I'm Not Voting for Hillary Clinton

You can't make me vote for Hillary Clinton.  I won't do it.  The list of people I would not vote for under any circumstances has on it but one name, and that name is Hillary Clinton.  I don't even care what she says she believes in this time.  I just want her to go away.  Her and Bill are rich, and they've accomplished plenty, why won't they just go away?  Why?

Unfortunately, having only two parties to choose from, this means the Republican primary process takes on extra special significance for me this time around.  No longer are the Republicans just funny TV personalities I can laugh at and then not vote for.  I have to vote for one of these people.  So everybody focus up!  Alright?!?  I'm serious!  Time to take a look at the Republican candidates.  I was worried that the internet wouldn't have enough room on it to list all of them, but internet inventor Al Gore says we're fine.

I've broken the candidates down into three tiers.  Within each tier, I'll try to list the candidates in order from least likely to win to most likely to win.  Seriously now, I have to vote for one of these people, so let's all just pay attention and see if we can find some hope here.

Tier Three
Tier three consists of people who have the same chance at winning the Republican nomination as I do.  I couldn't tell you why they're running, and I couldn't tell you why anyone would bother donating money to them or saying their name when a pollster calls and asks who they might be voting for.  I'll still try to list these people from least likely to most likely, but keep in mind that trying to parse out the varying degrees of absolutely no chance really is splitting hairs.  Pointless, needless hairs.

Jim Gilmore
I don't know who this person is.  I assume he created Gilmore Girls and listen, girls with blue eyes and dark hair is an excellent concept for a TV show.  I wish every show was based around that general theme.  But Gilmore Guy here isn't going to be President.  Sorry.

Carly Fiorina
Being an actual person I've heard of is a good start.  Carly was CEO of Hewlett-Packard for a while, and was apparently terrible at it.  To be fair, taking over a tech company in 1999 was a little like taking over as Brittney Spears' manager in 1999.  You knew it wasn't going to end well, but somebody had to do it. 

Being a former CEO whose claim to fame was lay-offs certainly didn't stop Mitt Romney from winning the Republican nomination.  Mitt, however, was at least a governor at some point.  Carly once ran for the Senate and lost.  I don't think that's going to cut it.  Also, Carly is awful on TV.  Really awful.  If you ever get a chance to see her do an interview on Fox, watch for as long as you can just to see what I'm talking about.  You won't last long.

Lindsey Graham 
I can't figure out what Lindsey Graham is doing.  He always struck me as a guy who was perfectly happy being a career Senator.  I suppose if he and John McCain are ever going to build a blanket fort in the White House, it's up to Lindsey now.  Unfortunately, "John McCain is my best friend" isn't exactly a killer campaign slogan when you're dealing with the Republican base.  They still think McCain ruined Sarah Palin's epic run for the White House.

Bobby Jindal
Take your pick of reasons why Bobby won't win.  How about doing everything but setting his own shirt on fire during a comically awful State of the Union response?  Or how about the fact that he looks and sounds like a little kid pretending to be his dad every time you see him speaking?  Or how about the fact the apparently everyone in Louisiana hates him?  Or how about the fact that nobody will take you seriously if you're a 44 year old man who still calls himself Bobby? 

George Pataki
You probably think I have Pataki ranked a little high, right near the top of the people who have absolutely no chance.  Maybe it's my New York bias, but I don't understand why George isn't doing a little better.  Then again, I haven't actually seen him do anything since I found out he was running for President.  George knows that in order to run for President you have to like, leave your house and stuff, right?

Tier Two
Tier two consists of people who, under the right circumstances, could hypothetically win the nomination.  For a couple of them, those circumstances would mostly involve leading a military coup, or having a deadly virus kill all the other candidates.  Still, I think each of these people has some plausible, if improbable, path to the nomination.

Ben Carson
I know, you think Ben should be higher.  I disagree.  Carson is one of two candidates who are specifically hurt by Donald Trump.  The tea party failed because it became a magnet for everyone in the Republican party who wanted to get angry about everything without actually having to learn about anything.  Carson looked like he might be their guy in 2016, but then Trump came along and boy, talk about being angry without actually learning anything!  The Trump train will wreck eventually, but by the time it does Carson will be lucky to still get his show on Fox, which is really all he wanted in the first place.

Ted Cruz
The other guy Trump is absolutely burying is Ted Cruz, for basically the same reason.  Ever since he got to the Senate Ted Cruz has been the champion of being loud and disagreeable.  Now he takes a firm back seat in that category to Mr. Trump.  Second place in the loud and disagreeable competition is just the first loser.  If Trump disappears more quickly than I expect, his voters will have to go somewhere and Ted still has a platform as a Senator.  Unfortunately for Ted (and fortunately for the rest of us, in this context at least), I don't think Trump is leaving anytime soon and until he does, Ted stays buried.

Rick Perry
Presidents from Texas have a tendency to get us into intractable quagmires overseas.  And with so many potential quagmires available to us currently, I'm confident that Republican voters will recognize that Mr. Perry is not the guy right now.  Also, he's terrible at debating and might actually be a moron.  I'm not a big fan, is I guess what I'm saying. 

Mike Huckabee
I'm a little disappointed in Huck.  Growing up, the priests always told us to love the sinner and hate the sin.  Some of them were better at that than others.  I always thought Mike was pretty good at genuinely not hating the people he believes to be sinners.  Now I'm not so sure. 

Mike's path to the nomination has always been the same.  Rally the social conservatives and stick around long enough to go one on one with the establishment candidate, with enough primaries left to make it a real fight.  This time around, I wonder how much fight the social conservatives have left in them.  They keep losing, in public opinion, in the courts, with former Olympic athletes who they thought were cool.  At some point, some percentage of those folks have to give up and move on to other things.  I don't think there's enough left to take Huck anywhere good, but I guess we'll see.

Donald Trump
I know, I know.  But he's doing so well in the polls! How can you not even have him in the first tier??  Let me ask you an honest question.  Do you really think Donald Trump is going to win the Republican nomination?  I don't.  I think he'll stay in for a while, probably at least into March.  But as other candidates start to drop out, two things will happen. 

First of all, nobody who is supporting any other candidate, except for maybe Cruz and Carson, will come over to Trump when their guy leaves.  Every time someone gets out of the race, everyone else will get some new voters and Trump will stay where he is now.  Secondly, while Trump will probably look pretty good in Thursday's debate with nine other people, eventually he'll wind up on stage with just two or three other people and that's when his real weakness will get exposed.  He's a lightweight.  He doesn't know anything about governing or public policy.  That's fine when you're one of 17 people shouting at the TV cameras, it's less fine when you're on stage trying to debate 2 or 3 people who have spent their lives working in government. 

Trump can't win for the same reason I can't be a famous guitarist.  I think I'd be an awesome famous guitarist!  I'd be so charitable if I was rich and I'd always sign autographs for fans.  I'd always be on tour and I'd play colleges and charity events for free because I'd be rich anyway and you can only spend so much money.  I'd be great at this!  Oh but there's this one thing, I'm terrible at playing the guitar.  Just that one thing, otherwise I'd be great.

Rick Santorum
And now you're wondering how it took me so long to get to Rick.  I've been hard on Rick in the past, and I don't agree with him a lot, but I honestly think he's a solid candidate.  Listen to Rick speak if you ever get the chance.  He talks a lot about the economy, the middle class and jobs.  He hardly ever talks about bestiality anymore.  I don't think Rick's economic plan is any good, but at least he has one, and I think he honestly wants to do good things for working people.  He's pretty genuine on the economic stuff, and I think that'll resonate if he gets a chance.

Rick was also a Senator, and from a state with actual people in it.  He understands how governing works and he has experience in primary debates.  I feel like Rick should be doing better than he is, and I have some expectation that he'll start doing better soon.  I'm not saying I like it, I'm just saying I think Santorum may be more for real than he seems right now, and I'd suggest keeping an eye on him.

Rand Paul
I have to admit to being genuinely interested in Rand at some point.  I've always been a fan of Ron Paul, and I was looking forward to seeing Rand keep up the family tradition of getting booed in Republican primary debates for being somewhat tentative about bombing everything.  Rand is still probably the guy in this field I'd be most likely to vote for, but doesn't it feel like his moment has passed a little bit? 

He really jumped on that whole NSA data collection thing, but it turned out most people didn't really care about that a lot.  And even though Rand is actually more hawkish than his dad, I think most Republicans think he's still someone who wouldn't feature explosions in his foreign policy, and I'm not sure that fits into the current Iran pants-shitting vibe the Republicans currently have going. 

Marco Rubio
All of Marco's avenues seem to be closing.  He lost the tea party people when he decided to support immigration reform and, you know, be Hispanic.  The whole anti-Castro thing doesn't really play outside of Florida.  The most generous description of his State of the Union response would be "not totally awful", which is better than Bobby Jindal's "catastrophic", but still not good. 

Rubio's best path to the nomination is the same as Barack Obama's path in 2008.  It's a pretty good path, but I wonder if this avenue is closing for Marco too.  He's no less new to the national scene than Obama was around this time in 2007, but Republicans got really excited about him and pushed him like Vince McMahon pushing a new wrestler, and now Marco already seems like he's been around for a while.  I think we may already know too much about Rubio for him to play the new guy.  Also, I'm not convinced that anyone from Congress can win this time around.  People really hate Congress.

I seem mostly down on Marco because, like Rand Paul, I think his moment may have passed.  On the other hand, Jimmy Smits won the election on the West Wing, and if anyone is a Republican Matt Santos, it's this guy.

John Kasich
Kasich is the hardest guy on the list to place, because he just got in.  He's a governor, so he's not tainted by being a member of Congress.  He's a swing state governor, and he seems to be a least mildly popular in his state.  He has legitimate experience governing.  Republicans have seemed quietly excited about Kasich for a while now. 

Kasich sort of quietly announced his candidacy right in the middle of Trumpageddon.  Sometimes a bad launch can kill a campaign.  I don't know if that'll happen to Kasich, he seems pretty legit, but it's really hard to say right now.  It looks like he'll probably make Thursday's debate, and I expect he'll do pretty well, and then he should be on his way to the top tier.

Tier One
Tier one candidates are the people who are currently legitimate contenders.  People who I think can win without anything weird happening.  One of these guys would make a really awful President, but the other two would probably be not completely terrifying.

Chris Christie
Maybe I need to give up on Chris.  Maybe this just isn't going to happen.  I'm not ready yet though.  He's the only guy in this field who won't put up with getting bullied by Trump.  His experience as a U.S. Attorney should kill in debates about security.  He's well known and currently a Governor.  The fact that MSNBC still won't stop crying about the George Washington Bridge also leads me to believe that liberals are genuinely afraid of Christie. 

Will social conservatives ever really trust him?  No, but they didn't trust Romney or McCain either and they eventually dealt with it.  Does he need to get his poll numbers up?  Yes he does.  He may not even make the stage on Thursday.  It seems like he's got enough financial backing to hang around for a while, and he should do better once some of the other people start dropping out.  I think he'll get the Rubio people, maybe the Perry people, maybe even the Huckabee people if they don't go to Santorum.  I still think he can win, soon I may be the only one left.

Scott Walker
Walker seems to remind Republicans of Reagan, which is a terrible thing for anyone who actually understands what kind of President Reagan was in real life, but an awesome thing for Scott in the Republican primary.  He's also become the patron saint of union bashing, another killer trait for a Republican.  If I thought Scott Walker was actually a decent candidate, he'd be the clear favorite.  He doesn't really seem like a decent candidate though.  He seems like an empty suit that's been filled with talking points and billionaires' political wishes.  Like I said, he's a lot like Reagan.

Jeb Bush
I think Jeb is still the favorite.  I know his poll numbers never move and he doesn't really seem to do or say much, but consider a few other things.  He's incredibly well-funded, he was a swing state Governor and Republican primary voters don't remember his brother nearly as negatively as the rest of us.  Would it help you to know that his real name is John?  Sounds less silly than Jeb, right?

We have to find out if Jeb actually wants to be President that much.  I'm not 100% sure he does.  I don't know that anyone is especially excited about Jeb, and maybe that's because he doesn't seem too excited about himself.  I'm not looking forward to voting for Jeb, but I think it's the most likely outcome for me.  I mean, how bad can a Bush Presidency be, right?

Epilogue
Oh and one more thing.  Did you notice how I didn't mention Newt Gingrich?  That's because he's not running this time.  If you're looking at all of these people and thinking you don't like any of them, just remember that none of them are Newt Gingrich, and that's pretty great.

Planet Mitt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intervention!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big Finish

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Trouble With Mitt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seventeen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Man Who Knew Too Much

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome to New Hampshire

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

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

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

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

9:01PM: Ron Paul is already smirking. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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