alright, quick assessment: that's as good as any political debate i've ever seen. very good night for christie.
i think trump maybe goes down now, though everyone has often been wrong about that so far. he started strong but many questionable moments politically i think. it could even be a bit of a disaster.
carson maybe managed a wash by end, but maybe not.
bush is pitiful. the money is the only thing between him and total collapse.
i thought kasich did well. rubio didn't hurt himself.
walker was a wash-out. he's not going far.
huckabee was one of several who probably didn't do himself a lot of good.
i have already endorsed paul, and sent him some money. he did not come out of his tailspin, sadly. shrill up against christie, who was incredibly combative.
11:05: trump: 'we can't do anything right.'
11:04: jeb: 'because i did it as florida.'
11:01: carson has come on a bit toward the end. best closing statement.
10:51: cruz's story of how his alcoholic dad left his mom, then found jesus, came back to his family and became a pastor is interesting. i hope someone's checked it.
10:46: also christie projects detailed mastery of policy details on several matters, foreign and domestic.
10:39: trump looks kind of ugly tonight. talks kind of ugly too.
10:35: 'meryl streep is volcanic.'
10:32: everyone except paul will be pathetic on race and police violence.
10:30: i think kasich did well on gay marriage.
10:25: jeb: 'we were the first state to have a 'choose life' license plate'. ok then! you've got my vote. how could i not know that?
10:12: trump: 'i have never gone bankrupt.' cf. 'i'm not a witch.' 'i am not a crook.'
10:10 christie, on the other hand, may get a bump. maybe he's winning this thing right now. kind of a commanding presence.
10:02: carson says that hillary as the dem nominee would be 'a [republican] dream come true'. that's right. but i predict carson flatlines coming out of this.
9:59: there isn't enough money in the world to get me to ricki and the flash. i'd be praying for a shooter to take me out. meryl streep was amazing as sea biscuit, though. she really nailed the accent.
9:53: carson's biblical tax plan is insane. one problem: in his telling, it identifies the state with god. the government should have your tithe because god said 10% to me, supposedly. but really, run the numbers on a 10% flat tax. extremely regressive, obviously: that's one problem.
9:52: huckabee: the problem is that we've got a wall-street-to-washington nexus of power. true and that is the card to play. it's also basically why inequality increases under both parties. putting it mildly, it wiould increase under clinton.
9:50: that was beautiful on how trump got hillary to his wedding.
9:48: as much as anything, they want to take paul out. he's got to turn that around but is not showing that well so far.
9:47: damn i wish carson was foursquare against torture. after all, he's not a member of the american psychological association, i believe.
9:42: cruz 'we will not defeat radical islamic terrorism until we have a president who's willing to utter the words 'radical islamic terrorism'. people of al sorts really believe in the supernatural power of phraseology. it's all about the right incantation, not what you do militarily etc. they need to come to carson. he's getting gypped.
9:40: yipes, christie is ferociously confronting paul on surveillance. christie is hard to deal with, man. born to prosecute.
9:35: the obsession with immigration is out of all proportion to its actual size as a problem. now, what does that say about this party and the mood of its supporters?
9:26: mr. trump, tear down this wall. the hallucinatory quality - for example, the birtherism, as well as the flat assertion that the gov of mexico is sending criminals - is disqualifying. and the stuff does consistently have a . . . racial element. he might mutate into a fascisty demagogue, complete with cult of personality. i do love the fact that he started by ragging on pc; i feel like that liberated everyone to speak their minds a bit.
9:22: but i'm telling you, this is an impressive group. whether you disagree with them is irrelevant to that question, right? i say the least impressive are bush and walker.
9:13: donald really does kick ass. so does megyn kelly.
9:11: 'in florida they called me jeb, because i deserved it.' really, no one deserves that. he is a tub of goo.
9:10 not all these people are as good as carson and rubio.
9:08 as i said before, fox will be much more confrontational in this context than anyone else could be.
9:05 oh rand is giving donald a slapdown.
8:59 they seem to be saying that fiorina won the first heat. i didn't see it that way.
8:55 also megyn kelly can be extremely good.
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6:15: they're optimistic about america! i am just so fucking inspired.
6:08 fiorina would 'repeal every single thing that obama has done'. as they try to top each other, it just gets ridiculous. [note: i do my best to give quotes verbatim, but i'm rendering what i just heard as best i can.] lindsey graham's parents are still dead. dead, i tell you.
6:05 on the planned parenthood question, graham managed to say he would send troops into iraq and syria. that is all he has, i guess, but he is losing simply by answering every question on everything else with irrelevant war-mongering.
5:50 in a question on iran, perry just offered fiorina the state department. other than that he made no sense whatever. fiorina: 'iran is at the heart of most of the evil things that are happening in the middle east'. that is absurd, considering that we are allied with iran and assad against isis. surely most of the world's islamic terrorism is sunni, but all these people want to vaguely indicate that it all originates in iran.
5:42 i do think santorum is the best on this stage. after graham completely failed to address a question on benefits programs such as food stamps (earning exasperation from the moderator, martha macallum), santorum went at it directly. whatever the quality of his proposals, at least he has some.
5:20 extremely pointed questioning in the game before the game. e.g. to pataki on isis: 'would you increase surveillance on mosques, given that conservatives are more and more concerned with religious liberty?'this might surprise you if you don't watch much fox. but in a way their conservative slant authorizes them not to go extremely carefully; their own cred is not at stake as it would even be on cnn. chris wallace, who moderates tonight, is about as sharp and confrontational as such a person can be. i actually have no idea what his politics are, even after watching him all these years. i do know that you better be ready if he's interviewing you.
