Kiddie Table

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recap

If you think about it, last night's debate shouldn't have been that much of a surprise.  Preparing to debate Mitt Romney is like preparing for a boxing match against a southpaw, only when you get to the match, instead of fighting a lefty, you're wrestling a bear.  George Costanza once famously said it's not a lie if you believe it.  Similarly, you can't really prepare to debate Mitt Romney if even Mitt Romney doesn't know what he'll be believing and saying on any given day.

As someone who's been paying attention this whole time, I have a hard time declaring Mitt the winner, because I know he spent much of the debate, um, getting creative with reality.  But I will say this, the strategy was brilliant.  Everyone thought Mitt was walking into a trap.  The President was going to ask Mitt to explain how he's going to pay for his $5 trillion tax cut and Mitt would have to either give an explanation people would hate or refuse to give an explanation again, which people would also hate.  There's no way anyone could have anticipated Mitt just saying "Tax cut! What tax cut?  What is this crazy man talking about?".  I may be paraphrasing. 

For the President's part, I'm not sure what he could have done.  I know people wanted him to fight back more and call Romney out on his bullshit, but how does that really go?  Do you think the President does better if he spends the whole night whining about how Romney is distorting things and lying?  I don't know.  I like condescending, arrogant, dismissive Barack Obama (honestly, he's my favorite Barack Obama), but I'm fairly confident the Obama campaign has polling that says most people hate that shit.  

There's a great West Wing episode about a Presidential debate.  The campaign team sees polling that says people will think President Bartlet is arrogant no matter what he does, so then they tell him to just go be himself and he crushes Rick Perry, er...Rob Ritchie.  That's a nice story, but that's not really how it works.  In reality, doing the thing that people expect you to do that they hate only makes more people hate you, and hate you more. 

I think the President's strategy, which he had to think of all on his own because, again, there's just no preparing for Mitt Romney, was to let Mitt punch himself out with nonsense and let the fact-checkers and the media kill him for it afterwards.  Obviously, there were a couple of flaws in the President's plan.  Number one, people don't care that much about facts.  Especially undecided voters.  They barely even know what country they live in.

Number two, trusting the media to actually do their job was a HUGE mistake.  HUUUUGGGEE!!  I hardly watched any of the post-debate coverage because I was too busy reading through my blog and pretending I care if things are spelled correctly, but the little pieces I heard were ridiculous, especially from a media that's supposed to be in the tank for Obama.  Here's what I heard from the media after the debate:

1) Mitt Romney's masterful and commanding performance.  Really?  All he did was lie and smirk.  I can do that anytime I want.  Can I be President now?

2) The President was looking down and writing a lot.  OK, I'll give the media that one.  What was he doing?  He was probably trying to figure out when Mitt would start with the zingers.  I can't blame him, I was too.

3) Mitt would cut Obamacare and PBS funding.  OK look, I know it's stupid to say you would cut PBS funding because it's such a small percentage of the budget, but I think he was just trying to make a joke.  Jim Lehrer was sitting right there.  If you've seen Mitt try to make jokes in the past, you know this is the best he's done so far.

So here's what I learned.  If you talk about Big Bird in a Presidential debate, people will talk about that shit.  They'll talk about that instead of, say, the job losses that cutting funding would create at local PBS stations that aren't funded by the Children's Television Workshop.

More importantly, I learned that if you win a Presidential debate by mostly being dishonest and misleading, the media will spend 99% of their reaction talking about the winning part and 1% of their reaction talking about the dishonest and misleading part (though I'm told MSNBC focused a little more on the lying, but that doesn't really count because they would have called Mitt a liar if his central argument was that the sky is blue...and no, I'm not saying MSNBC is the same as Fox, but they aren't neutral either).

The only important take-away is this.  If you're an undecided voter who plans to watch any of the remaining debates to decide who to vote for, just watch the debate and then turn it right off before those idiots on TV start telling you who you think won.  What happened to Keith Olbermann?  At least he was funny.

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.

Seven Levels of Terror

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

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

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

Chances of this happening: 0.1%

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

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

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

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

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

Chances of this happening: 1%, maybe 2%

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

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

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

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

Chances of this happening: 5%

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

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

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

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

Chances of this happening: 8%

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

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

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

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

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

Upside: Carne asada!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Debate Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republican Jobs Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ron: Ron talked about freedom.  Ron likes freedom.

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

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

The Huckleberry Forum

First of all, goodbye Herman Cain.  I thought he'd be around a little longer, at least until he finished 5th in Iowa, but alas, Herman has 99 problems, and bitches are all of them.  My favorite part of his announcement was when he said "I'm not going to be silenced".  Nobody is trying to silence you, you crazy paranoid moron! 

On a related and sadder note, I don't think I can write about the debates anymore.  Where will the funny come from without Cain?  I mean other than Newt, and Santorum, and Perry, and Bachmann.  On second thought, I think we're still OK.

One of the silliest things you can find on your TV is Fox's weekly Huckleberry show.  Every Saturday at 8PM, former Governor, former Presidential candidate and current Fox employee Mike Huckabee hosts an hour long combo of the Hannity show, Dr. Phil, televangelism and SNL.  It's hard to nail down exactly what he does each week, but you can usually find some politics, some people that found jesus at some point and a musical act, which sometimes features Mr. Huckleberry himself on the base guitar. 

Personally, I can't understand why Mike didn't do better when he ran for President.  He's super likable, even if you don't like his politics.  And even though he's also super jesus-y, which is usually a deal breaker for me, even I find him pretty tolerable.  He just kind of seems like a genuinely decent dude. 

My best theory is, he's an actual jesus person.  He's not like the rest of these Republican candidates, who are all for jesus as long as they can ignore all that hippie shit in the new testament.  I think this makes Republicans nervous that Huckleberry may not loathe the poor enough to be their standard bearer.  They're probably right.

Anyway, this week's Huckleberry show is a special edition.  Mike has hired three idiots to help him ask questions of six of the seven remaining Republican candidates (no Huntsman.  Having worked for Comrade Obama, I'm pretty sure he's not allowed in the Fox studios).  Instead of being there all at the same time, it looks like they're talking to the candidates one at a time.  This is close enough to being a debate to catch my attention, although I'm not 100% sure this will turn out readable.  Let's find out.

Huck just introduced the three idiots asking the questions.  They're three Republican Attorneys General.  Oh fun!  That's gonna make it pretty hard for Newt to complain about unfair liberal media questions.  It's also gonna make it unlikely that I'll hear anything that even resembles a good question.  Also, each of the three idiots took a minute before we started to bad-mouth the current President.  Fair and balanced baby!

Newt's up first.  I predict he'll say something stupid and then I'll have to spend the next week listening to people talk about how bold and inspired it was.  Sidenote, Newt's looking even more jowlsy than usual tonight.

8:08PM: On the topic of immigration, Newt just said he would rather have his fate decided by a jury than by a Washington bureaucrat.  I've been on a jury.  There were exactly 3 people on my jury that should have had power over anything.  People are idiots.  I'd rather have my fate decided by a roulette wheel than a jury.

8:09PM: Newt says talking about climate change with Nancy Pelosi was the dumbest thing he's ever done.  That's really saying something.  I could think of at least 150 dumber things.  This also gave us a perfect look into Newt's mind, when he later told us that everything he said with Nancy Pelosi was right, but it was dumb because Nancy Pelosi made it dumb just by being there. 

8:15PM: Newt proposed replacing the EPA with an environmental solutions agency which would have to provide "economic rationale" for everything they do.  This is a perfect illustration of why you can't trust the current Republican party with the environment.  Not everything has to be profitable.  Sometimes other things are important too.

8:16PM: Newt proposes eliminating entire Federal courts if they disagree with him, but he's quick to point out that Congress would have to be with him.  See, I thought we had three independent and co-equal branches of government, but apparently it's more of a majority decision thing.

8:17PM: Just to make me angry, Newt asserts that being anti-religion is inherently anti-American.  Thanks for reminding me why I hate you, Newt. 

8:19PM: Newt says there would be no America without George Washington, and has apparently stolen something from Valley Forge to prove his point.

Newt's done.  That was awful.  Next up, Santorum.  He's just like Newt, only worse.

8:24PM: Santorum is rambling about the family again.  This guy, who claims to be a small government conservative, just criticised the government for not doing enough to encourage marriage.  Rick's great because I don't really have to write jokes for him.  He takes care of the funny on his own.

8:27PM: Rick supports a constitutional amendment to ban abortion.  He also mentioned his support for a Federal definition of marriage.  Rick's government is starting to sound awfully big to me.

8:29PM: Idiot #2 is furious that the EPA is forcing Florida to not pollute their water.  She's so right, who needs clean water?  We're trying to make money here idiots!  Rick blames poorly but deliberately worded legislation.  I should say, I'm probably unfairly biased about this, since I do like to drink water sometimes, but I'm starting to think Republicans shouldn't be allowed to have votes on anything having to do with the environment.

8:31PM: Idiot #3 just asked Santorum why he thinks the founders separated Federal and State power.  We'll be back with the rest of our 7th grade social studies quiz in a minute.

8:32PM: Question about the Defense of Marriage Act, right up Rick's alley.  Rick suggests that it's the President's job to mindlessly support stupid laws that were passed before he got elected.  I'm not sure that's right.  Especially since Rick keeps talking about all the stuff that's on the books now that he won't be doing if he gets elected.

8:34PM: Rick finishes by saying that the courts aren't the only arbiters of the Constitution, but there's no time to find out who else gets to do that.  I kind of want to know.  Come on, Huck!

Next up, Rick Perry.  He has one of the squarest heads in the world.

8:38PM: Perry promises to use executive orders to effectively void most of Obamacare.  Rick's answer on how the President would have the authority to do that somehow evolved into talking about creating millions of jobs and moving toward energy independence.  I think Rick just pulled a jedi mind trick on us.  How did we get to energy independence from health care?  I was listening the whole time, and I have no idea.

8:40PM: Rick just accidentally revealed how he really created jobs in Texas, joking about how he stole jobs from Arkansas when Huckleberry was the Governor.  Why hasn't anyone pointed out how that won't work if Rick is in charge of the whole country?

8:42PM: Perry says he's been dealing with the Federal Government's unwillingness to secure the border for "over ten years now".  But somehow it's still Obama's fault.  Was it really ten years ago that I voted for him? It seems much more recent.

8:47PM: Rick appears to define "strict constructionist" as any Supreme Court justice who agrees with him.  Rick's also proposing getting rid of lifetime appointments for justices.  He's offended by the idea that the Supreme Court has the power to enforce the Constitution when Rick doesn't like what's in the Constitution.  He's less offended by the idea of the Supreme Court being able to strike down the health care law. 

8:49PM: I'm reaching my tolerance level for religious talk.  I knew the Huckleberry forum would be like this, but I still can't take much more.

8:50PM: Perry is in favor of both returning authority over abortion to the states and passing a Federal anti-abortion amendment.  How is this not big government?  This annoys me so much.

8:52PM: Perry's advice for Supreme Court justices...read the Constitution, don't read anything into it, or use any clauses.  Everyone knows Republicans hate clauses.

So far, we've only heard from the idiot side of the bracket.  Where are the people with brains?  I'm no great fan of Romney, but at least he knows things and has the ability to speak in full sentences.  Perry just answered a question by pulling a pocket Constitution out, holding it up and grunting.

OK, Bachmann's up next.  I actually think she's smarter than she lets on.  Why play dumb?  Let's just say she knows who her base is.

8:57PM: Bachmann says Obamacare is a stunning show of how far a President can go with power.  I think she missed the part where Congress passed that law, which is weird, because she was there.

8:59PM: Bachmann says illegal aliens currently cost us 113 billion dollars a year.  I have no idea if that's true or not.  She should wear a sign around her neck that somebody can light up whenever she makes up a new fact.  Just so we know when it's happening.  It would make things easier.

9:01PM:  Talking about tort reform, Bachmann hits what's becoming the theme of the night.  Huckleberry's panel of dopes keeps asking about Federal vs. State power, and the candidates keep reminding us that they don't have any problem with Federal power as long as the Federal government is doing things they like.

9:05PM: Idiot #1 just used the word evolution in a question.  He wasn't talking about actual evolution, but he's still lucky Backmann didn't freak out.  (Listening a little closer, he actually was saying the word abolition.  No wonder she was so calm, my bad).

9:07PM: Idiot #3 just pointed out that Bachmann's answer on environmental regulation was stupid nonsense (he may not have put it exactly that way).  Her response?  "Well you're making a very good point". 

9:09PM: Idiot #2 just called Bachmann a practicing lawyer.  I giggled a little.

Yeah!  My man Ron is up next!  Go get 'em Ron!

9:14PM: Ron points out that the Patriot Act wouldn't have passed if they called it what it really was, the repeal of the fourth amendment.  Then he points out that terrorism is a crime, not a war.  Idiot #2 doesn't understand. She asked Ron what he would call the 9/11 attacks.  She seems to think Ron's saying terrorism doesn't exist.  That's not what Ron's saying, idiot #2.

9:18PM: Now they're asking Ron about the environment.  Admittedly, this isn't Ron's strong suit, but he finds a way to make a good point.  The way our government works now, regulations are written by lobbyists who represent the very industries they're meant to regulate, and that's true of environmental regulations as well as banking regulations, drug regulations, etc. 

He's not wrong.  It's just that, some people would say the answer is to make our government not work like that anymore.  In contrast, Ron's answer is more along the lines of just not trying anymore and trusting the market to regulate itself.  This is where Ron and I differ.  Ron is bound by his strongly held convictions to trust that a truly free market and people would produce positive results because negative actions would ultimately be punished by the market.  Being unencumbered by such ideals, I'm less convinced. 

9:24PM:  Ron points out that he wouldn't just end Federal programs he thinks shouldn't exist, he'd phase them out.  Something tells me phasing out social security would take longer than Ron thinks it would, but kudos to him for not making one of those stupid "I'm gonna do it on my first day" promises.

9:25PM: Idiot #1 just asked a question so stupid, I refuse to comment on it.

9:27PM: If every American could read just one book, Ron says they should read a book called "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat.  That sounds about right.  I'm just happy he didn't say the bible.

Mitt's up next.  Rumor has it Huckleberry hates Mitt, but sadly Huck isn't asking the questions.  So, unless Huck starts booing while Mitt's talking or throwing things at him, we won't find out tonight if the rumors are true.

9:31PM: Mitt starts out by thanking the panel of idiots for this very interesting show.  He literally can't turn the pandering off.

9:32PM: Mitt tells us that his friends in business think the EPA was much better under George W. Bush.  Isn't that shocking?  I'm shocked.  Then he says "we need a Federal government that sees it's job as helping the private sector grow".  That pretty much sums it up. 

9:33PM: Mitt on energy..."we all like the renewables, but renewables alone won't power this economy".  Who said anything about powering the economy?  Apparently Mitt's economy is gas powered.  Seriously though, why do these people think every energy and environment question is actually an economy question?  Are they having trouble hearing?

9:37PM: Mitt is continuing with his bold strategy of avoiding flip-flops by taking both sides of arguments at the same time, answering a very direct "would you support school lunch programs, pell grants and GI Bills?" question with "in some cases yes, in some cases no".  Well done.

9:39PM: Mitt wants Supreme Court Justices who are brilliant, but won't use their own judgment in any way. 

9:40PM: Mitt's talking about his immigration record as Massachusetts Governor.  I live in Massachusetts now, and I can tell you, it's not an easy job here.  The New Hampshire border is seriously porous. 

9:42PM: I think idiot #3 just figured out Mitt's deal, saying that one of Mitt's answers sounded like a maybe.  Everything Mitt says is a maybe.

Each candidate gets a closing statement.  I'll try to summarize:

Robo-Mitt - Mitt finished by asking if we're "gonna be a free society with free people...or instead a nation governed by the government?"  Unless Mitt's proposing abolishing the government, I'm pretty sure we're gonna be both.

Perry - Perry, once again, proposed his brilliant idea of a part-time Congress.  This is such a weird idea.  First of all, they're already part-time.  Do you see how many recesses they get?  Secondly, they already don't do anything. 

My Man Ron - Ron brings up nullification.  I'm not a fan of this idea, but it's not really a surprise coming from Ron. 

Newt - Newt says this next election is the most important election since 1860.  Really good point, Barack Obama is clearly just as bad as slavery and half the country seceding.  Of course, it's also important to realize that Newt is Lincoln in that analogy.  Seriously, who would vote for this idiot? 

Bachmann - Michele talked about taking our country back.  I wish she'd tell me who has it.  Maybe we can just talk to them and get it back without all this fuss.

Santorum - Rick says America is basically morally rotting from the inside because marriage is under attack.  Most people will think Rick is saying the gays are destroying America, but maybe he just thinks Wedding Crashers was a very concerning documentary.