 

8:56PM: Ron says we should focus on health care before we go to the moon.  I like Ron, but I always hate this argument.  We can do more than one thing at a time.

8:57PM: Mitt says if a business executive came to him and said he wanted to spend hundreds of billions to put a colony on the moon, Mitt would fire him.  The government isn't meant to be run like a business.  If you think it is, you're wrong.

9:00PM: Ron says Newt never really balanced a budget, because the national debt still went up about a trillion dollars in Newt's four years as Speaker.  Newt kind of smirked and stopped just short of admitting that it really is just a bullshit talking point. 

9:03PM: Ron makes a good point on health care.  If the government floods a system, say the health care system, with money through subsidies, without cost controls, the price skyrockets.  Good point Ron. Unfortunately, as we all know, anything the government might do to control costs is, obviously, radical socialism.  This is what happens when you let people run health care for profit.  There's really no answer, we're basically just fucked.

9:05PM: Mitt is suggesting individually owned health insurance, as opposed to getting it through your employer.  I'm cool with that, as long as Mitt's magic plan to bring the cost down works.  Wait, he didn't even mention the magic plan.  He must have one, right? Because if he doesn't, his suggestion is ridiculous. 
9:11PM: When did Republicans stop believing in personal responsibility?  Did I miss an announcement?  Why are Republicans now against the idea of everyone having to take some personal responsibility for their own health care via an individual mandate? 

9:13PM: Romney says "Obamacare takes over health care for the whole country".  Not even a little bit true.

9:14PM: Blitzer: "Congressman Paul, who's right?"  Ron: "I think they're all wrong." HA!  That's it.  If Ron runs as a third party candidate, I'm voting for him. Write it down, done deal.

9:16PM: These guys all love Marco Rubio.  Me?  Not so much.

9:17PM: Some lady asked them what Hispanic leaders they would hire for their cabinet.  After three minutes of pandering, Ron finally just said he would hire the best people, Hispanic or otherwise.  Once again, Ron's the best.

9:23PM: Blitzer asked them all why their wife would make the best first lady.  My favorite part was when Newt asked "wait, which one?".  OK...OK, he didn't say that.  See it's funny though, because he's a philandering dirtbag.

9:26PM: Santorum is a weird guy.  His policies are so misogynistic, almost anti-woman.  Not just the anti-choice stuff.  This is a guy who, more than once, has stopped just short of suggesting that women get their asses back in the kitchen. And yet, he's so sincere when he talks about his wife and mother, it's hard to reconcile the two (OK, not really, he's just a hypocrite like everyone else).

9:29PM: Romney's rambling about the olympics again.  Listen Mitt, nobody gives a shit about the winter olympics (except the hockey, obviously). 

9:32PM: Florida is the worst.  I swear if Florida wasn't a swing state we would have lifted the Cuba embargo 20 years ago.

9:33PM: Blitzer asked Ron what he'd say if he was in the White House and Raul Castro called. Ron said "I'd ask him what he called about."  Later Ron said about the American people "I don't think they see a jihadist under the bed every night." Ron's on fire right now.

9:38PM: Uh oh...there's a Palestinian in the audience.  Somebody better hold Santorum and Gingrich back.  This must be especially difficult for Newt, who believes Palestinians are imaginary.  It would be like if I met god...super awkward.

9:40PM: Newt isn't backing down on his claim about Palestinians being an invented people.  45 seconds later he said he has a goal for the Palestinian people.  Later, Newt promised to move our embassy to Jerusalem.  That's a good way to start the peace process, with a big fuck you to one side.  Seriously, if Newt wins, you should invest heavily in explosives, the world is going to be using quite a lot of them during his time in office.

9:44PM: Question from the audience, "how would your religious beliefs effect your decisions as President?".  The correct answer here is, they wouldn't.  Ron nailed it.  These other clowns?  Not so much.  Santorum's basically a theocrat, and I'm pretty sure Newt just prays to images of himself.

9:47PM: Newt says religion, and especially Christianity, is under attack in America.  Yeah, those poor Christians.  It's so hard to have rights and have your voices heard when all you are is a huge majority of the country. 

9:49PM: Santorum says he believes in faith and reason.  Those two things don't go together, at all.  It would be like someone saying Palestinians are an invented people, and then 45 seconds later saying he has a plan for the Palestinian people.  It just makes no sense.

9:53PM: Last question, "why are you the one person on the stage most likely to beat President Obama?"
Ron: Ron says he appeals to the most people, because everyone believes in freedom.
Mitt: Mitt appears to be implicitly making the argument that he's the best at spitting out generic talking points.
Speaker Marshmallow Man: Because historians in the future will talk about Newt's election as a turning point in our history. 
Santorum: He'll say the same things Romney and Gingrich say, only better.

The Trouble With Mitt

I don't mind Mitt Romney being rich, and I don't think voters do either.  Everyone who runs a serious Presidential campaign is pretty wealthy.  And I don't care what Mitt's tax returns say when he releases them tomorrow.  It isn't Mitt's fault that our economy values investment over work.

The trouble with Mitt is his claim that he's been "creating jobs in the real economy".  Mitt isn't a job creator anymore than criminals are job creators because we have to employ police to stop them.  The fact that what you do sometimes results in adding jobs doesn't make you a professional job creator. 

More importantly, Mitt made most of his money in a game he couldn't lose.  Bain invested in failing companies, when the companies recovered, Bain made money.  When the companies failed, Bain still made money. 

Imagine a casino in your town with only two games.  The casino is full of nickel slots.  Everybody in the town can play them, but nobody ever wins.  The casino tells them they can win, but they can't.  Meanwhile, around the edges of the casino, you've got roulette wheels.  The roulette wheels always pay off.  No matter where you put your money, you always win.  But the minimum bet is 10 million dollars.  So guys like Mitt come in and clean the place out whenever they want, and for a while they're just carrying out all the money the poor people keep putting into the slots, but eventually the casino goes out of business.  Of course, in the real world, the casino is our economy and Mitt is, well, still Mitt.

Maybe that's a crappy analogy, but the point is, Mitt isn't a bad guy for being rich.  Mitt's a bad guy because he got rich being selfish (not a problem by itself) and then tried to sell it to us as some sort of altruistic job creation scheme (and there's the problem). 

Debate time!  Tonight's host from NBC is Brian Williams.  I think it'll be harder for Newt to push Williams around, but then again, Newt wins with volume, not content. 

9:02PM: Newt just described himself as someone who "has the courage to stand up to the Washington establishment".  It's honestly like he can't even hear himself talk.

9:05PM: Mitt just used the phrase "resigned in disgrace" twice while talking about Newt.  Newt responded by saying Mitt just said at least four things that were false, but he doesn't really want to get into what they were.  This is a debate, right?

9:07PM: Romney on why rednecks don't like him: (paraphrasing) "I don't know, but New Hampshire seems to like me just fine".  I would have gone with "because nobody likes me".

9:09PM: Can Brian Williams see Ron Paul or Rick Santorum?  Are they invisible?

9:10PM: Newt may be medicated tonight, he hasn't yelled at Williams once yet.

9:12PM: Apparently Santorum's mic is working, too bad.  Still no news from Ron Paul's podium.

9:14PM: Santorum is proud that he was too stupid to change his message when nobody in Pennsylvania agreed with it and he lost by 18. 

9:15PM: Hey, Ron's awake!  Ron says Newt didn't voluntarily step down from being the Speaker in 1998, he just didn't have the votes.  It was weird because it took a while to find out if he was trying to attack Newt or trying to compliment him.  Fun moment.

9:18PM: Mitt says you won't see any surprises when his tax returns come out tomorrow.  I predict Mitt will be surprised by how easily Newt can exploit his tax returns for political gain.  Then Mitt claimed that people will be happy to see he didn't pay anymore taxes than he owes.  I'm pretty sure nobody will be saying that.

9:22PM: Mitt and Newt are nice enough to work together to remind us that both of them would love it if rich people didn't have to pay any taxes at all.  At least they're honest about it.

9:23PM: Mitt says he "earned" what he has "the old fashioned way".  Yeah!  Since the beginning of time people have earned their keep by raiding failing companies and selling off the tattered pieces for profit.

9:26PM: Newt insists that consulting isn't lobbying work just because you're consulting for lobbyists.  Yeah!  Wait, what?  Then he refers to Mitt's telling the truth about Newt's history as "defamatory" and way too personal. 

9:28PM: Mitt makes the point that Freddie Mac wouldn't hire Newt as a historian for $25,000 a month.  Who would hire Newt as a historian?  He's an idiot.  I wouldn't hire him as a historian for 25 cents a month.

9:30PM: Newt and Mitt are just openly arguing with each other right now.  Williams has apparently taken a quick pee break.

9:32PM: Romney is basically admonishing Newt for "influence peddling" when he worked for Freddie Mac.  Still no word from Williams.  Newt was legitimately rattled there, it's like Mitt finally learned enough about human emotions to exploit them.  This could be dangerous.

9:35PM:  Dear NBC, I am not watching Smash, I don't care how many commercials you show me.

9:37PM: I like how Republicans blame the collapse of the housing market entirely on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Nothing else went wrong in the economy, just those two things.

9:40PM: Wait, my bad.  Ron pointed out the whole mortgage derivatives thing.  He was still blaming it all on the government somehow, but even when Ron's wrong, he's sort of half right.

9:41PM: Williams gives each candidate 30 seconds on how to fix the economy.  I could give all of their answers in three seconds - "cut taxes...and some nonsense about regulations".  Well, all except Ron, who would say those things, but then go on four two minutes (or two days if you let him) about the gold standard and liquidating the debt and interest rates and whatever else he could think of.

9:44PM: Talking about Fidel Castro hypothetically dying (welcome to Florida politics), Mitt said he'd be happy that Castro had met his maker.  Newt immediately criticized Mitt for suggesting that Castro is going to heaven.  Neither one of them said anything that made sense, but here comes Ron.

9:46PM: Ron on Cuba "the cold war's over".  He went on to point out that our embargo just props Castro up and we should stop "living in the dark ages".  Boom!  That might be the most correct answer we've heard in any of these debates.  Of course, Santorum couldn't wait to completely disagree.

9:48PM: Santorum says jihadists are apparently infiltrating Cuba.  That doesn't sound right, but even if it is, you would think even an idiot like Santorum could see the connection between our enemies finding friends in Cuba and 50 years of us giving Cuba the "lalala we can't hear you" treatment.

9:50PM: Mitt's foreign policy seems to involve putting aircraft carriers everywhere.

9:50PM: Newt says the American people had "no interest" in going to war with Japan after Pearl Harbor.  I wasn't there, but I feel like we had some interest.  Remember, Newt's a historian.

9:51PM:  Ron should get a full one minute response to every answer given by every other candidate on foreign policy, just so he can continuously point out how stupid they all are.

9:53PM: Ron just kicked Mitt's ass on the Gulf of Hormuz and how it's hard to say Iran closing the Gulf of Hormuz is an act of war when they're doing it as a response to us blockading them.  Ron basically suggested that the blockade is an act of war already.  Probably a little over the top, but the point is, Mitt has no idea what he's talking about.

10:00PM: Santorum: "blah blah blah...bombing Iran...blah blah blah"

10:02PM: Rick Santorum believes that tourism in Florida wasn't adversely affected by BP filling the gulf of Mexico with oil, but by the high oil prices that followed.  Um, no that definitely isn't right.  Not even in the ballpark.

10:03PM: Newt is perfectly happy to pander for votes in Florida in Spanish, but if you want a ballot in Spanish, you can go straight to hell. 

10:05PM: Mitt says we want people to come here from other countries who speak other languages, but once they get here they'd better stop talking that gibberish and start speaking American.

10:07PM: Question to Mitt - he's not in favor of rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants, but he also thinks they need to go home.  How would he square that circle?  Apparently, President Romney would be so convincing that undocumented immigrants would "self-deport".  I'm not making that up.

10:11PM: Newt just gave an interesting one minute answer about sugar.  He seemed genuinely interested and almost amused by the whole sugar market thing, talking about a really interesting side story and agriculture special interests.  It was honestly sort of engaging, he actually looked like he was enjoying himself.

10:16PM: Nothing is worse than local news, especially once you've moved out of New York.

10:18PM: Santorum on why he wouldn't just let that lady in Florida die in peace in 2005.  I'd almost forgotten about that circus.  Just another in a long line of examples of how Republicans don't mind huge government overreaches when the government is doing things they like.

10:21PM: When Mitt Romney's in Florida, he is fully committed to space exploration and NASA.  Not so much for scientific reasons, but for commercial development and military development.  So, under President Romney, NASA's motto would be "Fuck science! We're gonna bomb Iran from space and sell the moon to the highest bidder". 

10:24PM: I don't know who this lady is, but she just asked "if tax cuts create jobs, then why didn't the Bush tax cuts work?"  It took 18 debates, but someone finally asked these idiots to explain that.  Newt says there were still too many regulations for the economy to grow.  That's total nonsense, but that's sort of Newt's comfort zone.

10:27PM: Seriously, I'm not watching Smash.  Not once, not ever. 

10:30PM: Williams looks legitimately bored.  It's like someone told him this debate would only be an hour and now he doesn't understand why he's still here.

10:32PM: Newt keeps talking about his involvement in the Reagan economic program and the development of supply side economics like they're good things.  That just reminds me how dumb he is.

10:34PM: Santorum just criticized Romney because he used to believe in global warming.  Then he criticized Ron Paul for believing that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  Ron said it's not the government's role to tell people what the Earth revolves around.

10:36PM: Ron - "what's wrong with having the government out of our personal lives?"  I wish Williams had gone to Santorum so we could hear him respond "Everything!"  I'm seriously a little concerned that President Santorum would make me start going to church again.

10:38PM: Williams asked Newt what scares him about the Presidency.  Newt completely ignored the question and just said whatever he wanted to say.

10:39PM: Williams asked Romney, if Mitt is running around campaigning on restoring America's greatness, when was America last great?  Mitt says it's still great now.  So, Mitt admits his campaign slogan is nonsense.  Good for him, I guess.

I guess we're done now.  These endings keep getting stranger and stranger.  We'll be back tomorrow for the State of the Union.  I don't know how much more of this I can take.  A person can only listen to Newt Gingrich talk for so long before he goes insane.

Seventeen

I recently heard that dancing with the stars is interested in Tim Tebow.  I hope he does it.  I'd love to see people other than football fans have something they enjoy ruined by idiots.  I can't wait to hear people tell me about how Tebow may not "know all the steps" and maybe he "falls down a lot" and "can't dance", but he's a winner and a real leader out there on the dance floor.

Dancing with the stars is the perfect venue for Tebow.  When you play football, if you suck at it, eventually everyone has to watch in horror/glee while you get destroyed by the Patriots.  When you're on dancing with the stars, you can suck all you want, your redneck minions can still vote you to victory.

Speaking of rednecks, goodbye Rick Perry.  You literally could not have been dumber.  At no point in your rambling, incoherent campaign did you do or say anything that even resembled intelligence.  Everyone in this country is now stupider for having experienced it.  You are awarded no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.

Tonight's debate is hosted by CNN and, frankly, I'm a little nervous.  Monday's debate was an unmitigated disaster.  The candidates had no respect for the moderator and the crowd had no respect for anything except factual inaccuracy and subtextual racism.  Obviously, being a network that actually employs journalists, sort of, CNN is in a better position to control tonight's festivities, but I fear there may be no controlling Newt tonight.  John King drew the short straw at CNN, and will be trying to keep this three ring circus on track.

8:00PM: CNN starts us off with their usual ridiculously dramatic opening.  I predict that 10 years from now CNN will be 24 hours of nothing but photo montages and dramatic music.

Debate Fun Fact: In defiance of popular wisdom, Mitt Romney has a tree in his backyard upon which money actually grows.  Obviously, genetically engineering the tree cost way more than the tree will yield over it's lifetime, but Mitt financed the tree with other people's money, so he's cool.

8:05PM: National anthem before the debate.  Arrrrrrrggg!

8:07PM: Santorum wastes no time in reminding us that he actually won Iowa.  How exciting for him.  Also, it looks like CNN didn't give John King a desk.  Odd choice.  He'll just sort of be wandering around the stage all night. 

8:09PM: King started by giving Newt a chance to respond to the recent accusation that he asked his second wife for an open marriage.  Newt responded by admonishing King for asking about it, for a good two minutes.  What a dick.  He finally got around to claiming the story is false, but also somehow tied it to the elite media protecting Barack Obama.  Seriously, what a dick.

By the way, do you want to know why you should care about Newt's personal life? Because, allegedly, Newt, while attacking President Clinton for marital infidelity, was simultaneously asking his second wife for an open marriage.  He has no conscience, he is essentially a sociopath, and he wants to be your President.

8:13PM: Santorum says he won't judge Newt, but his buddy god will.

8:14PM: Good on King for not responding to Newt's infantile temper tantrum.  It must be difficult for such a pompous ass to be so directly confronted by his own ridiculousness.

8:16PM: Newt claims that the Dodd-Frank bill is "killing small banks", which is patently false.  Nobody repeats bullshit better than Newt.

Debate Fun Fact: Newt is made of 95% salt water taffy.

8:18PM: Mitt just accused Barack Obama of "crony capitalism", and then called him the biggest impediment to job growth in this country.  There's no room in Mitt's capitalism for cronies, just ruthless destruction of faceless enemies.

8:20PM: Mitt says "I know that my style of capitalism works".  He added, "for me, anyway". 

Debate Fun Fact: Rick Santorum wears sweater vests because he believes they repel homosexuals.

8:24PM: Ron Paul claims that we didn't need any special programs to put 10 million veterans back to work after world war 2.  Ummm, I vaguely recall hearing about something called the G.I. Bill.  Everybody seems to think that went pretty well.

8:28PM: Mitt likes the idea of incentivizing the hiring of veterans, but only at the state level.  Because, as we all know, anything the federal government does is a communist overreach, but state governments can do literally anything they want to us with no consequences.

8:29PM: Newt just made my point about Ron Paul's answer and the G.I. Bill.  I don't like it when Newt's right, it makes me feel scared.

8:31PM: Mitt thinks he can repeal "Obamacare" by convincing democrats that the majority of the American people are against it.  And while that isn't, ya know, true, Mitt's probably right in thinking the democrats will fall for it.

8:34PM: Newt says President Obama wants to allow children to stay on their parents' health care until they're 26 because he knows he can't get them jobs.  Newt seems to believe that if you stop insuring them, the jobs will magically appear.

8:38PM: Romney continues to defend his Massachusetts health care plan using the exact same language the democrats used to defend the federal law. 

8:41PM: Newt says you can go to his website and find hundreds of ideas about health care, none of which resemble Obamacare.  I assume none of them resemble a coherent thought either.

8:42PM: Santorum just referred to himself in the third person.  I think winning Iowa may be going to his head.

8:43PM: Still talking about health care (ugh), Ron points out that Republicans, like Rick Santorum, for example, have no problem with expanding federal power when they're the ones wielding the power. 

Debate Fun Fact: Ron Paul is only 24 years old.  His appearance is the result of a curse put on him by a fortune teller at a carnival.

8:50PM: Quote of the night from Santorum: "Grandiosity has never been a problem for Newt Gingrich".  That's literally the most true thing that any candidate has said in any of these 17 debates.  Santorum went on to stop just short of calling Newt unstable.  I just spent two minutes liking Rick Santorum.  I feel dirty.

8:52PM: Newt likes to take credit for the 11 million jobs created while he was Speaker.  He also likes to say that government doesn't create jobs.  Newt likes to say a lot of things.  Later, he tied himself in knots trying to say both at once by saying that government that can "create an environment in which something something something jobs".  I admit I wasn't really listening.

8:54PM: Santorum just tore Newt apart on a rant about their time together in Congress.  Santorum claims he, as a freshman Congressman, blow the lid off a scandal Newt knew about for 10 or 15 years but didn't have the courage to do anything about.  Newt defended himself by ignoring Santorum and telling us about some other stuff he did.

8:56PM: Mitt leaps on the opportunity to paint Newt and Rick as Washington insiders while completely forgetting the question King just asked him.  Then he pointed out that Newt was only mentioned once in a Ronald Reagan biography.  I think Newt cried a little.

8:59PM: Ron says he's not releasing his tax returns because he'd be embarrassed by comparing his income to these other guys, adding that we don't really need that and he doesn't take money from lobbyists anyway and no one really cares about his taxes.  Sometimes Ron's still the best.

9:01PM: Mitt says he'll release his tax returns when they're finished.  Apparently, it takes a highly paid team of accountants at least three months to figure out Mitt's tax return.  That doesn't really surprise me.

9:02PM: Mitt promises that he'll release his tax returns right after everyone votes for him.

9:03PM: Apparently, Santorum does his own taxes, which is kind of funny.  He promises to go home and get them after the debate.  Do we all have to wait?

9:04PM: Romney is 100% flummoxed by this whole tax return release thing.  It's like they never programmed him for this.  Then he said he "earned" what he has.  That's one way to put it.

Debate Fun Fact: Newt has married and divorced twice more since the start of this debate.

9:07PM: Question about Apple having 500,000 employees in China.  Santorum says he'll give Apple a 0% tax rate to bring their money back to the U.S.  He also promised to go around the country smashing iPhones with a sledgehammer, claiming that he would "be the hammer of the free market".

9:10PM: King is always somewhere else on the stage when the camera finds him.  He's like the world's slowest and most boring ninja.

9:11PM: Question about SOPA.  I predict three of these guys will side with their corporate overlords and Ron will talk about civil liberties, but maybe I'm wrong.

9:12PM: I was wrong.  Newt is against SOPA, and made a perfectly coherent argument to support his opinion.  So there.  Romney agreed with Newt, but I can only assume he did that because he heard the crowd cheer Newt's answer and he doesn't really give a shit either way.

9:13PM: Well, I was right about Ron at least. 

9:14PM: Man, even Santorum said he's against SOPA.  Who are these guys? Santorum sort of hedged though saying "the internet is not a free zone where people can trample the rights of other people".  That kind of sounds exactly like the internet.

9:21PM: King asks each of the candidates what they would do differently in this campaign if they could do one thing differently.

Gingrich: He wouldn't have hired all those people who quit on him last year.
Romney: Mitt, in a bold move, took the opportunity to give us a minute of his general election stump speech.
Santorum: Rick wouldn't change a thing. 
My Man Ron: Also wouldn't change anything, but I believe him a hell of a lot more than I believe Rick.

9:24PM: Some lady in the crowd asked how the candidates would protect American citizens' jobs if illegal immigrants were given amnesty.  Why do they let the audience ask questions? 

9:25PM: Newt's answer to the lady's question somehow took us to making English the official language of government.  Newt also suggested allowing local citizens to decide whether or not their local immigrants would get to stay here or would have to go home.  He's suggested this before, but it's still one of the worst ideas I've ever heard.

Debate Fun Fact: Rick Santorum spends 5-6 hours a day on the phone with "the internet" trying to fix his google problem. 

9:28PM: Mitt brings up building the stupid fence.  I hate when these guys get into immigration.  It's even worse now that there's less of them, so they all get to say more stupid things. 

9:29PM: Santorum is all for immigration.  Not now, but back in the 20's or whenever his grandfather came here.  Immigrants today are the worst.

9:31PM: Mitt is very proud to say his position on immigration is the same now as it was four years ago.  I think that's a first for him.  Oh, wait, I think Santorum is saying that's not 100% true.  Oh well.

9:33PM: We just found out that Ron Paul is for the federal government doing something (dealing with immigration).  King, correctly, stopped the debate to have a quick celebratory ceremony.

9:36PM: I still don't understand why anyone thinks it's OK for government health care programs to refuse to provide for abortions, which are a perfectly legal medical procedure.  Why do we allow Republicans to get away with this kind of stuff?

9:38PM: Mitt just said "pro-life" 5 times in 8 seconds.  I think he's trying to make a point.  By the way, "pro-life" is a nonsense phrase that tries to paint pro-choice people as anti-life, when the more accurate dichotomy is pro-choice vs. anti-choice. 

9:42PM: This has now become a ten minute argument about who is the most pro-life.  On a related topic, everyone here except Ron (I think) is super supportive of the death penalty. 

9:43PM: King tried to move on without letting Ron talk about abortion.  The crowd jumped in and screamed for King to give them some Ron, and King obliged.

9:44PM: Good one minute demonstration of the difference between Ron and Rick.  Ron follows his understanding of the Constitution, Rick listens to his invisible friend in the sky.

Debate Fun Fact: Whenever Mitt Romney enters your state, 5,000 people are immediately laid off.

Closing Statements (King asked each of them to "make their case to the people of South Carolina"):

My Man Ron: Ron started by saying he wouldn't just make promises to the people of South Carolina (good for him) and ended by saying that freedom is good and spending is bad. 

Newt: Newt called Obama our "most dangerous" President, and then called him a "Saul Alinsky radical who is incompetent".  I don't know how any of these guys plan to win once they start having to debate the President in front of normal people.

Mitt: More stump speech.  Something about returning to American greatness and getting away from Barack Obama's entitlement state.  In Mitt's America, nobody is entitled to anything, because everything belongs to Mitt.

Santorum: Rick tried to squeeze every talking point he could think of into two minutes.  It was as annoying as it sounds.

That'll do it for tonight.  I think I'll be back next week for the State of the Union address.  It'll be weird watching somebody say things that, ya know, make sense and are based in reality.  Other than the occasional answer from Ron, I really haven't seen that in a while.  Should be fun.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Hasta la vista, Jon Huntsman.  Turns out being the candidate for people who think Mitt Romney is just a little too exciting for them isn't the best strategy.  I'll always remember the time I heard Jon Huntsman say something I immediately forgot.  How could a guy with "hunt" right there in his name not do better in the Republican party?

Seriously though, the fact that the only Republican candidate who was even remotely qualified to be President is also the only Republican candidate who never got near the top of the polls is just another in a long series of examples of what's wrong with the current Republican party.  Anyone who had a choice between Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum and decided that Santorum was the way to go should be immediately stripped of all voting rights for at least 2 elections.

Tonight's debate is brought to you by Fox "News" and moderated by Fox's Bret Baier, with questions from Juan Williams, some lady named Kelly and some guy who looks like an actor whose name I can't quite remember.  Why not just have those idiots from Fox & Friends do the debates?  At least that would be hilarious.  Anyway, courtesy of America's worst news channel, it's yet another Republican debate.

9:01PM: South Carolina does not like Ron Paul.  That's only going to make him more surly. 

9:02PM: Baier just reminded us that all of these candidates have done this "15 times".  Way to remind the audience how insanely unnecessary tonight is Bret.

9:04PM: Newt claims it was really big of him to stay positive all the way through the campaign, until he decided not to anymore.  Clearly, Newt sees campaign positivity the same way he sees wives.  He sticks with it until he doesn't feel like it anymore, and that's good enough.

9:05PM: Newt goes on to claim that his negative attacks on Romney are actually some kind of altruistic attempt to give Mitt a chance to answer these questions now instead of later.  He really is a crazy person.

9:08PM: Mitt just gave us his entire life story in 90 seconds.  You wouldn't think a person could actually do that, but Mitt is one of the 10 least interesting people in the world.  He nailed it, with time to spare.

9:09PM: Apparently, Rick Perry visited a South Carolina town with a steel mill that Romney's company "picked over" and shut down.  The question, by the way, was what regulations would Perry put into place in order to prevent what he calls "vulture capitalism".  His answer?  Less regulations.  Wait, what? 

9:11PM: Mitt is blaming his steel mill closing on China.  It took 11 minutes without Huntsman before somebody said something stupid about China.  Frankly, I can't believe it took that long.  Mitt also pointed out that his company opened a steel mill in Indiana.  I'm sure that makes people in South Carolina feel better about the whole thing.

9:13PM: Embedded in two minutes of Romney nonsense was a quick story about how his company closed a plant with union workers, then opened a new non-union plant.  And if the union workers didn't want to work in the new non-union plant, well, fuck them.  That pretty much sums it up.

9:16PM: Once again, Santorum defends Ron Paul's accusations about Rick being corrupt not by saying they're false, but by pointing out that his corruption was reported by the liberal media.  Stupid liberals, always saying true things about Rick Santorum. 

9:19PM: For the second time in the first 19 minutes, Romney just basically told Baier that he's going to say whatever the hell he wants and take as much time as he needs and Baier can suck it (I may be paraphrasing).  Someone's feeling pretty confident.

9:20PM: Romney says violent felons should never be able to vote again.  I'm pretty sure he's wrong about that.  I don't really care that much, but he's still wrong.

9:23PM: I just spent three minutes not listening to Romney because I was googling old bald actors trying to figure out who the third question guy looks like.  Couldn't find it.  I'm going with John Malkovich, but it's not quite right.

9:28PM: Twitter just asked Romney to convince us that he won't change his views on issues again.  It's not a good sign that Twitter has asked the best question of the night so far.  Then Romney said one of the stupidest things Republicans say all the time.  He believes in equal rights for everyone, but not gay marriage.  See, I have to believe Republicans don't understand what "equal" means.  Giving people less rights than other people is the exact opposite of equal.  You don't believe in equal rights Mitt, stop saying you do.

9:31PM: Perry says South Carolina is at war with the Federal government and gets a huge cheer from the crowd.  I know Rick Perry doesn't know anything about history, but even Rick should probably know that South Carolina isn't the best place to talk about a state being at war with the Federal government.  Perry also doubled down on his nonsense claim that the Obama administration is at war with religion.  I could go into a whole thing about this, but it's just easier to say that Perry is an idiot.

9:33PM: Santorum says being out of work for 99 weeks causes people to lose certain skills.  His solution to this quandary is to stop paying people unemployment benefits for that long.  I think Republicans believe that if you stop paying unemployment benefits to people, jobs will magically appear for them to do. 

9:35PM: Gingrich, once again, suggests that unemployment benefits should be tied to some kind of job training. For what jobs, Newt?  Also, Newt took this first visit to the south as an opportunity to suggest that Barack Obama is lazy and doesn't believe in work.  It's too late to castrate Newt, isn't it?  Oh well.

9:37PM: I don't know if Ron Paul left or if Baier is just ignoring him.

9:38PM: Romney is openly launching into parts of his stump speech whenever they ask him a question.

9:39PM: Malkovich keeps asking Ron Paul about the cuts he's proposing to "defense spending".  Ron keeps responding by telling Malkovich he doesn't understand the difference between actual defense spending on the military and ridiculous wasteful spending.  He came this close to calling Malkovich stupid.  I told you he'd be more surly tonight.

9:42PM: Rick Perry is still suggesting a 20% flat tax.  Newt outbids him with his proposal of a 15% flat tax.  Ron wins by bidding 0%.  I thought you couldn't go below one dollar...wait, what show is this?

9:43PM: Kelly just asked Mitt about releasing his tax records.  I'm sure he's been paying his taxes, just like humans do.  He says he'll release his tax records around April. 

9:44PM: Williams gets booed by the South Carolina crowd just for mentioning that Mitt's dad was born in Mexico.  Quick note for any friends and relatives who are reading this.  If I ever talk about moving to the south for any reason, please stop me.  Use lethal force if you have to.

9:47PM: Santorum takes the long way to suggesting that maybe black people wouldn't be so poor if they would just stop having so many babies out of wedlock.  Huge cheer from the crowd, obviously.  People watching will say he wasn't just talking about black people, but Juan's question was pretty clearly about poverty in the African-American community, so you tell me.

9:49PM: Juan throws my man Ron a softball about the racial disparity in drug laws, arrests and imprisonment.  Ron correctly pointed out the discrimination in the judicial system, as he's done before, but then he ended by listing a few things Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with him on.  Calm down, Ron.  I like you, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be Dr. King's favorite Congressman.

9:52PM: Williams asked Newt if he can at least see how his suggestion about school kids being janitors in their own schools is insulting to Americans.  Newt's answer?  "No, I don't".  Newt turned it into some weird argument about how only elites would oppose his brilliant child janitors idea.  That might sound really crazy, but you have to remember that when Newt says "elites", he means "people with brains".

9:54PM: The crowd is going nuts over Newt's thinly veiled racism.  It's like a klan rally, and Newt's the grand wizard.  My favorite claim of his was how Barack Obama has put more people on food stamps than any other President.  Right, people were just sitting around, comfortably being able to buy their own food, and President Obama stormed into their homes, took all their money and forced them to need assistance so they can eat. 

10:01PM: Talking about Pakistan, Ron makes the crazy suggestion that we should maybe treat other countries the way we expect to be treated.  After five minutes of arguing about this, the crowd boos Ron pretty loudly for the suggestion.  This, by the way, is why I call these guys idiots whenever they try to argue that America is special and way better than everyone else.

10:06PM: Baier has no control over the candidates, the crowd, anything.

10:09PM: Mitt proposes having a military so strong that nobody would ever think of testing it.  I'm not sure how he thinks this would help with terrorism, but that's his plan.

10:12PM: I have a headache.  Can we just stipulate that four of these guys want to go to war with as many muslim countries as they can find? 

10:15PM: Ron points out that there's a difference between the taliban and al qaeda.  Newt and the Ricks look pretty confused.

10:17PM: Mitt says it's OK for the President to have the ability to indefinitely detain American citizens, because Mitt promises he won't abuse that power.  Well, if Mitt and President Obama promise not to abuse their authority, then I guess it's OK.  I just hope they didn't have their fingers crossed.

10:19PM: The candidates appear to be openly mocking the moderators at this point.  Baier asked Ron if he'd like to take 30 seconds to talk about this indefinite detention thing, Ron informed Bret that he'll be taking a minute.

10:21PM: How would Rick Perry address the problems in the housing market?  Come on, you know this one.  That's right!  Tax cuts.  There's nothing that can't be fixed by tax cuts, as long as you're already rich.  And if you're not already rich, well, fuck you!

10:23PM: Question lady Kelly becomes easily my favorite by summing up Perry's two minutes of nonsense perfectly by pointing out that tax cuts don't count as doing something to address the housing market.

10:26PM: Newt just referred to himself as "a historian" again.  HA!  Newt's still really excited about how Chile does their social security system.  Hey Newt, if you like Chile so much, why don't you just move to Chile.  Seriously Newt, move to Chile, I'll buy your plane ticket.

10:29PM: Santorum just talked for three straight minutes.  I'm dizzy.

10:31PM: Newt says there are 185 separate bureaucracies that deal with low income people.  Newt would balance the budget by getting rid of all of them and block granting everything back to the states.  Or back to cities, or wherever.  The point is, when Newt's President, he does not want to deal with poor people.

10:33PM: Romney is still proposing his awesome idea of eliminating the capital gains tax on poor people and the middle class.  Somebody must have told him how stupid that sounds by now, he must just not be listening.

10:39PM: Mitt appears to be promising to sign whatever legislation the pro-gun lobby tells him to.  He's also in favor of all the laws we need to protect people, as long as we never pass any new gun laws ever again.

10:40PM: Juan asks Santorum about his second amendment bona fides.  Listen, I may not agree with him, but I'm pretty sure Santorum is all for guns.  Not being pro-gun enough is not one of the ways you should be attacking Rick Santorum.

10:42PM: During this whole gun argument, Santorum is kind enough to remind us that he's OK with the Federal government doing whatever it wants, as long as it's doing things that Rick agrees with.  Santorum is also laying out a pretty good plan to end gun manufacturing in this country.  He's talking about that like it would be a bad thing, but someone should probably look into Rick's plan to see if it would work. 

10:45PM: Mitt and Newt are arguing about false superPAC ads.  Funny how all these guys who supported unlimited money in campaigns apparently never thought that anyone other than themselves would actually get to take advantage of it.  Mitt's solution appears to be to allow donors to buy candidates directly.

10:48PM: Rick Perry just figured out that rates of immigration are tied to how well our economy is doing.  It was like watching the moment that a dog figures out that the tail he's been chasing is his.

10:50PM:  I think Newt just blamed immigrants for low test scores in schools.  I think that's a pretty good way to end things, Baier agrees.

Well, I was definitely more negative about tonight's debate than I've been about past debates.  In my defense, the candidates were quite a bit stupider tonight than they've been in the past.  See you next time.