The Man That You Fear

This Republican primary race is hard to figure.  Nobody can rationally explain how Trump still leads all the polls.  Trump got himself in trouble recently by suggesting that we just stop letting muslims into the country.  And by "got himself in trouble" I mean scored another week of non-stop media coverage and surged in the polls.  Does Trump not allow follow-up questions?  Or if you ask him a follow-up question does he just yell and make faces until you give up?  How would this plan work?

For years, Trump insisted that Barack Obama was a secret muslim engaged in a lifelong plan to lie about being a muslim so he could become President of the United States and do...I don't know...whatever terrible thing Trump thinks he's going to do in the next year before he's not the President anymore.  Any yet, no muslim terrorist would be cagey enough to slip past airport screeners on the lookout for muslims.  Seems like a flawed plan to me.

Anyway, the part I really can't figure out is how Ted Cruz is suddenly pushing into a clear 2nd place.  How is Ted Cruz the anti-Trump?  How do you decide you don't like Trump and then you see Ted Cruz and you're like "sign me up!"?  If Donald Trump is your problem, Ted Cruz is not the answer.  If the things Donald Trump says scare you, Ted Cruz is the man that you fear. 

While Trump is wildly unelectable, comically so, Cruz is vaguely electable under the right circumstances.  For one thing, he at least has some experience governing.  He's terrible at it, also comically so, but he's done it a little.  And while Trump has the temperament of three toddlers in a man suit, Cruz has all the sociopathic tendencies of a serial killer.  That might sound unelectable, but serial killers only become serial killers by luring victims into his lair or whatever.

The point is, Cruz is like Trump only worse because he actually takes this election seriously and he may just be tricky enough to get nominated.  And if we have to choose between Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton my only suggestion would be that we all hold our breath until one of these parties gives us a decent candidate to vote for.  OK, let's see how long I can last tonight.

8:47PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Blitzer and some other CNN clowns.  I'm starting with zero patience for CNN so my attitude isn't going to get any better.

8:49PM: Rand immediately attacked Trump and said boots on the ground in Syria should be Arab boots.  Big pop from the crowd for Rand.  Interesting.

8:50PM: Kasich says his daughter doesn't like politics because it's loud and there's a lot of yelling.  I'm going to score that as two consecutive attacks on Trump.

8:52PM: Carly started off by saying "Like all of you, I'm angry".  That pretty much sums Carly up.

8:53PM: Jeb started off with something about how things are under attack and Hillary is under investigation and something else is under the gun.  I told you last time, Jeb loves to have fun with words.

8:54PM: Rubio apparently lived in Vegas for six years when he was a kid, and his dad smoked three cigars a day.  Then he said something stupid about traditional values but still, is it possible Rubio is actually interesting?  Why has he been hiding it?  Tell us more about your smokey Vegas upbringing!

8:57PM: Carson started off with a moment of silence for San Bernadino victims.  Then he made some tortured analogy about the country being in critical condition and excising the cancer of ISIS.  Ben's campaign is like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense.

8:59PM: It's amazing how Trump still stands out on a stage full of egomaniacs.  He immediately pointed out how he's center stage and "people like" what he says.  He's like a little kid telling you how he did great at school today.

9:00PM: "I will build a wall, it'll be a great wall."  I don't really have to tell you who said that, right?

9:02PM: Jeb points out that banning all muslims from the United States isn't a serious proposal and might make some of the countries in the Middle East we're hoping will fight ISIS with us a little uncomfortable about working with us.  Then he called Trump a "chaos candidate".  Zing!  Trump responded, predictably, by insulting Jeb and Jeb's campaign and generally being a dick.

9:04PM: Question to Rubio: "You said banning all muslims is unconstitutional, but polls show a majority of Republicans support Trump's proposal...".  I wish Rubio had just said that constitutional things aren't up for a majority vote, but he said some other stuff instead.

9:06PM: Cruz just quoted FDR's grandfather, but then he actually made a vaguely coherent point about the difference between radical muslim terrorists and other muslims.  This is what I'm telling you about Cruz.  He knows how to sound normal.  He isn't.

9:08PM: Carly seems to be advocating for a new Patriot Act because the old one was written in 2001 and we need to invade the privacy of all the phones and apps and stuff that have been invented since then.  She said we need to work with the private sector and she can because she knows them.  I'm pretty sure these other guys know them too.

9:10PM:  Chris Christie's American flag pin is shaped like New Jersey, which is just adorable.

9:11PM: Kasich says the Saudi's have a coalition of 34 countries that want to help us fight terrorists.  Can we stop the debate and find out if that's true?  That sounds like a good step and I feel like it's a lot more important that whatever Trump is about to say.

9:14PM: Cruz is making Rand's point about focusing on bad guys instead of having more surveillance of law abiding citizens.  I imagine Rand is raising his hand pretty energetically right now but CNN doesn't care.

9:15PM: Cruz and Rubio are having an argument about which one of them is telling the truth about the USA Freedom Act.  I believe Rubio.  As I may have mentioned, Cruz is a sociopath.

9:17PM: Rand is casually attacking Rubio, saying that Rubio is for open borders.  That was weird and seemed to come from out of nowhere.  Rand got another loud cheer.  The Rand people are in the house tonight.

9:19PM: Christie after a five minute argument between Rand and Marco "if your eyes are glazed over right now, this is what it's like on the floor of the Senate".  I couldn't tell you why Christie isn't doing better in this race.  Did MSBNC really land punches with that stupid bridge story?  That can't be it.

9:21PM: Ben just complained about how much time he's been allowed to talk.  That strategy literally never works.  Blitzer asked Ben who was right between Rand and Marco.  Ben, instead of, you know, taking a position on something, said "you'll have to ask them".  Ben is terrible at this.  How is he still here?

9:23PM: Blitzer asked Jeb a question that mentioned Jeb's brother.  Low blow Wolfie.

9:25PM: Carly says the government is too far behind the technological curve.  She's not wrong about that.

9:26PM: Question to Trump regarding his comment about "closing that internet up".  Trump wants to use our most brilliant people to keep ISIS off the internet and also penetrate the internet to find where ISIS is.  Does Trump think the internet is, like, a place you can go to?

9:29PM: I didn't listen to what Kasich just said because I was still trying to figure out what Trump was talking about.  Now I know why Kasich can't get any traction.

9:30PM: Cruz just called 15-30 bombing missions a day "photo op foreign policy".  How many bombs does Ted want to drop on Syria?  Syria isn't that big.  I think it's become fairly clear that we can't bomb our way out of this.  Also, when asked if he would bomb civilians in Syria, the gist of Cruz's answer was yes.  Sociopath.

9:32PM: Marco says you need a ground force to defeat ISIS.  He's not wrong.  He says you need a Sunni Arab ground force with some embedded Americans.  That's also probably right, but doesn't sound likely.

9:34PM: Blitzer seems to be trying to provoke fights between Rubio and everyone else.  If this was MSBNC, I'd say they were trying to make the only viable candidate look bad, but I don't think Wolf is that cagey.

9:35PM: Cruz says we need to be killing bad guys and not getting stuck in Middle Eastern civil wars. Be afraid.  Ted can do this.

9:36PM: Facebook question...apparently Trump recently said we should be killing families of ISIS members.  So, the Facebook guy was wondering, ya know, should we really be intentionally killing civilians?  Trump, amazingly, stood behind that idea and said it would make people think twice about joining ISIS.

9:39PM: Jeb says Trump can't insult his way to the Presidency.  Jeb is all over Trump right now. Trump said we will never be great again with Jeb's attitude and got booed for it.  These crowds never seem to have a lot of Trump people in them.  Who are the Trump people?

9:41PM: Breaking news from Ben, children don't like it when you tell them that you have to open their head up to remove a tumor.  Good note from Ben,

9:42PM: The other guy who isn't Wolf asked Ben if he's willing to be as ruthless in fighting ISIS as Churchill was in fighting the nazis.  Solid question.  Ben said he wouldn't say ruthless, but he would be tough.  Those aren't the same things though.  Ruthless is the right word.

9:44PM: Rand's people explode whenever mentions the Constitution.  He's like a band that has that one song everyone came to hear.  Meanwhile, more boos for Trump.

9:46PM: Kasich wants a massive, American-led army to defeat ISIS.  Kasich is a sneaky hawk.  You wouldn't expect it because he seems kind of laid back.

9:49PM: Christie is playing the "I'm not from Washington" card pretty hard.  It seems like that would work, but it doesn't work for Chris.  You would think maybe it's just because Trump is getting the anti-Washington votes for now, but I can't imagine the Trump people voting for Christie.  This race is a mess.  Also, Christie wants to be friends with the king of Jordan.

9:51PM: Watching Ben talk about foreign policy is like watching a 6th grader try to give a memorized book report.

9:56PM: Cruz seems to be co-opting all of Rand's ideas.  Now he's talking about how toppling dictators is a bad idea when the people who take over the country next are worse.  Rand has to be wondering why he's not doing better.  It can't be because Cruz is more likable.

9:58PM: Rubio's argument for toppling dictators is pretty coherent.  If a dictator is going to go anyway, why not get involved and try to help create a stable aftermath?  I'm not saying I agree, but I am saying Rubio seems to have a decent grasp on foreign policy.

10:00PM: Kasich mentioned the Saudi coalition again.  Does he have secret information that nobody else has?  I'm so intrigued.

10:00PM: Some guy was shouting at Trump from the audience.  Trump didn't take the bait.  I'm stunned.

10:01PM: Trump wishes we had the 4 or 5 trillion dollars we spent in Iraq back and that we had used it here on roads and stuff.  OK so this is one of those reasons why people like Trump.  He says stuff without thinking, but sometimes that means he says stuff without thinking about whether or not it fits with Republican dogma, and that lands with people.

10:03PM: Wolf asked Carson if the Middle East is better off with dictators.  That's kind of an unfair question and Ben sniffed it out and said dictators are bad but we can't just fix the Middle East with bombs.  Ben isn't a dumb guy.

10:05PM: Rand says "there's often variations of evil on both sides of a war".  That really is the foundation of Rand's foreign policy.  If we have no good choices, why bother choosing a side?

10:06PM: Cruz says all of these complicated questions are silly and we should just be defeating our enemies.  Ted doesn't realize that these questions about dictators are questions about who our real enemies are and if we should be taking sides in these fights.  Ted really shouldn't be President.

10:09PM: OK so we basically all agree that we have no good choices in the Middle East and the result of the Syrian civil war will be bad for us no matter how it turns out.  Can we just move on to something silly like the economy or guns or something?  This is depressing.

10:11PM: Quick kudos for Wolf here for not letting this debate be another episode of Trump and Friends.  On the other hand, we're really beating this foreign policy stuff to death.  Presidenting sometimes involves doing things in America too.

10:12PM: Would Christie shoot down a Russian plane in a no-fly zone?  Damn right he would!  Then he called the current President a feckless weakling.  Wolf seemed stunned.

10:13PM: Rand called Christie reckless and said "if you want World War 3 I think you've found your candidate".  I agree that Russia might not be cool with us shooting down their planes.  Then Rand mentioned that stupid bridge story.  Low blow Rand!  I'm giving Rand a time-out.

10:15PM: Jeb says he knows what he doesn't know and he wouldn't get his information from "the shows" (which is apparently something Trump said he does).  Get ready for some Trump insults!

10:16PM: Trump actually controlled himself and rather than attacking Jeb attacked CNN for asking Jeb about Trump, but then he said CNN just does it for ratings because he's still Trump.  Jeb didn't take the olive branch and punched back at Trump some more and then we got the insults I was waiting for about Jeb's poll numbers and his spot on the stage.

10:18PM: Kasich took the opportunity to jump in and be the voice of reason.  Then he mentioned the economy.  Yes! Please!  Something else!

10:19PM: Does being the head of surgery at a hospital qualify Carson to be the Commander in Chief?  The answer is no.  That's not what Ben said.  Ben said our country was designed to have citizen statesmen.  That's 100% true, but things are marginally more complicated now than they were in the 18th century.

10:20PM: We're going to talk about immigration now.  Ugh.  Part of Rubio's answer was "we will not be able to do anything on immigration...".  That's really all he needs to say.

10:22PM: Cruz and Rubio have basically the same haircut, but somehow they don't really look the same.  I think Ted's head is a little more oddly shaped.

10:24PM: Ted wants to secure the border.  Is anyone against securing the border?  I didn't think so.  Can we please move on?

10:25PM: Ted says he led the fight against Marco's immigration bill.  Yes, but Ted leads the fight against every bill ever because he's a legislative arsonist.

10:26PM: Every time two of these guys start fighting, Carly starts yelling about how this is why people don't like politics.  What did Carly think a debate was?  Sometimes people disagree.

10:27PM: People talk about Trump's hair a lot.  It really isn't so weird.  It's just kind of thin and an odd color.  It looks like cotton candy.

10:28PM: I feel like if you talked to Jeb in person, he'd be one of those people who really struggles to make eye contact.

10:29PM: Apparently Carson visited a Syrian refugee camp recently and called it "really quite nice".  He also said they need more medical care.  Seems like Ben could have just stayed there and we all would have won.

10:33PM: Rand says he hasn't taken a position on sending the 2,000 Syrian refugees already in the United States home.  Now would be a good time to take a position though.  We're having a debate.

10:35PM: Question from Facebook...if the bible says we need to embrace those in need, how can we justify not accepting refugees?  Christie's answer was basically, because the FBI says so.  We've come a long way in Republican politics when the FBI trumps the bible.

10:37PM: Wolf just said we are just beginning.  What?  This has already been going on for two hours.  I'm taking Wolf's words as a threat and quitting while I'm ahead.  These debates are too long.  We need to take Ben, Trump, Carly and Cruz and send them on a super secret mission somewhere until we can get this election settled.

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.

Welcome to New Hampshire

Welcome to the one week every four years when we all pretend to give a crap about New Hampshire.  This year's New Hampshire Republican primary seems to be pretty much settled already, but we're going to have a debate anyway.  Actually we're having two, in twelve hours.  Obviously, I have no interest in watching the 9AM Sunday morning debate.  Who's in charge of this schedule anyway?

In other Republican primary news, the black guy is long gone, and now the lady is gone too.  We're left with the six old white guys.  This is really starting to look like a Republican field now.  I'll miss Michele Bachmann, she really brought the crazy sometimes, it was fun.

Tonight's debate, just like the last ABC debate, is being moderated by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos.  They're being joined by some guy from New Hampshire.  I assume he's a local news anchor, so he'll be in charge of throwing to commercial with lines like "would electing Mitt Romney result in immediate death for your children?  We'll tell you in three minutes."

Also, I'll be chatting with my buddy Dave during tonight's debate.  He lives in Ohio, where Presidential election votes actually matter, so his comments are particularly valuable.

9:01PM: Ron Paul is already smirking. 

9:03PM: Romney says the President deserves no credit for the recent good economic news.  Of course, he deserves all the blame for everything bad that happens.  It's like the opposite of how Republicans feel about god.

9:05PM: Santorum says the Commander in Chief isn't a CEO.  Well, he's a CE.  I mean, that's two thirds of the way there.  And he is a Constitutional officer, so there's your O.  I'm not sure Rick knows what he's talking about.  This isn't really news to me.

9:07PM: Romney claims that pointing out how he made his money laying people off is actually "putting free enterprise on trial".  Mitt is clearly representing the defense in that trial.

9:09PM: Stephanopoulus just noticed that Huntsman is here.

9:10PM: It sounded like Huntsman just tried to describe himself as a mix of Romney and Santorum.  I'm not sure that's really the candidate Jon wants to be.  I mean, a mix of Santorum and anything isn't a positive thing. (Google it).

9:12PM: Romney just used the word "governmental".  Is that a word?  I've heard the word non-governmental, but I've never heard anyone use governmental on it's own.

9:13PM: My man Ron just spent a full minute pointing out the many ways in which Santorum is actually a big government person.  I've been saying this for months. 

9:14PM: Santorum appears to be claiming that all of the money he's taken from lobbyists is actually some kind of liberal plot to make him look corrupt.  He also says he's a "cause guy".  I would have gone with "dumb guy".

9:16PM: Santorum won't shut up, he's also claiming to be a coal guy.  Why is that a good thing?  Dave adds "Santorum is as much of a coal miner as Derek Zoolander".

9:18PM: Seriously, why is Rick Perry still here?  Perry claims he's what Americans are looking for.  Polls and election results would beg to differ.

9:19PM: Santorum just said that when the government owes more money than it has, you have to increase the debt ceiling (correct), but then he immediately pointed out that he opposed the last debt ceiling increase (wait, what?).

9:22PM: Sawyer's last question to Romney: "Governor Romney?"  Mitt was understandably confused.

9:24PM: Mitt says the President isn't doing enough to show Iran that we're willing to go to war with them.  Here we go again with Iran.  Mitt also points out, correctly I guess, that the current President isn't willing to build a big enough military for all the wars Mitt wants to start. 

9:26PM: Perry accuses President Obama of putting America's freedoms in jeopardy by cutting the DOD budget.  There's nothing that worries Republicans more than the sudden disappearance of our freedoms.

9:27PM: Newt's response to Ron calling him a chicken hawk: "my father served in the military".  My grandpa fought in world war two, that doesn't make me a General.

9:28PM: The moderators keep asking Ron to repeat things he's already said.  Ron says guys like Newt who took deferments when they could have fought in wars have no right to send our kids over to unnecessary wars.  The other people on the stage look confused.  What good is being President if you can't use our soldiers as political tools to make yourself look tough?

9:29PM: Newt says Ron has a long history of saying things that are false.  Like Newt, I sometimes confuse Ron with myself.

9:31PM: Ron says the inherent racism in our judicial system is way more concerning than racist things on Ron Paul fliers from 20 years ago.  That's a fair point.  Other things Ron might want to point out...1) It's not like he's any worse on race than anyone else on the stage 2) Santorum says bigoted things about homosexuals every time he opens his stupid mouth.  Having said all that, I'm not really buying Ron's whole "I didn't know what was on my own fliers" excuse.  Just say you're sorry.

9:38PM: Romney seems genuinely annoyed by the question about banning contraception.  This was a weird few minutes.  Romney really didn't want to get into the whole contraception thing.  George kept asking him if the states should be able to ban contraception, he kept saying states don't want to.  George would not stop asking him. 

9:42PM: Finally, someone who knows what he's talking about.  Ron clears up this whole thing about contraception and privacy rights by pointing out that the right to privacy exists in the 4th amendment.  I like how Mitt, who is running for President, eventually just turned to Ron and said "let's just ask the constitutionalist".

9:44PM: Gingrich says we ought to find ways for gay couples to have the same rights as straight married couples.  We did find a way to give people those rights.  It's called marriage.  It works pretty well.  If you want to give people the same rights as other people, you probably should just, ya know, give them the same rights.

9:47PM: Santorum says same sex adoption isn't a federal issue, and it wouldn't really matter anyway because his federal gay marriage ban would prevent same sex adoption.  As always, Santorum is a douche.

9:48PM: Republicans feel the same way about homosexuals and marriage that three-year-olds feel about other three-year-olds their toys.  NO! YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! NOOO!!!! IT'S MINE!  MINE! MINE! MINE!

9:50PM: Newt asks if the Catholic church should be punished for it's bigotry against homosexuals.  Um, yes.  Good idea Newtster.  Oh, I think he was being sarcastic.  Well, it's still a good idea.

9:52PM: Ron says he won't run as a third party candidate.  Come on, Ron!  Do it!

9:53PM: Perry says the current administration is engaged in a war on religion.  Believe me Rick, if that was happening, I'd be the first one to point it out, because I'd be too excited to keep it quiet.

9:55PM: Huntsman: "I don't want to be nation building in southwest Asia when this nation is in need".  That's such an obvious argument, why did it take ten years and a Republican to make it?

9:56PM: Then Huntsman points out that the President's job as Commander in Chief is more than just listening to the commanders on the ground.  I wish Huntsman had any chance at all to win, I think he'd be a really interesting candidate.

9:58PM: Dave's summary of Newt's answer on Afghanistan (and Iran, and Pakistan): "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"  That pretty much sums it up.

9:59PM: Santorum wouldn't bring troops home until "the security of our nation is ensured".  As far as I can tell, that would only happen after Rick has killed every muslim in the world with his bare hands.

10:00PM: In a bold move, Perry comes out in support of sending troops back into Iraq.  Wow!  Somebody should ask him about going back into Vietnam.

10:02PM: Romney should have a sign above his podium that reads "Warning, Governor Romney's answers may not contain any actual answers".

10:03PM: New Hampshire guy refers to foreign policy as Ron Paul's Achilles heel.  He wasn't joking.  Man the Republican party sucks.

10:05PM: Rick Santorum: Fact free since 2004.

10:12PM: Sawyer says we're going to find out what the candidates think about creating jobs.  Let me save everyone some time.  Tax cuts for corporations and rich people.  Next topic.

10:13PM: Mitt admits that rebuilding infrastructure is one way to get the economy going.  Obviously, it's not something Republicans are willing to do, but at least Mitt understands we could do it. 

10:16PM: Huntsman says you can create jobs by expanding the tax base.  So he'd create jobs by...creating jobs?  He's like a job creating jedi.

10:18PM: Santorum continues to claim he knows how to get all of our manufacturing jobs back.  I do too, but I don't think Americans are willing to work 80 hours a week for 25 cents an hour.

10:19PM: Mitt says we're inches away from no longer being a free economy.  Inches people!

10:20PM: Mitt also says he wants to help out the middle class.  If you look at his actual plan, he wants to eliminate the capital gains tax for middle class people.  Because, as you know, middle class people are really suffering because of the high capital gains tax.

10:21PM: At least Perry is honest about how he wants us to let energy companies ruin federal lands and poison our drinking water.

10:24PM: Huntsman says we can win back manufacturing investment from China "if we are smart enough".  Uh oh, that doesn't really sound like us.  Is he sure he doesn't mean "militant enough" or "religious enough"?  Because smart enough doesn't really sound like something we can pull off.

10:26PM: Mitt Romney does not like Europe.  He asks if we are going to remain an exceptional and unique nation.  Well, sure we are.  I mean, that's only real in Republicans' minds anyway, so it can stay that way as long as they want.

10:28PM: Santorum says "there are no classes in America".  Sorry Rick, you haven't eliminated the poor and the middle class yet.  Keep trying.

10:30PM: I swear I think Mitt Romney believes poor people would seriously benefit from a capital gains tax cut.  I think Mitt believes that even the poorest American have millions in stock options.

10:32PM: Romney's attack on Huntsman: While Huntsman spent the last two years in China, ya know, doing stuff, the rest of these people were at home being good Americans by trying to destroy the President.

10:33PM: Huntsman just spoke Chinese.  If you were wondering when the Huntsman campaign officially ended, it was at 10:33PM eastern time on January 7th.

10:41PM: Three of these guys say they'd be watching the college football championship tonight if they weren't at a debate.  That game happens on Monday, by the way.

10:42PM: And, um...that's it.  These debate endings keep getting weirder and weirder.

Well, Mitt's going to win New Hampshire on Tuesday, and he's probably going to win South Carolina too.  The media will spend the next two or three months trying to convince us that this primary election is still interesting, but it probably ended when Mitt won Iowa.  I know it seems like 75% of Republicans just will not vote for Romney under any circumstances, but at some point, you find yourself almost voting for Rick Santorum and you think "wait, what's happening here?"  Then you either vote for Romney or change parties.