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.

Seven Levels of Terror

With Iowa's caucuses coming up this week, there are still, amazingly and inexplicably, seven candidates for the Republican nomination.  Seven.  I thought Republicans were supposed to be the organized ones.  Isn't there anyone in charge over there who can tell people like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry that it's over?  Just tell them Jesus says it's time to give up.

Anyway, now seems like as good a time as any to reset the field going into the actual voting.  I know, it seems like we've been doing this for around nine years already and there hasn't even been any voting yet.  Here's who we have left, ranked from least terrifying to most terrifying.

Ron Paul
Doomsday scenario: Ron spends the first year of his Presidency actually getting Congress to do all the crazy domestic things he wants to do.  This is followed by one year of watching our society crumble and two years of total chaos.

Chances of this happening: 0.1%

Upside: We'd probably get some zombies out of the deal.  Super-libertarian, freedom-loving zombies.

Chances I'd vote for him in a general election: Honestly, like 45%.  I'd take Ron's foreign policy over the current administration in a heartbeat, and it's not like President Obama is killing it on the domestic side right now.  He couldn't even get Republicans to extend the payroll tax cut for a full year.  Tax cuts are literally the only thing those people believe in.

Final Thought: If you're one of those people who believes that the fix is in with our government and there really is no difference made by who we actually elect, you have to vote for Ron.  First of all, he'll either prove you right or prove you wrong.  And secondly, if it doesn't matter anyway, he'd clearly be the most fun to watch.

Other Final Thought: I think the wild card for me with Ron Paul is that he seems to dislike some of these other candidates almost as much as I do.

Jon Huntsman
Doomsday scenario:  Debates between President Obama and Huntsman are so boring that we're all forced to kill ourselves before election day.  As it turns out, Huntsman is a secret Chinese agent, and boring us to death was his plan all along.  The few survivors later find out that he's actually super-interesting.

Chances of this happening: 1%, maybe 2%

Upside: In a huge upset, Canada fights off the invading Chinese army and takes over the U.S.  The NHL expands to 64 teams and those of us who are still alive get to enjoy a year-round hockey schedule.

Chances I'd vote for him in a general election: I don't know, maybe 20%.  Huntsman seems so reasonable and, dare I say, smart sometimes.  But then, every once in a while, I'll hear someone on Fox who I don't like tell me that Huntsman is actually the most conservative candidate in the field.  I would certainly keep an open mind if he won the nomination, but I doubt he'd get my vote.

Final Thought: Huntsman isn't even trying in Iowa.  Considering he's probably the most qualified candidate in the field, I think this says more about Iowa Republicans than it does about Huntsman.

Mitt Romney
Doomsday scenario: During his first State of the Union address, the Mittron 3000 short circuits while trying to simultaneously take three sides of the same issue.  With no constitutional direction on how to handle a short circuiting robot President, the government and the country are thrown into chaos.  Bill Gates eventually repairs the President, but does too good of a job.  The Mittron 3000 becomes Skynet and, well, you know what happens from there.

Chances of this happening: 5%

Upside: If we have to have a post-apocalyptic sci-fi future, why not this one?  I mean, at least they have time travel.

Chances I'd vote for him in a general election: 5%.  People seem to think Romney would be the toughest opponent for President Obama.  I don't know.  Mitt's total inability to get anyone to like him stands in pretty stark contrast to the President's high personal likability.  I can't see an undecided voter watching those two guys for more than ten seconds without immediately deciding to vote for Obama.

Final Thought: Mitt is the ultimate political opportunist.  He's 100% pragmatism.  In a better time, I think he'd actually make a pretty good President.  But with a useless Congress and a pretty dumb public, a President with no beliefs of his own would only make things worse.

Michele Bachmann
Doomsday scenario: Right after her inauguration, President Bachmann finds out she can't actually repeal Obamacare on day one because 1) there's no such thing as Obamacare and 2) the President can't just randomly repeal laws passed by Congress.  Bachmann resigns in protest just five hours after being sworn in, leaving Vice President Palin in charge.  From there, pretty much all roads lead to doom.

Chances of this happening: 8%

Upside: President Palin could get bored and quit before she does any real damage.  I'm just not willing to take that chance.

Chances I'd vote for her in a general election: 0%.  Sorry, she's not the worst candidate, but she's way to into Jesus for me.

Final Thought: I continue to believe Bachmann is significantly smarter than she lets on.  I genuinely respect how much she's improved as a candidate over the last year and she honestly wouldn't be the worst nominee the Republicans could find.  Unfortunately, she should be killing in Iowa and instead she's currently polling 6th in a 6 person race.  Time to turn out the lights.

Rick Perry
Doomsday scenario: Rick sells the entire country to Mexico for a pouch full of magic beans and 50 pounds of carne asada. 

Chances of this happening: In all honesty, I'd put this at a healthy 30-35%. 

Upside: Carne asada!

Chances I'd vote for him in a general election: Also 0%.  Come on, we have to go at least 40 years before we elect another Texas governor, right?

Final Thought: I predicted that Rick would run for President a long time ago after I saw him being nice and trying to act reasonable on the Daily Show.  Sadly, no one could have predicted how bad he'd be at it.

Rick Santorum
Doomsday scenario: Immediately after his inauguration, Santorum starts wars with five different countries, all selected at random with a ouija board, but somehow all muslim.  He quickly loses interest in his holy wars after someone tells him that there's a gay guy somewhere in Washington DC and he'd better go deal with it, but the damage is already done.

Chances of this happening: It's kind of a two-parter, so only like 15%.  But the chances of President Santorum starting at least one new war would be something like 110%.

Upside: I think a Santorum Presidency would provide the most unintentional comedy of any of these people.

Chances I'd vote for him in a general election: Come on, seriously? 

Final Thought: Personally, Santorum is probably my least favorite of any of these people, but I'd still beg him to be President before I'd consider voting for this next guy.

Newt Gingrich
Doomsday Scenario: Newt being elected President is the doomsday scenario.  He's everything that's wrong with our political system all wrapped up in one insanely arrogant package.  Newt Gingrich is not smart, he's not a historian, he's not a big thinker and even other Republicans know he's not a leader.  He's just a troll that's been living under the bridge of our politics for so long that he knows everything about the bridge.

What's worse?  Newt doesn't even believe most of the nonsense he's constantly spewing.  He knows how to read polls and listen to focus groups and do whatever they say.  He's the worst possible candidate.  He should be forced to wear a sign around his neck at all times that reads "do not vote for me".  If Newt somehow wins Iowa, Iowa should be immediately demoted from first caucus state to voting whenever Guam votes. 

Those last two paragraphs sound angrier than I really am.  Look, Newt's a bad guy.  Nobody should vote for him.  Do so at your own peril.

The Debate Show

Tonight's debate is hosted by Fox "News", so it was preceded by Bill O'Reilly's smirking idiocy hour.  Bill isn't even really a Republican anymore.  He's just an angry old guy who mumbles to himself on TV about these damn kids with their rock music and blue jeans.

I should go easy on Fox, it's tough over there right now.  Nobody knows who the Republican nominee is going to be.  For the propaganda arm of the Republican party, that means they have no idea who they're supposed to be smearing with distortions and falsehoods.  They even let Ron Paul in the studio today.  I hope someone hid Sean Hannity's Ron Paul voodoo doll before Ron showed up.

It appears tonight's moderators/question clowns will be Bret Baier, Neil Cavuto, Christopher Wallace and Megyn Kelly.  That's Megyn with a Y, as in, holy crap, Y would they let Megyn Kelly ask questions at a real debate like an actual journalist.

9:03PM: Once again, Newt works Ronald Reagan into his very first answer.  He's on his game tonight.  I'm surprised he didn't come out wearing a Reagan mask.

9:05PM: Did you know Newt teaches the art of war to 1 and 2 star generals?  Can that be right?  No wonder our last couple of wars didn't go so well.  I'm genuinely terrified by this.  Why would we let Newt teach anyone anything?  Things in this country may be worse than I thought.

9:06PM: Ron Paul says he talks about things that would appeal to Democrats and Independents.  That's true, he's the only one of these guys I'd vote for, although I'm still concerned that his Presidency would be four years of anarchy.

9:08PM: Santorum just referred to himself in the third person.  That's pretty ballsy for a guy polling somewhere around 0%. 

9:10PM: When asked to respond to accusations that he won't be tough enough on President Obama, Romney responds by stoically rattling off what appeared to be a paragraph from his stump speech.

9:11PM: Bachmann says she "spent 50 years as a real person".  I assume that's a reference to Romney being a robot and Newt being the Pillsbury Doughboy.

9:12PM: Cavuto asked Perry about how Obama would debate circles around him.  Perry responded by stuttering over some things he says he'd talk about and then rambling incoherently about Tim Tebow for 30 seconds.  So there.

9:15PM: Huntsman, as he has before, promises to fix America's "trust deficit".  That's not the worst idea I've ever heard, I just don't think he can do it.  It's kind of like when Barack Obama said he was going to change Washington, but then he got there and quickly realized there was no way that was going to happen.

9:17PM: Perry just blamed President Obama for Congress' spectacular failure to do anything useful.  Seems like Perry still doesn't really understand what the President's powers are. 

9:19PM: Ron says people have been coming together for decades to increase spending, now they just have to come together to cut spending.  Ron failed to point out that he probably couldn't get 20 votes in the Senate for how he wants to cut spending (by cutting military spending, among other things).

9:20PM: Bachmann interjects perfectly in this discussion of Congressional gridlock by pointing out that she would never ever raise taxes, ever....ever...no matter what.  I'm starting to think some of this gridlock isn't actually the President's fault.

9:26PM: You can tell this is the one time every four years Iowa gets to be on TV.  They seem pretty excited.

9:27PM: Mitt appears to be claiming that, if you discount all the companies where he cut jobs, he actually added tens of thousands of jobs to companies.  That's true, just like if you skip over all the dumbass things Mitt says, he actually becomes a pretty smart guy.

9:29PM: Newt just accidentally uttered the phrase "more regulations".  I predict he'll regret that.  Republicans do not like regulations.  They don't exactly know what regulations are, but they don't like them.

9:30PM: Ron points out that Newt's job at Freddie Mac wasn't quite as "private sector" as Newt says it is. 

9:32PM: Bachmann just made what I'm going to have to, reluctantly, call a good point.  Newt's assertion is basically that, while he was working for Freddie Mac, he never once used any influence or connection he had with politicians to help Freddie Mac.  Bachmann is basically saying that sounds a lot like bullshit, and she's right.  Then Bachmann accused Newt of influence peddling and hiding behind the technical definition of lobbying.  Right again!  I keep telling you she's smarter than she lets on.

9:35PM: Newt says he only worked for people he already agreed with.  We all know that being a whore is OK as long as you promise to only take money for having sex with people you'd probably have sex with anyway.

9:36PM: When asked by Cavuto if Newt would blame Governor Romney for calling him inconsistent, Newt said he's "not in the business of blaming Governor Romney".  That's right, he's in the business of blaming the media.  Get your facts straight, Cavuto!

9:39PM: Ron says he never voted for an earmark, but he'll take them for his district.  His point being, earmarks come from taxpayer money, so taking them is just taking people's money back for them.  Hmmm...my bullshit spidey sense is tingling.  I'm gonna give Ron the benefit of the doubt, but he'd better watch himself.

9:42PM: Perry goes back like 3 questions to the whole thing about Newt being a whore.  I'm pretty sure everyone watching gets it, Newt's a whore.  Then Perry, once again, suggested his plan to make Congress part time.

9:43PM: Cavuto just made my point, which is Congress only worked 151 days last year, so how many less days does Perry want them to work?  His answer?  140 days every other year.  I assume Perry's belief that you can govern the whole country working 70 days a year is based on Perry's belief that you don't have to know things to govern. 

9:44PM: Huntsman's talking, I had forgotten about him.

9:45PM: Speaking of guys I had forgotten about, it's Rick Santorum.  Santorum still believes that he can tax cut and deregulate our way back to the 50's.

9:46PM: Baier asked Romney what sector will see the most job growth over the next ten years.  Romney says "the free market will determine that".  Translation: Mitt has no idea, and he doesn't really give a shit, he's rich.

9:48PM: Three minutes of idiotic Newt rambling about judges and the courts, followed by a minute or so of idiotic Bachmann agreement.  This is hard to summarize.  Basically, Newt wants judges to do what Newt wants them to do, and if they don't, Newt wants the power to get rid of them.  Either the individual judges, or maybe just the whole court.  If you watched this whole argument live, it probably sounded really high minded and important, but it was actually just about conservatives' desire to stop courts from protecting peoples' rights so they can outlaw gay marriage.

9:53PM: Ron appears to be the only one who's a little concerned about the whole separation of powers thing.  It's almost like Ron's saying Republicans shouldn't be able to just fire any judge they don't like.  Weird, right?

9:55PM: Santorum pointed out that while the rest of these people are just talking hypothetically about destroying separation of powers to push their theocratic ideals, Rick's actually done it.

10:02PM: Baier is basically begging Ron Paul to say he'd invade Iran.  Ron won't budge, warning again that we're hearing the war propaganda that will turn Iran into another Iraq (which he later called a "useless war").  Can we seriously just elect Ron President of foreign policy and then elect a second guy to run the domestic policy?

10:05PM: Baier keeps saying Ron is left of President Obama on Iran.  Isn't it sad that anyone who isn't eager to bomb other countries is automatically considered a lefty now?  Isn't it sad that Republicans aren't even allowed to think critically about foreign policy anymore without being called liberal?

10:07PM: Santorum calls Iran a "radical theocracy."  He added, "which, of course, would be fine with me if they would just pray to the right god".  OK, he didn't really add that, but clearly Rick has no sense of irony.

10:11PM: I just want to know when Republicans would leave Iraq.  20 years from now?  50?  When?

10:11PM: Bachmann just called Ron's answer on Iran dangerous.  Boooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

10:12PM: Instead of taking the bait, Ron went on to explain that nobody hates us for our freedom, they mostly hate us for bombing them.  That makes more sense.  I mean, if one guy was punching me in the face, and another guy was just sort of standing there being free, I'd probably hate the punching guy.

10:14PM: Seriously Michele, don't mess with Ron.  Ron's basically lecturing her now, hitting hardest by saying that we can't solve our problems with more wars.  Bachmann, defeated, falls back on saying that she's "siding with the American people".  Ron 1, Bachmann 0.

10:16PM: At least Bachmann and Paul were trying to have a substantive debate, Newt's rambling now about the U.N. and how it sucks when they don't do what Newt thinks they should do.  In general, I think it's fair to say that Newt would rather not have to deal with other people.

10:18PM: Would Rick Perry use military intervention in Syria? Hell yeah!  You can't name a country that's not Israel that Rick Perry wouldn't invade.  Go ahead, I dare you to try.

10:20PM: Newt says he's concerned about not appearing zany.  OK Newt, you got me, that was clever.

10:21PM: We're talking about the keystone pipeline now.  To be honest, I don't know enough about this to comment that much, but just to recap, here's the score in the Republican party: Environment 0, Economy Infinity.

10:23PM: Cavuto asked Huntsman if there would be any circumstance in which he would put the environment ahead of creating jobs.  Huntsman didn't really answer, instead he wandered into an answer about alternative energy sources.  The answer Cavuto was looking for?  No.

10:25PM: Bachmann thinks the President was wrong to put a moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico just because of that one little time when BP filled the Gulf of Mexico with oil.  I mean, come on man, that's why pencils have erasers.

10:27PM: Perry's "I'm listening intently" face looks a lot like his "oh my god I don't understand any of the words Neil Cavuto just said" face.

10:33PM: Kelly just referred to the current Attorney General as "General Holder".  I'm pretty sure that's not right.  I don't think the Attorney General gets to be called a General.

10:34PM: Rare case when everyone gets to be right.  We're talking about operation fast and furious.  AG Holder says Republicans are shamelessly politicizing this issue.  He's right.  Republicans say he should resign because the operation was such an ill-conceived debacle.  They're right too.

10:36PM: Mitt just proposed a national ID card for legal immigrants.  I could have sworn I once heard these guys all going on and on about small government.

10:39PM: Huntsman says Latinos won't care about Republican immigration policy as long as the Republican nominee talks about limited government and is "pro-growth".  I'm not so sure he's right about that.

10:40PM: Wallace asked Mitt about being open minded vs. just changing his views when it was politically convenient.  Why can't it just be both?  Mitt is very open minded to doing things that advance his political career. 

10:42PM: Mitt claims to be "pro-gun".  Why is this a good thing?  What would possess a sane person to claim to be "pro-gun"?

10:43PM: OK, let's just get this on the record.  You can't claim to be for equality for homosexuals if you also say they shouldn't be allowed to get married.  I don't think Mitt and Santorum understand what "equality" and "not discriminating" mean.

10:45PM: Mitt probably should have stayed away from this fight with Santorum over gay marriage.  Santorum is literally willing to travel the country fighting the gays.  Mitt can't top that.

10:47PM: Newt makes funny faces whenever the other candidates mention him, as if he's thinking "how dare these people say true things about me?  I never say true things about anyone, the least they could do is show me the same courtesy".

10:49PM: Bachmann - "I'm a serious candidate and my facts are accurate."  Someone's getting a little cranky.

10:50PM: Some guy in the audience just interrupted Baier while he was asking a question.  I think the audience guy was telling him to ask about monetary policy.  Listen, audience guy!  Bret doesn't have time for serious policy questions, he has to ask these people about Ronald Reagan.

10:53PM: I refuse to lend credence to Baier's stupid Reagan question by commenting on it.

I guess that was the last question.  Oh well.  This debate was worse than usual.  That's really all I have to say about that.  I'm concerned that we're almost at voting time and Republicans still haven't figured out that Newt is a dangerous idiot.  If you know a Republican, please mention this to them, before it's too late.

Republican Jobs Plan

I think I finally figured it out.  Our economic recovery will ride the wave created by our thriving Republican Primary Debate Industry, which must be employing thousands of Americans by now.

Seriously, I have a question.  I doubt our intrepid ABC moderators (George Stephanopoulus and Diane Sawyer) will ask the candidates this question tonight, which is really too bad.  If tax cuts equal more jobs, and if tax rates now are among the lowest rates in the last century (which they are), then where are all the jobs?  It's a simple question.

We're only 24 days from the Iowa caucuses, that should mean it's time to start pandering pretty hard.  Hey Rick Perry!  Isn't corn delicious!?!? 

9:03PM: No Huntsman tonight.  I think you're only allowed to have one mormon in Iowa at a time.  It would be cool if Huntsman's music hit halfway through and he ran in and hit Newt with a folding chair.  Probably not going to happen though.

9:05PM: Newt sets a new record for quickest mention of Saint Reagan, I think it was the 8th word in his first sentence.  Then he proposes 0% taxes for capital gains, because obviously people who do nothing for money should pay less taxes than people who work for it.  Everyone knows that.

9:07PM: Something to keep an eye on tonight.  With Huntsman gone, it's open season on total nonsense when it comes to China. 

9:08PM: Sawyer keeps asking them to give her a number of how many jobs they're going to create.  They aren't answering, but to be fair, that's kind of a dumb question.  Why hasn't Newt pointed that out?  Is he asleep?

9:10PM: Bachmann, once again, makes it clear that everyone will pay something in taxes when she's the President, including people with nothing.  She says, currently, 47% of people are paying no taxes.  So, just to recap, Michele Bachmann is proposing a tax increase for 47% of Americans.

9:12PM:  Are you sure Rick Santorum didn't used to be bald?  I still have this very strong memory of a very balding Rick Santorum.  Am I thinking of someone else?

9:14PM: Bachmann is against extending the payroll tax cut.  I thought we were against raising taxes.  It's literally the only thing these people stand for.  I'm so confused.

9:16PM: Romney nails his new strategy of taking both sides of an issue at the same time by saying that he doesn't want to raise taxes on anyone and then derisively calling the payroll tax cut a temporary band-aid.  So, it's a terrible idea, but let's keep doing it.

9:17PM: Santorum uses the Romney strategy by talking for 30 seconds about why the payroll cut tax is bad but finishing by saying that he's all for tax cuts.

9:19PM: Ron Paul suggests extending the payroll tax cut, but paying for it by not spending quite so much on blowing things up overseas.  Newt gave him a dirty look the whole time he was talking.  They haven't mentioned yet that Newt's a genius.  Hasn't ABC heard that Newt's a genius?  Why aren't they telling me that?

9:21PM: Mitt says Newt is in favor of mining minerals from the moon.  Wait, what?  I swear I didn't make that up.  Mitt said it.  I hope they let Newt respond.  I need to hear more about this.

9:22PM: Newt says the only reason Mitt isn't a career politician is he lost a Senate race in 1994. See?  Newt is capable of saying true things sometimes. He actually seemed to get more boos than cheers from the audience on that one.  I was surprised, I think Newt was too.  Then he addressed the moon thing, apparently he really is for mining the moon. 

So, in another excellent demonstration of everything that's wrong with the Republican party right now, the Republican front-runner is in favor of reinvigorating our space program.  Not in the name of science or exploration, but because he thinks we can find gold on the moon.

9:23PM: Newt re-proposes his fantastic plan to let poor kids be janitors at their schools and gets a huge ovation from the crowd. 

9:26PM: Ron Paul slams Newt on being a spokesperson for Freddie Mac and taking the taxpayers' money from Freddie Mac.  Newt responds by pointing out that he was a paid consultant in the private sector and than having a good laugh.  See, it's funny because he's a whore.

9:29PM: Bachmann just used the term "Newt Romney" six times, pointing out that they're actually more similar than they seem to be, and setting herself up as the real alternative.  I've said this before, I think she's smarter than she lets on.

9:30PM: Newt mentioned that he's written 24 books.  He neglected to mention that 13 of them were coloring books and another six were about how delicious he thinks ham is.

9:33PM: On health care, Mitt says his Massachusetts plan only addresses the 8% of people who didn't have health care.  That's literally the exact same argument Barack Obama made about the national health care reform bill he was trying to pass.  Mitt's not even using different words.

9:35PM: When Mitt's President, he promises that he'll return to the American people their right to not have access to health care.

9:36PM: Newt points out that he only supported the individual mandate in 1993 as a rhetorical trick to fight Hillary Clinton.  It's not often you get a politician to admit that he honestly doesn't give a crap about what's right or what's the truth, he just wants to say whatever he has to so he can win the argument and destroy his opponent.  Would have been nice to get some follow-up from the moderators on that one.

9:39PM: I think Santorum just called Bachmann a loser.  That was a very frothy tactic from Rick.

9:48PM: Perry says making a vow to god is "even stronger than a handshake in Texas".  Umm, OK.  His point, Newt's been married three times, so you can't trust him.  I can think of many better reasons why you can't trust Newt. 

9:50PM: Santorum follows up by also suggesting you can't really trust Newt.  Even Ron Paul is kind of saying Newt's three marriages call his character into question, making an analogy to the oath of office.

9:52PM: This is getting weird, they seem to all be talking about Newt and his rampant infidelity, but they're not asking Newt about it.  They know he's there, right?

9:53PM: Romney turned the character question into a jobs and economy answer because, as you know, Mitt doesn't actually have any character.

9:54PM: Marcus Bachmann just got some camera time...he looks FABULOUS!

9:55PM: Newt's counterargument (given while his current wife was on camera) appears to be "sure, I've abandoned a couple of wives, but I still talk to my grandkids".

9:56PM: Sawyer says we're going to stipulate, before we start talking about immigration, that everyone here wants to secure the borders.  Nice attempt to by her to avoid some talking points, I'm not 100% convinced it'll work.

9:57PM: Newt, once again, suggests that we probably don't want to deport immigrants who belong to churches.  Everyone else needs to go though.

9:59PM: Sawyer seems surprised and confused by the fact that Romney has made conflicting statements in the past about immigration.  Has she met Mitt?  Or heard of him?  Mitt also became the first candidate to ignore Sawyer's starting stipulation and talk about securing the boarders anyway.  Mitt is a talking points machine, possibly literally.

10:01PM: Perry sprinted away from Sawyer's question about what we should do with undocumented immigrants who are currently serving in the military.  He couldn't have been less interested in answering that question.  At no point in the minute of rambling that followed did he even approach an answer.

10:03PM: Apparently Newt recently called Palestinians an "invented people".  Man can that guy pander.  Luckily Ron Paul's here to set him straight, even heading Newt's bullshit explanation off at the pass by saying that Newt's statement may be technically correct because Palestinians didn't have a state under the Ottoman Empire, but then again, neither did Israel.

10:04PM: Having been stripped of his bullshit by my man Ron, Newt fell back on the argument that all Palestinians are inherently terrorists.  Seriously, Newt is a dangerous guy, he should not be allowed to be President.  I can't stress that enough.

10:06PM: In true Romney fashion, he says that he agrees with everything Newt said, except for the actual thing we're talking about.

10:07PM: Newt just referred to himself as a historian.  It's hard to type when I'm laughing so hard.  I need a minute.

10:08PM: I think Newt just winked at someone, that was weird.

10:09PM: Mitt and Newt appear to be arguing over which one of them is best friends with the Israeli Prime Minister.

10:09PM: George Triplewordscore just asked Bachmann to tell us who's right, Mitt or Newt.  It's like the most boring installment of the twilight series ever.  Seriously though, that's kind of an insulting question.  Instead of asking Bachmann what she thinks, he just asked her which one of those two guys is right.  Santorum just got the same question from Sawyer.  Why not just ask everyone else to leave so the real candidates can talk?

10:11PM: I never thought I'd type this sentence, but Santorum just kind of danced around a good point, possibly by mistake.  He was basically saying, when we're talking about Israel and Palestine during these debates, maybe we should watch what we say and not make things worse for Israel, instead of just saying whatever the fuck we want to try and pander for some extra votes.  Even Santorum is smarter than Newt.  Santorum!

10:12PM: Perry blames the media for this whole Newt/Palestine thing, right on time.  I need to hire some media to follow me around so I can blame them for anything stupid I say. 

10:20PM: An audience question asks the candidates when was the last time they had to not just give up a luxury, but cut back on a necessity because of financial strain.  This should be good.

10:21PM: Perry's answer seemed to be 1978, let's see if anyone can beat that.  Also, Perry just referred to himself as a grown man.  That was almost as funny as when Newt called himself a historian.

10:22PM: The best Romney could do was tell us about how his dad was poor when he (his dad) was a kid.  Perry's still in the lead.  Romney also mentioned that he was a pastor in his mormon church.  I didn't know that.  I think that means he knows magic.

10:23PM: Ron says his family was so poor he didn't even know it.  Then Ron says "when a country destroys it's currency, it transfers wealth from the middle class to the wealthy".  You could seriously talk me into President Paul.  Unfortunately, you can't talk more than 5% of Republicans into it.

10:25PM: Santorum took this question about poverty as an opportunity to remind everyone that the real problem in America is gay marriage.  Classic Santorum, what a douche.

10:26PM: By the time we got to Bachmann, we somehow moved from talking about being poor to talking about the Wall St. bailout.  Anyway, I think Perry's still the winner on who was poor last.  How many points does that win him?

10:28PM: I thought this was interesting.  One of the common themes in all of the answers we got on that poverty question was that being poor in America didn't always suck quite as much as it does now.  I think the important point here is, none of these people were still poor back when Reagan (and Newt, by the way) started the Republican war on the poor and the middle class.

10:32PM: Ron says government shouldn't be in the business of protecting people from themselves.  He got a lot of happy nods from the other candidates while he was saying that, even though Ron is the only one, possibly in the whole Congress, who actually legislates like he believes it.

10:34PM: Perry says people are sick of Washington D.C.  Personally, I'm sick of Rick Perry, but maybe that's just me.

10:40PM: Twice now I've seen this insanely misleading add attacking Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who I can't wait to vote for.  I won't get into a whole thing about it, but suffice to say that Karl Rove may in fact be the worst human being currently alive and not already in prison.

Ohh!  Closing statements!  I think Little George asked them something about things that they find interesting.  I kinda missed it.  Whatever, they're just gonna talk about whatever they want to talk about anyway.

Santorum: Remember back when I won elections?  Ya know, before I got my ass handed to me in 2004.  Rick would be the perfect Republican candidate in 2002.  Is it 2002?

Perry: Perry gave Ron Paul credit for getting him interested in the Federal Reserve.  Also, Iowa's village idiot, Congressman Steve King, is in the audience.

Romney: Mitt's noticed all the Ron Paul signs outside.  I think he wishes there were some Mitt Romney signs.  Someone should tell him that all those people he sees who are standing around outside looking kind of sad and resigned to their fates are probably Romney voters.

Newt: Apparently Newt's two favorite people on the stage are Perry and Santorum.  Imagine those three people running a country together.  Yikes.

Ron: Ron talked about freedom.  Ron likes freedom.

Bachmann: Bachmann talked about Herman Cain.  I can't tell if she was seriously praising him or making fun of him.

Well, there you have it, yet another debate.  Too bad Huntsman wasn't around tonight, I really missed barely noticing him.

The Newt Front-Runner

According to the TV, Newt Gingrich is now the front-runner for the Republican nomination in at least three different polls.  At first, I assumed this was some kind of horrible nightmare from which I cannot awake.  That was the most logical explanation, but it's becoming less and less likely.  This may actually be reality.

The funny thing about this (other than the thought of President Gingrich, which is both hilarious and terrifying) is how it happened.  Everyone knows the media loves the horse race.  Whenever someone new jumps to the top of the polls, every political news outfit freaks out like that person is the next FDR (or in the case of Fox "news", the next Saint Reagan), until the next week when they say something stupid and we all laugh them off the stage.

This time, as far as I could tell, the media went first.  After Herman Cain imploded, over and over again, I started hearing all this nonsense about how Newt was going to rise to the top of the polls.  Next thing you know, there's good ole Newt, right at the top.  Just like the media said!  I watch too much political news to think they actually got a prediction right, so all I can think is Republican primary voters heard these stories about Newt and thought "well, he ain't Mitt Romney, so why not?". 

And really, that's the lesson.  Republicans would try out a half-eaten breakfast as their potential nominee as long as it wasn't Mitt Romney.  This makes me a little more hopeful for the President's re-election changes, since, last time I checked, he isn't Mitt Romney either.

Hey look!  It's another debate!  The TV says this one's about foreign policy.  Ugh.  You may be thinking the same thing I was thinking when I saw this.."why do these people, at least 5 of whom don't know anything about anything, keep having debates about a complicated topic like foreign policy?" 

Well, you only have two choices, foreign policy or domestic policy.  The Republican party in 2011 only has one domestic policy, tax cuts...Tax Cuts!....TAAAAXXXXXXXX CUUUUUTTTTTTTSSSSSS!!!!!!!!  You can't get too many debates out of that.  So, here you go, another foreign policy debate between Huntsman, Paul, Romney and five idiots. 

8:00PM: CNN opens this foreign policy/national security debate with a super scary OH MY GOD YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE IF YOU ELECT THE WRONG PRESIDENT montage.  Terrifying the audience is a great way to get them to make a rational decision.

8:02PM: Running the Olympics once doesn't make Mitt Romney an expert on foreign relations anymore than it makes him a world class downhill skier.

8:03PM: First bit of bad news, it looks like Blitzer will be doing the moderating again.  Last time he had no control, it was a total disaster.  I'm not looking forward to this.

8:04PM: Second bit of bad news, it looks like CNN has attempted to put together the whitest audience in the history of audiences and whiteness.  Considering this debate is taking place in Washington DC, that couldn't have been easy.

8:06PM: They're singing the national anthem before the debate.  Not the first time, probably not the last, but I'll be annoyed by it every time.

8:08PM: Blitzer keeps saying he'll "try" to do stuff.  Don't try Wolf, do!

8:10PM: Am I crazy, or was Rick Santorum balder when he was younger?  I could swear I remember a very balding Rick Santorum.

8:11PM: Blitzer made a joke about Wolf Blitzer being his real name.  Romney tried to capitalize by saying "I'm Mitt Romeny and, yes Wolf, that's my real first name too".  Except it's not.  His real first name is Willard.  What's wrong with him?  I never thought Romney would be the one on this stage who literally couldn't even get his name right. 

8:15PM: Talking about extending the Patriot Act, Gingrich says "all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives".  Who invited the good news bear?

8:16PM: Ron Paul on the Patriot Act..."don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security".  As usual, Ron is schooling these idiots.  This time he's kicking Newt's ass on civil liberties.  Newt believes the Patriot Act would have stopped Timothy McVeigh.  Ron's trying to explain that just because something might work doesn't make it Constitutional or legal.  Newt's not really following.

8:19PM: Bachmann just said something about mirandizing terrorists.  Is she still in this race?

8:22PM: Perry on the TSA..."I would privatize it as soon as I could and get rid of those unions."  Great idea!  Why have airport security people be accountable to the duly elected government of the people when they could be accountable to no one?  Also, how did unions get involved in this? 

8:24PM: Santorum is openly suggesting profiling muslims at airports.  Another fantastic idea!  But how will we know who the Muslims are?  We should probably make them get special tattoos or something.  Or we could just throw bacon at everyone who gets on a plane and see who gets really angry about it.  Oh but jewish people don't like bacon either.  This is hard.  Rick, help us, how do we know who the muslims are?

8:25PM: Ron Paul on the war on terrorism..."I don't remember voting on a declaration of war...terror isn't a person, it's a tactic."  Go get 'em Ron!

8:27PM: Cain just called Blitzer "Blitz".  I'll miss him when he's gone.

8:31PM:  Bachmann says we shouldn't stop giving Pakistan money, but only because if we don't, they might stop being our friend and start being China's friend.  I guess Rick Perry doesn't care about friends, because he's not giving Pakistan a dime.  But then they won't come to Michele's sweet sixteen! Damn you Rick!

8:33PM: Bachmann just called Perry's position "highly naive".  Uh oh, I think she's about to find out that you don't mess with Texas.  Rick looks mad.  Hmmm...he went pretty easy on her.  He may have taken a Valium before the debate.  Let's keep on eye on him.

8:35PM: Romney on Afghanistan..."we can't just write off a significant part of the world."  He forgot to add "...that has oil."  Then he said we need to bring Afghanistan into the 20th century.  Yeah, what's up with that country?  Why do they have all that rubble everywhere?  Get some roads, jerks!

8:38PM: Good point by Huntsman.  The President doesn't always have to listen to the Generals on the ground when it comes to war.  The President is the one in charge and he calls the shots.  Mitt says he would call the shots, by doing whatever the Generals tell him to do.

8:40PM: Newt's first complaint about the questions.  A Republican debate tradition like no other.  Then he follows up by complaining about the rules.  Also, his podium is too small and the food in his dressing room was far from adequate.

8:42PM: Santorum says radical islamists are just waiting us out.  So, I guess Santorum would just never withdraw troops from anywhere.  He's not suggesting colonizing Afghanistan, just visiting...forever.

8:48PM: Cain says he'd support Israel if they attacked Iran, as long as they had a good plan.  I'd like to hear what Herman would consider a good plan.  Wolf didn't ask, glad he's here.

8:49PM: Ron Paul on Israel..."if Israel decides to bomb something, that's their business, but they have to suffer the consequences."  Republican foreign policy debates should just be two hours of all the other candidates shutting up and listening to Ron.

8:52PM: Perry says we need to sanction the Iranian central bank to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  I assume "sanction the national bank" is some kind of Rick Perry secret code for "bombing the shit out of the country".

8:53PM: Blitzer points out that sanctioning the Iranian central bank would essentially end Iranian oil exports and, ya know, cripple Europe's economy.  Newt sees this as an opportunity to sell Europe some of our own oil.  Wait, when did we get all this extra oil to sell to Europe?  Is Newt hiding oil somewhere and not telling us?

8:56PM: Ron Paul is openly laughing while Bachmann is talking about Israel.  Me too Ron.

8:57PM: Santorum just called Africa "a country on the brink".  Country...continent...whatever.   Rick points out the important part, which is making sure we force our values on anyone in Africa who wants our help.

8:59PM: Cain on aid to Africa..."it may be worth while to continue, it may not." Yes Herman, those are the two choices.

8:59PM: Ron Paul believes all foreign aid is worthless.  Say what you want about Ron, he doesn't hedge.

9:00PM: Romney implies that the President is cutting 1 trillion dollars from defense and putting it directly into Obamacare.  That's a good talking point.  Patently false, but a good talking point.

9:03PM: Newt says, if we were serious about oil, we would magically produce all the oil we need in the next year.  OK, he didn't use the word magically, but I can only assume magic is part of his plan.

9:07PM: Huntsman just talked for like two and a half minutes.  Are there any rules here?  Does Blitzer have any authority?

9:08PM: Perry just said (he said this in the last debate too) that he's been the Commander in Chief of 20,000 Texas National Guard troops.  I'm surprised he hasn't declared war on Oklahoma yet.

9:10PM: Perry just suggested making Congress part-time.  Yeah, because that's what we need, a Congress that does even less.  I know everyone right now is thinking Congress does way too much.

9:12PM: Santorum is willing to compromise on anything, as long as it's not raising taxes.  I'm pretty sure you can find a version of that statement on the RNC letterhead.

9:13PM: Question about entitlement reform.  How did we get here?  I thought we were talking about national security.  What is Blitzer doing?  I'm getting frustrated.  Somebody should confiscate Wolf's beard.

9:25PM: Rick Perry promises to shut down the Mexican border.  What does that mean?  How do you shut down a border?  It's not a Walmart.

9:26PM: Ron Paul's talking about how "the federal war on drugs is a total failure", and he just said he's for medical marijuana and treating drugs the way we treat alcohol.  I assume he means dealing with the stupid behaviors that come from abusing them, as opposed to just criminalizing the drugs.  I'm all for all of this.  Blitzer, of course, failed to follow-up, and the rest of the candidates ignored it.  Booooo!

9:30PM: Now Santorum is, once again, plugging his brilliant plan for 0% taxes on manufacturing corporations.  I still don't know how we got here from national security, but since it's an important tradition for all of my debate blogs, this is as good a time as any to point out that Rick Santorum is an idiot.

9:32PM: Newt proposes some kind of panel to decide which illegal immigrants get amnesty and which ones don't, including subtly suggesting (twice) that immigrants who belong to a church get to stay.  So...religiously based death panels for immigrants...got it.

9:34PM: Blitzer repeats Newt's idea that belonging to a church would be an important part of getting to stay here as an immigrant.  If only there were some kind of moderator at this debate to find out why the hell that would be a consideration.  Too bad.

9:36PM: We seem to be having a serious disagreement about kicking out most of the illegal immigrants or all of the illegal immigrants.  Perry had to step in as the voice of reason (yeah, seriously), pointing out that we would have to secure the border before a meaningful immigration policy would work.  Unfortunately, it still sounds like Rick wants to secure the border with predator drones.  So, half credit I guess.

9:44PM: Lots of great beards at this debate.  Just saying.

9:46PM: I'm becoming concerned that we might get through this whole debate without hearing about Cain's 999 plan.  What happened to you pizza man?  You used to be fun.

9:47PM: Perry suggests a no-fly zone over Syria as a way to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  Um...OK.  Either Rick knows more about the middle east than I thought or he thinks Iran and Syria are the same country.  I'd say it's 50/50.

9:49PM: Huntsman says we need to be careful about taking sides in conflicts we don't fully understand (yes!), but then says our only interest in the middle east is Israel (arrgh!). 

9:50PM: Ron Paul suggests we should treat other countries the way we want to be treated.  Mitt quickly counters by making sure everyone understands that America is special and we can do whatever we want and just blow stuff up if other countries don't like it.  Mitt's always a puzzle because you never know if he actually believes anything he's saying. 

9:55PM: I think we're all in agreement that everyone's first trip abroad as President would be to Israel.  Except Ron, who, I assume, would never leave the country.

9:56PM: Perry says China is "not a country of virtues".  Way to grasp the nuance of foreign policy there Rick.

9:57PM: Cain says he was a ballistics analyst early in his career.  Do pizza companies have weapons?  Why didn't I know this?  Are the weapons pepperoni-based?

Once again, no closing statements.  That's always a missed opportunity to hear some stupid nonsense, but I guess we'll have to live without it.  Until next time, just remember, Newt Gingrich is leading the polls, so you probably want to start looking at houses in Canada, just in case.

Not Ready For Prime Time

I'm looking forward to this a little.  Why?  This is the first time these candidates have debated on a network, and I found out this debate is only an hour long.  To me, that says they may try to dumb it down a little, for the broader audience and with less time to talk.  What happens when the likes of Bachmann, Perry and Gingrich try to dumb themselves down?  I don't know, but I think it's certainly possible the vortex of stupidity could open up a portal to another dimension.  Granted, it would be a very stupid dimension, but still, I think, worth seeing.

Why is this one only an hour?  I can only surmise that CBS figured some of these people would be able to muster some dignity by now, or borrow some from a friend, and stop embarrassing themselves...I'm looking at you Rick Santorum.  Actually wait, I shouldn't say that.  Rick Santorum isn't an embarrassment to himself so much as he's an embarrassment to America and the entire human race. 

8:00PM: CBS started the debate with what I have to describe as a montage of the craziest things each candidate has said in all the previous debates.  I think these people deserve to be mocked as much as anyone, but, honestly, that seemed like a low blow.

8:01PM: One of the moderators just said this debate would last 90 minutes, so I've got conflicting reports on length now.  Maybe they'll just do the last 30 minutes off camera since everybody will have tuned out by then anyway.

8:04PM: Confirmation that the first 60 minutes will take place on TV, while the last 30 minutes will happen on the internet.  CBS doesn't have 90 minutes to dedicate to electing the leader of the free world, they have very important NCIS reruns to broadcast.

8:06PM: Herman Cain suggested helping the opposition movement in Iran, but not militarily.  I guess he's planning to send them juice boxes and lunchables and what-not.

8:07PM: Romney calls Iran President Obama's "greatest failure", then promises that if he's elected President, Iran will never have nuclear weapons.  I'm almost willing to vote for him just to see him fail.

8:09PM: Gingrich just proposed taking out certain Iranian capabilities in a way that is "covert and deniable".  I'm not sure he meant to say that out loud, that wasn't very covert.

8:10PM: Ron Paul finally sets us straight by pointing out that war with Iran would be stupid, and that the President can't just go to war on his own.  If I could elect Ron just to run foreign policy, I would sprint to the voting booth to do it.

8:13PM: Santorum suggests neutering the taliban.  I'd like to suggest neutering Rick Santorum. 

8:16PM: Bachmann's main point about Afghanistan - everything good that happens can be attributed to our troops, everything bad that happens is the President's fault.  And really, that's a pretty good summation of the Repubilcan party platform.  Well done, Congresswoman.

8:17PM: Huntsman says it's time to come home from Afghanistan...saying "I don't wanna be nation building in Afghanistan when this nation (America) needs to be built".  See?  I told you he may not be a moron.

8:19PM: I think Newt wants to go to war with Pakistan too.  I guess, in Newt's mind, the sight of him as President will be enough to convince millions more Americans to enlist in the military so we can fight all the wars Newt wants to start.

8:21PM: When asked if Pakistan is a friend or foe, Cain says "we don't know".  Well Herman, I know you don't know, but that doesn't mean we don't know.

8:22PM: Perry got a similar question and totally dodged it, possibly because he doesn't know what Pakistan is.  Then he says the foreign aid budget in his administration would start at "zero dollars" for every country.  I have a feeling Israel's budget would find it's way up from zero pretty quickly.

8:25PM: Bachmann just placed Pakistan in the middle east.  I feel like that's a stretch, but OK.  I would probably accept that from someone I didn't think was an idiot, but I have a feeling Bachmann defines "middle east" as anywhere muslims live. 

8:26PM: Later, Bachmann says it's clear the stage is being set for worldwide nuclear war against Israel.  Don't worry Israel, she's not terribly bright.

8:30PM: I think Santorum just suggested stimulating our economy by selling military hardware to Pakistan, but only after we make friends with them and stuff.

8:34PM: Sounds like Newt said something stupid on the radio yesterday.  When asked about it, his explanation was, "I was on the radio".  It's a well known fact that whatever you say on the radio doesn't count.

8:36PM: Cain's brilliant plan for his administration is to have advisers around him.  That's quite an idea.  He should also consider living in a big white house, and maybe getting some armed guards or something like that.

8:37PM: Santorum very directly promises to only hire people that completely agree with him (proof that he knows he's too stupid to even defend his positions to people who work for him).  Then he says he hopes that the problems he's been hearing about in Iran are actually covert American operations.  Seriously, you guys, shhhhhh!

8:39PM: Question to Perry, what would he do with our nuclear weapons if he eliminated the Department of Energy.  His answer? There are plenty of places in government we could put our nuclear weapons, but he decided not to name any of them.  I guess it's a secret.

8:40PM: Question about Cain's stance on torture.  He says "I do not agree with torture, period...however..." Stop right there!  Nothing comes after period, that's what periods are for.  Cain, of course, went on to reveal that he's actually pro-torture as long as we call it something else.

8:42PM: Bachmann too...everyone loves torture as long as you call it enhanced interrogation.  That's a fun little trick we can thank the Bush administration for.

8:42PM: Ron's turn, go get 'em Ron!

8:43PM: Ron points out that waterboarding is definitely torture, as well as being "immoral" "uncivilized" "illegal" and ineffective.  I think I missed a few too.  As always, Ron's the best.

8:44PM: Huntsman is against torture too.  That won't do him a lot of good after the debate when Perry and Bachmann are waterboarding him just for shits and giggles.

8:46PM: Romney uses one of my least favorite talking points, calling America "exceptional".  This annoys me so much.  We're so happy with ourselves.  I'll vote for anyone who will be honest for five seconds and tell us that we're not really that special.  Why is this important?  Because the people who believe we're somehow entitled to being the greatest country in the world for ever and ever because their imaginary friend said so are the same people who don't see a problem with the destruction of our middle class, and that's not a coincidence.

8:48PM: Perry says the Communist Chinese government will wind up on the ash heap of history.  China may be older than Rick Perry believes the earth is, but I'm sure he's got a fool-proof plan for getting rid of them.

8:51PM: Romney's back to his brilliant idea of having a trade war with China, saying that we're already in a war and they're stealing our jobs.  I love this phrasing, as if China is sneaking over here in the middle of the night with a ski mask on and putting jobs in a big sack and taking them home.  When actually, what's happening is our lovely corporations, whose taxes Mitt and everyone else on stage can't wait to cut, again, are voluntarily moving jobs to China where labor is cheaper and regulation is softer or non-existent.  I'm not sure stealing is the most exact description, but it certainly sounds the most scary.

8:52PM: Huntsman, the guy who worked in China, is happy to point out that Mitt is just flat wrong, and then he used a weird word I hadn't heard yet in these debates...diplomacy?  Is that how you spell it?  Most of the other candidates looked as puzzled as I am.  Is that some kind of fancy way of saying war?

8:56PM: Ohhhh, a twitter question! Fun! The question was, would Israel's foreign aid budget also start at zero.  Perry says yes, but then says not really, because Israel is "a special ally".  I don't have anything against Israel, it just annoys me that idiots can get votes from other idiots by pretending to give a crap about Israel.

8:59PM: TV time is over now, let's see if I can find the rest online. 

9:00PM: Hey! It's working!

9:01PM: First internet question - should we increase military spending?

9:02PM: Bachmann takes the long way to saying that she's all for cutting military spending, as long as by cutting military spending you mean repealing Obamacare.

OK, screw this.  I don't know what CBS is up to, but their debate feed was cutting out on every third word, making these candidates even more incoherent than usual.  I tried, but I'll have to settle for two-thirds of tonight's debate and I'll just have to guess at what happened in the last half hour.  One guess for each candidate:

Perry: Let's say he finally fell asleep this time.
Romney: Said something arrogant while smirking.
Paul: Suggested putting an end to something government is currently doing.
Bachmann: Said the word Obamacare 13 more times.
Cain: 999 999 999 999 999 999 999 999
Huntsman: Said something reasonable and got booed for it.
Santorum: Lit his podium on fire after someone told him a "gay" had touched it earlier.
Newtster: Bitched about the questions (which he's apparently required by law to do at least once per debate).

Insert Generic Herman Cain Joke Here

So much has happened since we last heard from our Republican friends.  Rick Perry showed up in New Hampshire, seemingly drunk or stoned or something.  Herman Cain made the difficult journey from amusing fake candidate to creepy old guy.  Now he's like Bill Clinton without the intelligence, or ideas, or accomplishments, or likability.  Cain and Newt apparently had their own little pretend time debate that nobody saw or cared about. 

Most importantly, I went a whole week without power or heat or hot water.  And, to be honest, that's left me in a bit of a foul mood, and I can't wait to make fun of some stupid people.  Let's get to it.

Tonight's debate is being hosted by CNBC.  Looks like Jim Cramer will be asking some questions, I'm looking forward to this.

8:00PM: Everything Herman Cain says sounds dirty now.  I'll miss you, pizza man.

8:03PM: I always think it's funny that all the other candidates get introduced by their current or former titles (Governor Huntsman, Congresswoman Bachmann, etc), but when they get to Cain, it's just Mr. Cain. 

8:05PM: Cain just declared Italy "beyond the point of return".  Somebody should tell the Italians he has no idea what he's talking about before they panic.

8:07PM: Romney doesn't think the US should be setting up a "TARP-like" program to bail out Italian banks.  Is somebody suggesting that?  What is Mitt talking about?

8:08PM: Cramer starts his first question by yelling loudly at the candidates and asking Ron Paul if he would really just let Italy fail.  Ron would let pretty much anything fail, as he just made clear.  I think he just suggested liquidating Italy...I may have missed some words there.

8:10PM: This is fun, Cramer will not take no for an answer on Italy.  He's basically telling them what the right answer is, but they still won't say it.  Other than my man Ron, they won't even address it.

8:12PM: I could swear I just heard Romney use the phrase "gay market share".  That can't be right, I need to focus.

8:13PM: I don't know who these people running the debate are, so we'll just call them Question Dude and Question Lady. 

8:13PM: Question Dude just asked Romney why Republicans should believe he has any actual principles.  He responded with a barrage of talking points and a promise to never apologize for the United States of America.  So there.

8:16PM: Question Lady just asked Newt why tax reform is the path to job creation?  Are you kidding me?  That's like asking these people to explain how gay people are destroying the family.  They can't explain it, it's just an article of faith:
Step 1: Tax Cuts
Step 2: Magical Things Happen
Step 3: Jobs

8:19PM: Bachmann just squeezed all of her talking points into one answer.  It had everything...tax cuts, repealing Obamacare, magic Mexico border fence.  She should have finished by dropping her mic and walking off the stage.

8:20PM: Santorum continues to defend his proposed 0% tax on manufacturing corporations.  Then he said "some people talk about trade wars with China", as if he disagrees with that.  Like two debates ago, Santorum said he doesn't want to have a trade war with China, he wants to win a trade war with China.  As always, Rick Santorum sucks.

8:22PM: Cain's defense for his sexual harassment charges?  For every woman that says he harassed her, he could produce 1,000 women who would say he didn't.  That's pretty air tight..."well, your honor, maybe this one guy says I murdered him, but I could show you a whole courtroom full of people who would say I haven't murdered them...yet."

8:25PM: Huntsman just opposed the auto bailout in Michigan.  That's balls right there.  Stupid balls, but still.

8:26PM: Important point about how Republicans see the economy.  Cramer asked Romney if corporations should focus on job creation or on creating profit for shareholders.  Romney said they go hand in hand, so did Perry...no they don't!  You can keep the money and give it to your shareholders, or you can use it to create more jobs.  Yes, more profitable corporations have more money to re-invest in jobs, but that's only helpful if they actually do that at some point.

8:27PM: Perry suggests planting "a big ole flag in the middle of America that says 'Open for Business Again'".  Well, that should do it.

8:28PM: Newt thinks it's sad that the media doesn't accurately report how the economy works in his imagination. 

8:29PM: Cramer seems genuinely amused by these morons.

8:32PM: Cain is still pushing his hilarious 999 plan.  Question Lady asked him how he would guarantee the rates would stay at 9%.  In Herman's mind, people love his 999 plan so much, that they'll never let politicians mess with it.

8:34PM: Romney - "The Obama economy has really crushed middle income Americans".  I don't want to get too technical here, but, in the business, we call that bullshit.

8:35PM: Michele Bachmann's tax plan? "I have everyone paying something".  I'd go for paying "something" as a tax rate.  Where do I sign up?

8:37PM: Ron Paul is suggesting the market should determine interest rates, not the Fed chairman.  He's not suggesting lower or higher rates, just rates determined by the market.  Question Lady is not getting it.  Ron seems frustrated.

8:46PM: Perry makes the blanket Republican point that regulations are killing America.  He suggests doing away with every regulation that isn't creating jobs.  Right, because that's the only thing in the whole world that matters.  Child labor laws don't create jobs.  In fact, they destroy jobs, millions of tiny little adorable jobs.  I wonder how Rick feels about them.

8:49PM: Newt says he warned Freddie Mac not to give out bad loans to people who couldn't pay them back.  I can't believe they didn't listen to him, just look how big his head is.

8:51PM: Cain says he would solve the problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by not starting them in the first place.  Does Herman Cain have a time machine?  Why hasn't he mentioned this before?  Why doesn't he go back and tell himself not to harass those women?

8:53PM: Question Dude asked Huntsman if he would break up the big banks.  Huntsman says he would "right size" them.  Question Dude asked what he meant by that, and he said something about making the banks set up some kind of fund to mitigate the risk that they would otherwise be passing on to the taxpayers.  That sounds like a non-moronic idea, but it also kinda sounds like a tax.  Luckily for Huntsman, nobody else on the stage was smart enough to figure that out, or they weren't paying attention.

8:57PM: We're doing a thing now where every candidate gets 30 seconds to talk about health care.  I can sum up the Republican health care position in two seconds - "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

8:58PM: Romney suggests health care should work like a market.  Why?  Why is that automatically better?  Not everything can be fixed by the magic of the free market.

8:58PM: Question Lady has been subtly but effectively interrupting Newt every time he starts bitching about the questions.  This time, when he kept bitching, she interrupted with "would you like to try to answer a question about health care tonight or not".  I like her, I should learn her name. 

9:01PM: Santorum just gave us a brief history of all the things he did back in the 90's.  Ya know, back when people gave a shit about Rick Santorum.

9:05PM: Ron Paul says bailing out Europe would be "a real tragedy." I'm not sure tragedy is the word he was looking for.

9:12PM: The CEO of Caterpillar (who got to ask a question for some reason) just asked how they will put party aside and compromise for the good of the country.  Santorum finds a way to suggest that his 0% tax rate for manufacturing corporations is somehow a big compromise.  I'm not sure compromise means what Rick thinks it means.

9:15PM: Romney just criticized the President for only worrying about his re-election.  Yeah!  Mitt Romney would never just say anything people wanted to hear just to get elected!  Wait, did I say never?  I meant to say Mitt Romney constantly does that.

9:16PM: Perry just spent a full minute failing to remember the third government agency (I think he meant Cabinet Department) that he would get rid of.  Education, Commerce and...something.  We never found out what the third one was.  If you go back through the tape, you can see the exact moment when it went from funny to sad.

9:20PM: Newt just accused Lyndon Johnson of faking a balanced budget in 1969.  Yeah! Fuck Lyndon Johnson!  Seriously, what's going on here?

9:21PM: Romney just said he won't raise taxes four different ways in about 9 seconds.  This gets close to the heart of the problem.  We should have two parties arguing over what the appropriate tax rate is.  The problem is, for one of the parties, the appropriate tax rate is just "lower". 

9:25PM: Huntsman just said we have a real trust problem in this country with our institutions.  In a related story, let's go back to our debate where 8 leading presidential candidates tell us why we can't trust the government to do anything.

9:27PM: Ron Paul says the student loan program has failed and given students more debt and a worse education.  First of all, I work in higher education.  I could give you 100 reasons why students aren't getting better educations at colleges, and none of them have anything to do with student loans.  Secondly, failed at what? 

Here's the thing about student loans.  The fact that students borrow so much money to go to school allows colleges and universities to explode costs, because nobody expects to actually be able to afford college on their own anymore.  It's a crappy system, but you can't put the horse back in the barn.  Like housing, college is insanely expensive now, and we can't go back.  What we can do is find a way to create quality entry level jobs across a variety of industries so college becomes a good investment again, and that's why I'm proposing my 999 plan for...wait a minute!

9:31PM: Perry just remembered the third department he was trying to think of before...Energy!  Man, I'm so glad he remembered, that would have kept me up all night.

9:38PM: Wait, I'm confused.  Is Barack Obama killing jobs, or is China killing jobs?  Or is Barack Obama secretly Chinese?

9:40PM: Newt suggested yielding to Huntsman on the China question because, ya know, he used to work there and stuff.  An actual coherent thought from Newt, now I've seen everything.

9:42PM: Hunstman just accused Romney of pandering by suggesting punishing China with tariffs and calling them currency manipulators.  He brought up a good point, when we do it, it's "quantitative easing", when China does it, it's "currency manipulation".  Mitt responded by pandering some more.

9:43PM: Bachmann just accused China of building 3,000 miles of underground tunnels to house their nuclear weapons.  These people all know that everyone already knows China has nuclear weapons, right?  Is Bachmann surprised by this?  If I had nuclear weapons, I'd probably keep them underground too.  Those things are dangerous.

9:45PM: Cramer asked Cain a question that started with him specifically telling Cain that 999 is not an answer to the question.  Cain took 30 seconds to get to his 999 plan anyway.  Cramer is now lecturing Cain about why he's wrong.  Can we get Jim at every debate?  I can't tell anymore if he's genuinely amused or if he's five seconds away from killing everyone.

9:48PM: I've said this before, but it's worth repeating.  Rick Perry has a habit of starting sentences without knowing where he's going to end up.  It's like listening to a four year old tell you about his day, just a bunch of little strings of unrelated words, punctuated by strange facial expressions.

9:50PM: Ron Paul finished the debate by talking about crony capitalism while the other candidates hid behind their podiums.

Well, that was fun.  Quick programming note...there appears to be a debate this Saturday.  On one hand, watching Republicans isn't exactly my idea of a fun Saturday night.  But on the other hand, most of my friends live four hours away, outside of work people, I really only have one friend in Massachusetts, and I spent all day last Saturday bothering her.  Plus, I do enjoy this.  So, I guess what I'm saying is, the odds of me being here for Saturday's debate are about 50/50 right now.