Alchemy 2012!

So Mitt Romney finally has a running mate.  I can't wait to find out who Barack Obama decides to pick (what?  Is it still Biden?  Well, OK then).  Get ready for three months of soundbites from conservatives that basically boil down to "well, I mean, sure Mitt Romney sucks, but, but Paul Ryan!".  Conservatives are excited about Paul Ryan, like kids on Conservative Christmas.  Conservative Christmas, by the way, is a lot like regular Christmas, only instead of giving toys to all the good little girls and boys, Conservative Santa takes all the toys from the poor kids and gives them to the rich kids who really deserve them.  Those poor kids need to get a job, or an inheritance.

Personally, I like this pick for the Republicans.  Honestly, I do.  First, let's start by comparing him to the lowest possible running mate standard, which is obviously Sarah Palin.

Paul Ryan understands enough about the federal budget to, ya know, propose a budget.  Advantage Ryan.
Paul Ryan comes from a state where people actually live.  Advantage Ryan.
Paul Ryan possesses the ability to speak in full sentences.  Advantage Ryan.
Paul Ryan is, at least, vaguely familiar with reality.  Advantage Ryan.

Next, what's the worst thing about Mitt Romney as a candidate?  I know it's hard to choose, but I think you'd have to say it's the fact that nobody likes him.  He's just a really unlikable guy.  When he's talking, instead of listening to what he's actually saying, most people are just daydreaming about running up onto the stage and punching him in the face.

Paul Ryan, on the other hand, is genuinely likable.  He has an ability very few 2012 Republicans have, the ability to sound reasonable.  When you see Paul Ryan on TV, even as he's saying things you completely disagree with, he doesn't make you want to throw things at the TV, or, I don't know, spend an hour writing an entire blog post just making fun of the things he's saying http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2012/07/your-arguments-are-bad-and-you-should.html

Now, Democrats are pretty excited about Paul Ryan too, and I understand why.  Yes, Paul Ryan believes that the rights of women are less important than the rights of religious institutions to impose their values on everyone else.  Yes, Paul Ryan believes you can budget cut your way out of a recession. And yes, Paul Ryan is an economic alchemist.

All 2012 Republicans are economic alchemists.  They believe they can magically turn tax cuts for the wealthy into a thriving economy for everyone.  It's just like how you build a house starting with the roof.  The roof is the shelter creator.  Without the roof, your house is just a small park with high walls.  So you build the roof first and just wait for the roof parts to fall down and magically form the rest of the house.  That's how you build a house, right?  I don't know, I've never done it.

You can't blame Mitt Romney for choosing a Republican to run on the Republican ticket with him.  And, in 2012, you can't really ask Mitt Romney to find a Republican to run with him who doesn't believe things that are stupid.

I also think the Romney campaign deserves some credit for picking someone who really does seem interested in talking about policy.  We'll see if I'm right when he starts making campaign speeches, but I've always seen Paul Ryan as a guy who is much more interested in having an honest policy debate than he is in suggesting that Barack Obama is a secret Kenyan muslim terrorist.

I don't know if Ryan helps the Romney campaign win any states, but I don't think that's the point.  Selecting Ryan represents a decision to make this an election about base and turnout, and I think that's the right move for Romney.  The Republicans don't have policies that appeal to truly independent or moderate people, they just don't.  They need to win this election with base energy and turn-out.  Paul Ryan helps with that as much as anyone, and he does it with much less negative baggage than you'd get with someone like Santorum or Palin or Gingrich.

For Ryan, this is obviously great.  I don't think Romney wins, he's just too unlikable (I know it wasn't that long ago that I said I thought Romney had a better than 50% chance, but have you seen how they're running his campaign?  Right now, I think Romney would do better if he spent the next three months traveling around the world and avoiding the media).

So Ryan gets national campaign experience and he gets to blame the loss on Romney.  After the election, he'll be in the same position Sarah Palin was in four years ago.  Palin had the opportunity to go away for a while, learn stuff, and come back as the clear favorite for the 2012 nomination.  Now, Palin possesses neither the ability to go away nor the ability to learn stuff, so that didn't really work out for her, but she had the opportunity, and Paul Ryan will have the same opportunity.  And he doesn't have to go all the way away, he just has to stop himself from chasing every TV camera he sees for a couple of years.

In 2016, Paul Ryan can be the clear favorite for the Republican nomination for an election that's wide open on both sides.  Additionally, since this country is really too stupid to stick to a budget, our debt is only going to be worse four years from now, which only makes Ryan (who, whether you like his ideas or not, is one of the few people to at least suggest something) more attractive in four years.

I'd be really interested in a debate between Barack Obama and Paul Ryan.  I think it would be fascinating.  Unfortunately, unless Romney goes back to his planet soon, we're still stuck with three horrible Romney/Obama debates and one semi-fascinating Biden/Ryan debate (people forget how smart Biden is because he's so goofy, but he's a bright guy).  So, I'm not sure this choice makes the election any more watchable, or tolerable, but it does bait an interesting trap for the Democrats.

I've said before that Republicans are stupid for making constant personal attacks against Barack Obama because he's so likable.  I think the same is true for Ryan.  Democrats seem to be getting ready to tell you that Paul Ryan eats babies for fun (and, since he's from Wisconsin, he fries them and covers them in a thick, cheese-based sauce, which is even more cruel and delicious), but when you meet him, he'll seem like a good guy, and the Democrats will just look mean and stupid.

I probably would have preferred Tim Pawlenty, just because I kind of like Pawlenty, he seems like a nice guy, but Paul Ryan was probably the right choice.  Don't worry, I'm sure the Romney campaign has already fired whoever it was that actually did something right.

What Mitt Should Do

After watching Mitt Romney campaign for a few months, I'm forced to ask, is Mitt's campaign being run by a brain trust of infants and angry chimpanzees?  Honestly, with the President as vulnerable as he is, I'm baffled by the Romney campaign's inability to ever do anything right.  Campaigns for student council president in high schools have been better run.  

Now, I'm not rooting for Mitt, but there's always a part of me that roots for the trainwreckiest outcome possible, which is obviously a Romney victory.  If Mitt wins, I predict we'll lose an entire state by 2016.  We'll have no idea where it went.  Mitt might know, but he won't tell us.  I hope it's Texas.

Doesn't that sound fun?  Not even a little?  Well I think it does, so here's what I think Mitt needs to do to win.

1) Release His Tax Returns

How stupid can Mitt Romney possibly be?  He's at least smart enough to send his money on permanent tropical vacations.  It's unbelievable to me that Mitt doesn't understand how poorly he's handling this thing with the tax returns.  Here are some things everybody already knows about Mitt:

1) He's super duper rich.

2) His money lives in far away places.

3) Because he doesn't work anymore, and mostly just makes money from investments, he pays a frustratingly low tax rate.

Mitt's tax returns will tell us all of these things, not that we need them to.  Unless Mitt's tax returns will also somehow reveal a 7 figure "hooker disposal" budget, there's no way releasing his returns could possibly be more damaging than four months of stories about how he won't release them.  You know what nobody will give a shit about once Mitt releases his tax returns?  Mitt's tax returns.

Also, even though the current Republican theory of economics is demonstrably nonsense, doesn't the fact that Mitt has to hide his money off-shore sort of play right into their whole argument about how we need a Republican President to create an environment that's conducive to business and investment?  What am I missing?

2) Shut Up About Health Care

Anybody stupid enough to fall for the Republican talking points about the Affordable Care Act is already voting for Romney because they think Barack Obama is a secret muslim communist socialist. 

And it isn't just that arguing against, ya know, insuring more people, makes you looks stupid.  It also makes you looks like kind of a dick.  When Republicans say health care reform will lead to "rationing", what they're really saying is "hey look, if we let more people get insurance, then more people will be going to the doctor, and we might have to wait longer, and we'd rather just let some poor people die than figure out a better system." 

If Mitt wants to make the argument that the Affordable Care Act is just a big government give away to big insurance companies, I'm cool with that.  But if he wants to make the argument that it's a socialist government take-over of health care, than he's an idiot. 

Lost my train of thought there a little, this health care debate still makes me crazy, moving on...  

3) Pick a Normal Running Mate

Remember what John McCain did when he picked a running mate?  Mitt should do exactly not that.  McCain picked a clown to run with him and it turned his campaign into a circus.  Romney should pick Tim Pawlenty.  He's the vanilla pudding of politicians.  He'll sit quietly and not say anything stupid, which already gives him an advantage over Biden.  If you ask for anything else from a running mate, you're just setting yourself up for failure.

Also, I like Tim Pawlenty.  The fact that he got knocked out of the Republican primaries almost immediately only proves my point that he might actually not be an idiot.  And, for all the those evangelicals who are worried about how mormon-y Romney is, I hear T-Paw is super jesus-y.

4) Talk About Results

Don't let the Obama campaign dismiss the still struggling economy by blaming everything on Congress. Is it true that Barack Obama hasn't really been able to do anything about jobs because Congressional Republicans have spent the last two years "governing" like fussy six-year-olds?  Yes, but who cares?  How does that help anyone?  Do you think, if the President gets re-elected, Republicans will suddenly grow up and realize they need to work with him?  

Romney needs to make the point that he's not blaming the President for the current state of the economy, he's just saying the President isn't the guy to fix it.  It may not be fair, but it's probably true.

(sidenote: there's zero evidence Romney is the guy to fix it, and a decent amount of evidence that the policies Mitt wants to implement are what broke the economy in the first place, but voters really aren't that bright.  You have to have like three consecutive intelligent thoughts to get to where I just went, most swing voters can barely string together three polysyllabic words).  

Barack Obama's only defense against the unemployment rate is that it's not his fault.  If Mitt makes the point that it doesn't matter whose fault it is, the Obama campaign will be mostly defenseless on the economy, which is the only thing anybody really cares about right now.

5) Lower Expectations

Barack Obama is going to murder Mitt Romney in three debates.  It isn't really Mitt's fault.  How is he supposed to compete with an actual smart person after a year of debating mouth-breathers like Santorum and Gingrich.  The only intelligent counter points Mitt ever heard during the primaries came from Ron Paul, and he never had to respond to those because the crowd was always booing Ron ("Boooooooooo! what you said is logical and I hate it! Boooooooo!")

Do you remember the Palin/Biden debates from four years ago?  Everything we knew about Palin suggested she wouldn't be able to get through the debate without setting her podium on fire.  So, when she managed to make it to the stage without getting lost, half of the media immediately declared her the winner.  Sure, her points were mostly incoherent nonsense, but she smiled a lot and seemed to have a decent grasp of the English language, and that was really more than we were expecting.

Mitt needs to pull the same trick.  By the time we get to the debates, people should be saying that Mitt wins as long as his battery doesn't run out on national TV.  I think he's well on his way.

6) Pretend He's Never Met Congress

Mitt should run as far away from Congressional Republicans as possible.  Obama should do the same thing with Congressional Democrats, but this isn't about the President right now.  You know who people hate?  Congress.  You know how Mitt could lock up about a million swing votes in about 10 seconds?  Walk up to a microphone somewhere and say "you know, I'm a Republican and all, but Michele Bachmann really is a fucking idiot.  I just felt like I needed to share."  Wait, are mormons allowed to say that word?  He may have to re-write it a little.  Can he say gosh darn?

And that's pretty much it.  You have a sitting President with a somewhat disappointed base and an unemployment rate over 8%.  If Mitt Romney can spend the next four months not being a moron and staying out of his own way, I give him about a 75% chance of winning.  Terrifying?  Yes.  But also true.  Luckily for everyone, the chances of him spending four months not being a moron are not quite so high, so there's still hope.  

State Of The Republican Race

It's been almost a year already since I took my first shot at summing up the race for the Republican nomination http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2010/11/start-game.html.  I nailed some things (hello Rick Perry) and whiffed on others (oh, Haley Barbour, why have you forsaken me?).  The aftermath of the first sort of important debate is a good time to reset the field and see where we are.  I'll break the remaining candidates into four groups. 

Still Pretending:  People who can't possibly win the nomination, but are still plugging away like champs.
Still Contending:  People who I think still have a shot
Wild Cards:  People I still can't totally figure out
Front Runner:  The guy on top, for now.

But first...
Hasta La Vista Timmy
First off, a fond farewell to Tim Pawlenty.  He showed up at the Iowa debate, hammered away at Michele Bachmann for a little while, finished a distant third in the straw poll and then he bailed.  Well done, buddy.  Tim was the little engine that couldn't, because nobody wanted him to.  After the debate Thursday, I was thinking Pawlenty had a great performance and, in going after the two front runners, did exactly what he needed to do.  I just didn't know if it was enough.  Now I know.  It wasn't.

Still Pretending

Newt Gingrich

Newt easily had the worst performance in Thursday's debate.  Look, I understand conservative politicians can score points by blaming the media every time they say something stupid.  But Newt, who WORKED AT FOX, went to the FOX DEBATE Thursday and complained that the FOX ANCHORS were nailing him with gotcha questions.  Gotcha questions like, "Why did your whole staff quit?" and "Can you explain words that you said?". 

Newt then proceeded to finish 8th in a 10 man race, behind a guy who announced he wasn't participating in the straw poll two months ago and a guy who wasn't officially in the race yet when the poll started.  I'll enjoy the comedy of Newt's campaign until whenever he drops out. 

By the way, I wish Republicans would stop trying to tell me that Newt is some kind of super genius.  He's a small time political hack who can't cut it on the national stage.  End of story.

Herman Cain

Speaking of hacks.  I don't really know what to make of Herman's Cain's debate performance.  Policy wise, he's in pretty far over his head at this point.  His calling card is that old story about how if you ran a business then you know how to run a government.  Of course, that's nonsense, but politicians have been saying it for as long as I can remember and people are still falling for it.  I can see Cain doing surprisingly well in one of the early primaries, but one third place finish in Iowa doesn't get you the nomination.

Rick Santorum

The knuckle-dragging bible-thumping on social issues.  The know-nothing, war-mongering nonsense on foreign policy.  The blind loyalty to the cult of tax cuts.  Rick Santorum is everything that's wrong with the Republican party all rolled up into one ignorant package.  I do not like him.  Luckily, he isn't winning. 

By the way, for anyone who read my recap of Thursday's debate, I want to quickly re-visit one point.  When I said Rick Santorum promised to come to each state and be homophobic in person, I wasn't being hyperbolic or making that up.  Rick, if he wins the Presidency, will apparently spend the majority of his term flying around the country and fighting the evil gays face to face.  That landed him almost 10% of the straw poll votes.  Iowa must be feeling very proud today.

Ron Paul

I love Ron Paul.  If Ron Paul was an atheist, I'd quit my job to go volunteer for his campaign.  Ron did his thing in Thursday's debate.  He talked about monetary policy, which I think he only does to prove that he's smarter than the other candidates, Bachmann can't even spell monetary.  He talked about his different (and better) vision for what Republican foreign policy can be.  He talked about the Constitution, which he was doing back when the rest of the Republican party was cheering George W. Bush on as he urinated all over the Constitution.  He almost won the straw poll, finishing a very close second.  And, as usual, nobody cares.

I think my favorite thing about Congressman Paul is his clear disdain for almost everyone else in his party.  You could tell during the debate, it seems like he hates those people he was sharing the stage with almost as much as they hate Barack Obama.  When asked about Rick Perry, Paul immediately dismissed him as another establishment political hack.   Like I said, I love Ron Paul.

Still Contending

Jon Hunstman

I know, Huntsman probably isn't a real contender and may drop out before I finish typing this sentence.  I think this is me just trying to stay hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the Republicans can turn this thing around and nominate someone with a working brain.  Sadly, my hope is most likely misguided. 

What makes me say that?  Well, Huntsman just sort of blended in at the debate and then finished 10th in the straw poll, including getting less votes (69) then the "other" category (162).  Why I am still a little hopeful?  Hunstman was never going to win Iowa and everyone knew it.  He needs to focus on New Hampshire, work on his delivery (he has a really odd speaking style) and hope for the best.  He still has a good amount of money behind him.

Michele Bachmann

Bachmann's debate performance was awful.  She clung to her talking points the way her husband clings to his (insert latent homosexuality joke here).  However, this one awful performance in this one very early debate is a good sign going forward.  Congresswoman Bachmann is working hard on her ability to stay on message, stick to her talking points and limit her trips to Imagination Land.  It makes her look stiff and over-rehearsed now, but it'll pay off later.  Frankly, I'm a little worried she's taking this more seriously than I thought she could.  I'm impressed with her growth over the last few months, and terrified to say that she might actually be able to win this nomination if she keeps it up.

The Wild Cards

Sarah Palin

Still lurking around the perimeter of the campaign like a shark circling a school of trout, the former half-term Governor continues to cast a shadow over the nomination process.  The fun thing about Palin is you really don't know what she'll do next.  She could run, she could endorse somebody, she could try host her own primary somewhere, she could challenge the other candidates to a bus race.  Palin's unique combination of insanity, irrational self-confidence and delusions of grandeur make almost anything possible.  It's probably already a little late for her to get into the race and win, but you can bet she'll do something in the next six months to seriously influence the race.

Rick Perry

Perry just got in, but I've been convinced he was running since last November.  I don't know what people see in him.  They say he created jobs in Texas.  First of all, I thought government doesn't create jobs, so I'm a little confused.  Secondly, he created jobs in Texas by undercutting surrounding states on taxes, wages and regulation.  That trick doesn't work when you're in charge of the whole country. 

For fans of the West Wing, you may remember the guy President Bartlet ran against for re-election, a know-nothing conservative Governor from Florida named Rob Ritchie, played by James Brolin.  At the time, Ritchie seemed like an approximation of George W. Bush, but now he looks like a mirror image of Perry.  As you may recall, Bartlet wiped the floor with Ritchie in the one debate they had, and I'm pretty sure President Obama would do the same with Perry.

The Front Runner

Mitt Romney

Still at the head of the field, for now.  Here's the thing about Mitt Romney.  His message in the debate was an anti-Obama message.  He's trying to prove he can be the guy Republicans want, the guy to go after the President hard and relentlessly.  That's fine for now, but if he wants to beat the President, he needs more.  No matter how low the President's job approval sinks, he's personal popularity remains high.  People like Barack Obama, and Romney can't beat him by bashing him.  If Mitt wins the nomination, he needs to run a positive general election campaign, centered around his own ideas for what he would do as President. 

Romney's religion could still be a problem in the primary, but only if the other candidates work together.  Michele Bachmann can't just come out and talk about Romney being a mormon, it would drag her down too.  What she needs is a third person, say Herman Cain, to start reminding Republican primary voters that Romney isn't really a christian like they are.  Cain would doom his own campaign by overtly making religion an issue, but he isn't going to win anyway.  Evangelical voters would start to get more nervous about Romney then they already are, and Bachmann would reap the windfall while being able to give the ol' "this campaign isn't about Mitt Romney's faith, it's about the American people" soundbite. 

But before that strategy can work, Bachmann and Perry have to figure out who gets the crazy idiot vote.  If they split that half of the party while Romney manages to avoid splitting the slightly more reasonable and somewhat rational half of the party with someone else, Hunstman maybe, then Romney walks to the nomination while the tea people and the evangelicals are arguing over Bachmann and Perry. 

The bottom line for me is this.  Whichever half of the Republican party can decide who they're behind quicker wins.  Right now, Romney has the lead because nobody can cut into his support with the establishment side of the party while the other side of the party is still getting their act together.  When the primaries start, Bachmann will win Iowa, Romney will win New Hampshire and Perry should win South Carolina assuming he runs a halfway decent campaign.  That puts everyone on even footing coming out of the early states and Romney's money and name recognition should be able to carry him from there. 

This only changes if the tea people and evangelicals can get together and pick one person to win Iowa and South Carolina. Then that person starts the rest of the primary process with an advantage and some momentum.  Do I think this will happen?  Probably not.  Can it happen?  Sure.  Does the idea of President Bachmann or President Perry terrify me?  You bet. 

Meeting of the Cult of Tax Cuts

So, I decided to watch tonight's Republican debate in Iowa and, ya know, blog about it. This is probably a terrible idea. Debates are boring, and being 15 months from the actual Presidential election, this particular debate couldn't be less important. But, honestly, these people are morons and I can't help myself. As usual, I make no promises about this being coherent, well written or spelled correctly.

If you haven't been paying attention yet, first of all, good for you, and secondly, here's a quick rundown of the participants in no particular order:
1) Minnesota Congresswoman and noted insane person...Michele "Crazy Eyez" Bachmann.
2) Former Godfather's Pizza CEO and the Republican party's new black friend...Herman "The Pizza Man" Cain
3) Former Pennsylvania Senator and enduring internet sensation (google it!)...Rick "Frothy" Santorum
4) Known mormon and possible robot...Mitt "Magic Underpants" Romney
5) Former Minnesota Governor and current person...Tim "Tim" Pawlenty
6) Speaker of the House during, I believe, the Taft administration...Newt "I Can't Believe He's Still Alive" Gingrich
7) Internet darling, Texas Congressman and consistent 5th place finisher...Ron "Dr. Steel Hammer" Paul
8) Former Ambassador to China and less mormony mormon...Jon "Who The Fuck Is That Guy" Huntsman

Without further adieu, live from Crazytown, it's the first of way too many Republican debates. Wait, one pre-debate note. I watched like 45 seconds of Bill O'Reilly while waiting for the debate to begin and he made me curse at the TV twice. Not a good start.

Quick side note, you might be asking yourself why I'm watching Republicans instead of pre-season football. Well, because pre-season football sucks, that's why.

Right off the bat, I have to say I'm surprised and a little disappointed to see that Tim Pawlenty decided not to show up. Wait a minute. You know what? Pawlenty is there. That's my bad, I had mistaken him for a podium.

Fox "News " anchor Bret Baier is the moderator. He's got a panel of some other people asking questions. Baier starts off by asking the candidates to "put aside the talking points". Good luck with all that.

9:04 - First question to Bachmann, hooray! She thinks we shouldn't have raised the debt ceiling, and followed it up with a barrage of talking points. Baier cried a little. Then Romney said President Obama has ruined everything and then gave us a 7 point plan for fixing the economy. Yikes, he's like a Republican John Kerry.

9:07 - When questioned about why he's been in hiding all summer, Romney answered by completely ignoring the question and rambling until Herman's Cain's pizza delivery came to the door (oops, that was the was bell telling us Romney's time was up).

9:08 - Ron Paul did a minute on our failed monetary system. I think he may have been right about most of it, but nobody in the arena, including the seven other candidates, had any idea what he was talking about. Then he mentioned defense cuts and got a big cheer from the crowd. Four years changes a lot of things.

9:11 - Next question: What would President Cain do to re-start the economic engine? Answer: Permanent tax cuts for rich people and corporations. He must be the first Republican to have thought of that awesome plan.

9:12 - Gingrich gets the $100 prize for being the first one to mention Ronald Reagan. I can't believe it took 12 minutes.

9:13 - Pawlenty directs us to his website instead of just answering a question, then asks where Barack Obama's plans are. Maybe they're on his website. Then Pawlenty took a weird shot at Romney, something about one acre. Odd moment.

9:16 - Low blow on Pawlenty from Fox's Chris Wallace. Pawlenty responded by calling Bachmann's record in Congress "non-existent". Bachmann responded by basically saying that having no experience is still better than being Tim Pawlenty. I'll have to agree with her on that one.

9:20 - Did you know Bachmann introduced something called the "Light bulb Freedom of Choice Act"? I'm serious. By the way, we're in the middle of an all out fist fight between Bachmann and Pawlenty at this point. Apparently, Pawlenty is rubber and Bachmann is glue.

9:21 - Baier mentions how Romney made his money by laying people off. Romney's answer basically boiled down to "life's tough, get a helmet".

9:26 - We just met the chairman of the Iowa GOP. He looks EXACTLY how you would picture him. Seriously, try to picture the chairman of the Iowa GOP in your head, and then google him. I guarantee you were close.

9:27 - Gingrich reminds Wallace that any tough question is, by rule, a gotcha question. Wallace got quite a lecture from Newt there. Wallace defended himself and got booed. Meanwhile, Newt still won't address the fact that his whole staff quit.

9:31 - Huntsman might actually not be a moron. As you might expect, the crowd doesn't really know how to react to his answers.

9:32 - Cain gets the prize for being the first one to bring up the imaginary threat of sharia law. That was in response to a question about whether or not he knows enough to be President. I wonder if he knows anything about irony.

9:33 - I may have spoken to soon about Huntsman. He seems to be a fan of the magic Mexico border fence.

9:34 - If you come to America and get a PHD in Physics, Mitt Romney will staple a green card to your diploma. Good to know.

9:35 - Cain says "America has got to learn how to take a joke". I'm with him on that one. It's nice to know Cain has been joking this whole time. For a minute I thought he was trying to run a serious campaign.

9:37 - Gingrich immediately demonstrates his inability to take a joke and then proposes a number of unconstitutional things we can do to immigrants (English as the national language and somehow distinguishing between people who have been here for a long time and people who just got here recently were the highlights). Newt's playing the role of a crazy homeless guy who wandered onto the stage.

9:41 - The liberal-ish guy on the panel is asking the former Governors about the times they raised taxes. The basic response was "lalala, we can't hear you, tax cuts!". Pawlenty and Bachmann are hammering away at each other again. Pawlenty keeps trying to make logical arguments, he doesn't know Bachmann is impervious to logic. So much for Minnesota nice.

9:47 - One minute from Santorum on the importance of negotiation and compromise, except when it comes to taxes.

9:51 - Now Pawlenty's going after Romney. It's open season on front-runners, and Pawlenty's got the shotgun. Also, Romney agrees with everything in President Obama's health care plan, except the fact that President Obama was involved.

9:54 - Bachmann says the government can't force people to buy anything. I wonder if she has car insurance.

9:56 - Ron Paul says government involvement drives a wedge between the doctor and the patient. That's right! Government isn't supposed to get in there, that's where the insurance companies go.

9:57 - Santorum just compared same-sex marriage to polygamy and sterilization. Took him long enough. No follow-up from Baier. Glad he's here. Also, it appears the candidates get to take a walk whenever we have commercials. Sort of like recess.

10:00 - Bachmann came back late from recess. I can't even write a joke for that one.

10:02 - Huntsman has to work on his delivery. I always think he's being sarcastic (come to think of it, maybe he is).

10:04 - Quick side note. If Rick Perry somehow becomes the President, I'm moving to Canada where him and his god can't get me.

10:08 - Every question Gingrich gets is a gotcha question. Also, Gingrich did a pretty good job of laying out his policy on Libya, he believes we should do the opposite of whatever the President is doing, and he feels very strongly about it.

10:14 - Ron Paul doesn't mind Iran developing nuclear weapons, he made the point that we let Russia and China have nuclear weapons. He thinks we should talk to Cuba too. Santorum practically leaped over his podium to disagree with him on Iran. Paul responded with a history lesson about Iran. Silly Ron Paul, Rick Santorum doesn't care about facts.

10:18 - Bachmann was talking about terrorists being given due process and said something that I never understand when Republicans say it. If they believe that the rights granted in our Constitution are given to us by their god, why is it that those rights only apply to Americans? I know why I believe rights in the Constitution only apply to Americans, because I know their god isn't real. But I find their position incongruent. (sorry religious friends, I try not to be mean, but these Republicans get me all riled up).

10:22 - Paul responds to more nonsense from Santorum on Iran by saying "you've just heard the war propaganda that will get us into the next war". I know he's crazy sometimes, but I don't care, Ron Paul's the best.

10:26 - Gingrich explains that his proposed loyalty test for muslims who work in the government would actually apply to everyone. Oh, that makes it OK then.

10:28 - Cain pulls the old "I don't mind Mitt Romney being a mormon, but other people really don't like it" trick. Ya know, I think Herman Cain is great, but I've heard other people think he's a total moron.

10:31 - Romney believes marriage should be decided at the federal level. He looks a lot like that guy who was going on and on about states rights and healthcare like 30 minutes ago. Apparently marriage is different because people move from state to state. Of course, Romney knows that when you move from one state to another, whatever poor health you previously had stays behind.

10:33 - Santorum does not like the gays, and Ron Paul does not like Santorum. Personally, I'm on Ron Paul's side. Santorum also promised to come to every state and be homophobic in person if he has to.

10:37 - Now they're talking about abortion. What the hell? Is there some kind of debate inside the Republican party about this? Are we not sure if the eventual Republican nominee will be anti-choice? Why do they have this weird competition about who hates abortion more every four years? We get it.

10:40 - Romney's in favor of privatizing unemployment benefits. Interesting argument coming from a guy who laid people off for a living. Maybe Mitt should just sit this topic out.

10:43 - Bachmann demonstrates that she still doesn't understand how the debt ceiling works. At least she's consistent with her stupidity.

10:47 - I think Gingrich is going for the overall championship for most mentions of Reagan. He certainly has the lead.

10:50 - Santorum criticizes Bachmann and Paul for not being able to magically use the one vote they each have in the House of Respresentatives to immediately balance the federal budget.

10:54 - Huntsman believes parents and local politicians should be in charge of education. OK, that's it, I'm done with him. You know how I feel about parents and local politicians.

Each candidates gets a closing statement, I'll try to sum them up for you:
Santorum - Iowa's a nice state.
Cain - Something about poetry.
Paul - Ron talked about god. Oh Ron, why do you hurt me so.
Romney - President Obama hasn't lived in the real economy (Huh?)
Bachmann - Washington DC is bad. (where does she work again?)
Pawlenty - More god stuff.
Huntsman - We're all gonna die, unless you vote for me.
Gingrich - Screw the Presidential election, we need to do something now. That was weird, and a perfect ending.