were i declaring winners, not in the sense of who expressed positions i agreed with, but who moved the audience, i would say bachmann and perry. bachmann is extremely slash and burn, but it really worked. and perry did somewhat more than not fuck up. i would not be surprised to see another bubble for one or both before jan 3. bachmann i think did really hurt paul for a right audience on iran. it's easy to portray paul's isolationism as a terrible risk, and paul's anti-miltarism is foreign to the vernacular of most republicans.
night-night y'all! (or tab, anyway.) and remember, there are few problems that can't be solved by legalizing meth, and requiring its universal abuse.
10:47 bachmann says that pro-life is a 'seminal' issue. very true! also an ovumal issue.
10:46 it's been a very long time since we heard from ron.
10:42 romney habiltually refers to himself as 'we.' the committee that is him is fractured by various internal disagreements. maybe he can solve the partisan disagreements in washington if he can resolve the partisan disagreements within.
10:34 perry says that al qaeda, hezbollah, and hamas are using the porous us/mexican border to 'penetrate the southern united states.' um, really? it sounds like an arab terrorist invasion from mexico. funny that most of us haven't noticed. really, you gonna jack up the fear with these sorts of fictions? you don't think mexican drug cartels are bad enough to get us all worked up? or what? you want to do something about the drug cartels, legalize drugs a la paul.
10:26 bachmann can be terrible. but she often surprises me, and she's doing quite well this evening. she's combative, reasonably articulate, knows at least something. for that matter, perry is doing ok. nice little 10th-amendment lecture just now, dealing with the question of whether his support in texas of the energy industry is like obama's with solyndra, etc. admittedly, the threshold is pretty low.
10:24 i do worry that when republican voters hear paul's anti-war thing, they just won't go there. it's still the party of dick cheney to some extent, the party of the national security state. paul sounds more like bob dylan.
10:21 newt can be very funny and improvisational. and turning it around now to attacking obama is welcome to this audience at this point as they've been attacking each other, as paul and bachmann.
10:20 perry calls for a no-fly zone over syria and also for 'no distance' between american and israeli policy. surely the distance should depend on what the israelis do. and has israel called for a no-fly zone over syria?
10:18 huntsman is irrelevant.
10:15 bachmann does score points in these things: 'i think i have never heard a more dangerous answer for american security than what was just given by ron paul.' well, that's a worry. really this exchange between paul and bachmann on 'the war on terror' etc. is one of the clearest and most pointed and most passionate discussions i've actually seen in american politics. they've got diametrically opposed positions which they are expressing directly. respect, y'all.
10:09 baier wants to push paul to admit he's running to the left of obama on iran. but that whole left-right thing is just irrelevant to what he's doing. someone else on fox earlier today called paul a rock-ribbed, fundamentalist, pure conservative. really, what would that be? small state plus huge, world-bestriding military, plus enforcement of religious values? or what, really? there is nothing it means to be a conservative, or for that matter a liberal. they're just grab-bags of arbitrary preferences, smushed into single positions by social and historical forces. that's ok, i guess, only stop pretending you're articulating a position with even vague logical consistency. and please stop judging the consistency of other people by demanding that they meet your incoherent criteria.
9:57 perry suggests eliminating lifetime terms for federal judges. that would require amending the constitution, but that's not the sort of fact that perry could possibly have on board.
9:55 it's almost bizarre how paul just thinks about the question and answers directly. he can't picture the congress issuing subpoenas for judges or abolishing courts, a la gingrich's bizarre and entirely extra-constitutional approach. really i'm not sure gingrich can picture any sphere of human life that is not in service to partisan politics. people who suggest things like that are suggesting really destroying our system of government. and then newt's all about american history, american exceptionalism, the constitution, etc. um.
9:47 romney's answer to 'what sectors of the economy will provide the most jobs in the future?' was just about as good as it could be.
9:44 huntsman: 'in the 21st century, we'll only have two relationships that matter: the united states and china.' even what he's trying to say is false. what he did say is just incomprehensible.
9:43 Perry: 'i want congress to live within the laws of which they pass.' geez i didn't know he was one of my students working up a paper the night before it's due.
9:41 i've been critical of paul's debate performances in the past. i feel that he's kicking ass tonight. very simple, but compelling, and plausible when he says: unlike the rest of these folks, i don't want, and i don't want to be, a powerful executive who polices the world and people's individual decisions. you know he means it because you can see who he is.
9:29 newt's endorsement of 'government-sponsored enterprises' is going to go over like a lead balloon among iowa republicans. and his claim that he never did any lobbying obviously depends on an extremely close technical interpretation of the term. i have a feeling that newt's heading for a collapse. that might be the big story out of the caucuses, because the media still can't understand what paul is saying. one of my colleagues told me this morning that paul has 'consistency problems.' why? because some of his positions are liberal and some conservative. people don't even have the equipment to understand what he's saying, or any real notion of what 'consistency' means. that is the result of seeing everything through a right-left lens. any point on that spectrum is itself inconsistent, and regards non-compliance with its inconsistency as...inconsistency. listen up, welfare-state anarchists!
9:28 romney is coming off pretty well, i think.
9:24 did you know that the only real measure of your love for someone is how big the xmas presents you buy them are? just thought i'd throw that in during the break.
9:21 huntsman: the people want to be told where you can take them. um. rather not.
9:20 paul: you've got two parties up there: the party of welfare and the party of warfare. that's nice. a fare for all and no fare to anybody, to quote the firesign theater.
9:19 newt always says that obama is a 'saul alinsky radical.' i wonder how many people really resonate to that.
9:16 santorum has found the right move: the people will lead, not me. many of these people just constantly express extreme egomania as though that lends them credibility: i will lead, which is romney's move, and bachmann's, and hunstman's. romney's hitting it insufferably right now.
9:14 huntsman, day after day, debate after debate, minute by minute, just does not make it. i'm trying to figure out how to say why.
9:13 perry says he'll 'get it on' with obama. on national television! he's wrapping himself in tebow too.
9:11 bachmann's pendulous eyelashes get more ferocious every week. the other candidates oughtta emulate this aspect of her platform.
9:08 santorum's smile is frozen.
9:07 paul really is very charming. raw milk, baby.
9:05 newt's trope that obama is 'radical' is bizarre. surely obama has massive moderate instincts. maybe it's an index of far right the rep party has gone.
i'll give it a shot this evenin. long day, however, and my usual beddy-bye is round 10, so we'll see how far i go. push has come to shove. it's a high-pressure situation, and i might say that i'm glad i'm not on that stage. still i'd kick their asses.
