Liveblogging the Republican Debate
Well, I didn’t think it was going to happen, but it looks as though the stars are aligned and I will have an opportunity to provide live play by play commentary for the Republican Debate happening now on CNBC (an encore presentation will apparently be televised during primetime on MSNBC).
As is typical for our liveblogging efforts, the liveblogging will actually take place in the comments section below and anyone not partaking in a blatant spam effort are welcome to join in.
With that said, away we go.
63 Responses to “Liveblogging the Republican Debate”
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Blog Stuff
Fred Thompson on whether we are heading for a recession.
He says there is no reason to believe that is the case, and credits, of course tax cuts.
As he snoozes through his answer, there are a couple of stories surrounding this debate. The first is that this is of course Fred Thompson’s first debate, the second being that in part this debate is moderated by Chris Matthews who recently had some more than harsh words about the legality of the president.
Still, it should be understood that Republicans are still brave enough to take on Chris, though not necessarily all of them share that courage with black people.
Romney opens up sounding real smart, by jumping from the collapsing housing market and jumping to an overall economic vision. He sounds particularly strong, except his focus on Michigan makes it sound as though he was running for Gov of Michigan and not the POTUS.
Rudy goes on some Hillary bashing in regards to the free market.
Lots of red meat here, the first three answers involve low taxes, low spending, and Rudy brings in tort reform.
Rudy is also the first candidate to levy attacks at the Democrats.
And the Dems show no courgae at all with Fox News.
Ron Paul is the first candidate to actually admit that just because Wall Street is growing doesn’t mean everyone gets to enjoy it.
Solid answer, decent applause.
X, howya doin?
OOOOHHHH
McCain just backed Bush’s SCHIP veto and had two… no count em three blatantly wrong mischaracterizations of the program.
1) he says now SCHIP covers everyone, not just children
2) he overinflates the tobacco tax by about sixty percent
3) and says it is an incentive to smoke, which, in truth, is the opposite, and part of the justification for that method of paying for SCHIP is that it has a happy benefit of reducing smoking, which, as a tobacco user, I applaud.
Huckabee, strong answer, and he is the second candidate to actually recognize that some people might be suffering under this “growing” economy. He makes a strong case for the “fair” tax, that seeks to abolish the IRS and seek only to tax consumption, and not production.
Duncan Hunter is talking about jobs getting outsourced to Communist China, but I kinda slept through it.
“Rudy brings in tort reform”…
“Rudy goes on some Hillary bashing in regards to the free market”
…Said the pot to the kettle.
After being delivered a list of follies with free trade, and then listing more, Thompson then without significant justification says we need to keep going. And I wonder how he feels about China considering that China is essentially buying up all the debt used to fund the Iraq War.
Brownback. Halfway decent answer that goes beyond just not raising taxes, or cutting spending, but goes into some decent specifics, and I’m not thoroughly opposed to a Brac like kind of deal for more than just the military as far as government programs.
Tancredo: Cut SocSec and Medicare. Okay, not cut it, but let’s privatize….
Hey PE!
Rudy and Romney bickering on, guess what? Low taxes. But Romney uses the moment for supporting the line item veto. And Rudy actually rather skillfully takes Romney to it, but Romney’s laughing in the background, and Romney;
“Mayor you gotta check your facts.” And dispenses some.
I’m wary of the line item veto personally, but if legislated properly, could actually help the way the executive and the legislature interract.
And this has turned into a Romney vs. Rudy back and forth, and I think both men came out looking strong.
Fred thompson might have just delivered his best joke, but no one heard it, his mic didn’t pick it up.
Okay, Fred just basically got asked about labor workers getting put out of work, and whether it’s fair for them to settle with lesser jobs. Again, free trade, and if you listen very carefully, his answer is more free trade, and he shows little empathy for those that suffer.
Also, it doesn’t look too terribly good getting schooled by a no name.
I don’t even know what McCain’s question was, but he, like virtually everyone, has used it as a springboard to go after spending. An interesting thing that is sinking in to me is how anecdotal this argument is. Much of what we’ve heard thus far has been slightly more creative variations of the old mythical “ten thousand dollar toilet seat”.
But Mitt Romney, being the business man that he is, is taking the economic theme of the debate and using it to his advantage. He is thus far sounding the strongest, and in so doing, you can see his confidence on this, and it really is helping him look presidential.
I’m not watching myself right now (you’re my lifeline), but have they directed any questions about free trade to the one candidate (from either party) who actually understands the concept?
Rudy: Should a Dubai company be allowed to own 20% of Nasdaq?
Yes, if they are deemed safe.
Mitt, I’ll be honest, went way over my head, and Ron Paul got a simple down the line yay or nay question.
Dude, go catch the MSNBC webcast. That’s what I’m watching this on.
And Mitt down the line on Dubai, and I like him on this because he is talking about something no one else is talking about, and that is protecting the intellectual properties of our products.
Meanwhile, I think Fred Thompson just stuttered something about national security.
Chris Matthews asks Fred Thompson about how to make up for the loss of revenue that would be a result of lesser rich people being able to use the AMD.
Fred Thompson: lower taxes do not result in lesser revenue.
and we’re going to take a break, I’ll be back in a mo.
Okay, as we wait for the first break to come to a close, much of the spotlight has been hogged up by the frontrunners, no surprise there. Mitt Romney really looks to lead the pack, as he should given his business background. Meanwhile, Rudy looks a little out of his depth compared to Mitt, and Fred really does look like he came to the debate with a couple of talking points and is spending the entire time stumbling around them.
Also, another interesting thing to note is that Chris has not done a lot of moderating, most of the work going to Maria, and I wonder if this is a result of the controversy earlier…
Fred Thompson on Iraq. No specifics, but uses some good old down home idioms like “leaving with our tail between our legs.” And God can he please stop his eyebrow raising and head shaking.
But this is pretty much typical Gopper candidate talk. The strategy was not right at the beginning, but now we’re on the right track.
McCain, what would he have asked of sacrifice other than just “go shopping”. Encourages national service, through the military or possibly through the peace corps.
Ron Paul, would we have gone to iraq if we weren’t so dependant upon foreign oil?
Probably not.
He does the one thing no other Republican seems willing to do, and that is tie the military to our economic woes.
Brownback, disagrees with Paul, and says it was about terrorism. He’s careful to admit that Saddam was not tied to AQ.
But he does tout his work with Biden on the three state solution, but we’ve already seen in the news lately that the Iraqi people already are rejecting this decision…
Fred is convinced that Iraq would be still working on having nuclear weapon capability, and despite dissent to the contrary on both Iraq and Iran, that both countries would be nuclear by now.
Mitt Romney, thankfully, does not beat war drums but gets a few things a little wrong:
First, while Ahmadinejad has said he wanted to wipe Israel off the map, that has been clarified as he doesn’t want Israel there, and has, to the best of my recollection, never called for genocide.
(Hunter, otherwise, just advocated unilateral military actions)
Ron Paul is simply AWESOME on this question. It is not constitutional to go to war in Iran or Iraq without the congress, and he gets a nice pop out of that.
And Huckabee just said he would ignore congress to go on the attack, and used nuclear conflagration to justify it. Horrible answer, but the audience applauded.
McCain, and what I’m going to guess the rest of the field will agree with. Is that you want to go to congress, and here’s something Fred Thompson makes clear. there’s only one candidate on stage that actually knows whether it’s legal to do engage in military action without congress, and that would be Ron Paul.
Giuliani pulled out his 9/11 and Ron Paul cut into him, “That was nineteen thugs, not a country!”
And Rudy is using his opportunity to beat the war drums on Iran as well.
Rudy just contradicted himself, but he doesn’t realize it, and it’s very subtle. When asked to focus on oil, he half way admits that without oil, Iraq, and Iran would be paper tigers, and that we might not necessarily have ever gone to war in Iraq.
But the justification for these wars is ostensibly supposed to be, at least according to “The Mayor” was terrorism. And he takes actually a stance close to what I’ve taken in that energy independance is also a foreign policy and national defense issue, but coming from Rudy, it kind of diminishes his stance that Islamic Terrorism is the root of all evil.
And McCain acknowledges climate change, but has also said he will not regulate oil companies in anyway. He’ll ask very nicely, but that’s about it.
And this is something I really appreciate, though, and that is that there is a definitely a tone change here and you got Huckabee following McCain and they are both passionate about acknowledging and dealing with Climate Change.
and Fred just told a joke that really didn’t come off.
I’m going to say this right now. If Fred didn’t come to the table with high poll numbers and momentum, I would write him off immediately as a doomed lower tier.
You almost get the impression that he kind of just starts talking and really doesn’t pay attention what’s going on down there, and it is next to impossible to stay focused on what it is exactly that he is saying.
30 sec down the line.
HOw do you win back the confidence in economic issues from Democrats.
Ron Paul: Currency issues, and excessive national defence spending.
Huckabee: Restoring of resilience and optimism… uh huh. It’s inspiring, but ultimately void of substance.
McCain: Stop outrageous wasteful spending (I will most likely take issue with this in a further post).
Romney: By being confident and not doom and gloom (in contrary to the first half of McCain’s answer… nicely done). And he leans back on his business experience, goes after Hillary, and he sounds good doing it.
Thompson: Tell the truth. Free markets (I’m starting to have a hard work flash back OMG HE JUST SAID WORK HARD!)
Rudy: Deregulate everything, attack Hillary. Cracks a joke on Hillary, comes off.
Hunter: 75 and 60K jobs pushed off shore. Be good businessmen and good leaders.
Brownback: Flat tax, personal socsec accounts. “This place rocks” might be the first applause line he ever delivered in a debate.
Tancredo: Illegal immigration.
okay, they’re gonna take a commercial break and while they do, why don’ you click on our sponsers, yeah? Give these guys a reason to keep supporting CFLF (it ain’t free keeping this site going you know)
ugh, this is brutal, seriously. I’m glad I’m a Democrat, I truly am… okay, we’re back on.
Fred Thompson, specific steps to solve the SocSec solvency problem:
1 Have a growing economy, less taxes deregulate and lower spending.
2 let people provide for savings for their own retirement.
3 Index benefits of inflation (at which point, Romney just looked at Thompson as though cucumbers just fell out of his ears and started eating the podium)
Private accounts, funny, I thought that argument already lost…
Tancredo on trade… nevermind, he lost me when he started talking about immigration. Why do they even let this guy talk?
Romney should Republicans end employer based health care, and replacing?
Hillary keeps getting mentioned tonight. Romney wants to improve health care by
states create their own plan
pay by cutting other spending
let’s have private insurance, not government insurance.
…
I don’t agree with a thing he says here, but he really is looking good on it.
30 sec roundrobin on unions.
Paul: Of course, no special governmental priveleges, but there should be no bar from unions forming.
Huckabee: acknowledges the widening gap between CEOs and their employers.
McCain: Any American has the right and privelege to join a union, but should not be forced to do so.
Romney: Some good unions and some not so good. that he won’t name any bad unions gets a laugh from the audience but is incredibly telling.
Thompson: Screen actor guild member… I literally, not kidding, just hit my head on the desk.
Giuliani: Unions are good. Grandmother was a member of one. But some unions are bad.
Hunter: Steelworker’s union was a good union.
Brownback: Sure, unions were good for the country. And what’s with the weird squint?
Tancredo: Before his response I’m going to predict some how get into immigration. Okay, instead he goes off into a bad joke about Brownback’s mom. AND HE DID HE DID TALK ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!! holy crap this is just sad.
Bush said gm and ford need to produce a product that is relevent instead of looking to Washington, do you agree?
McCain: yes but… healthcare? What? I think he totally just missed the point of the question.
Chrysler is facing a walkout, should the government step in?
thompson: no. “Cross that bridge when we came to it.”
How would you police the internet culturally?
Giuliani: First, separate the economics from the safety. Do not tax the internet, but protect from child predators via task force. Make sure it isn’t being misused, my question, obviously being a liberal blogger, to what extent is misuse defined?
Please answer that for me, kthxbai.
follow up, should we have an FCC for the internet.
Rudy: if things get worse… (hooo boy)
Quick break, I’m going to relieve my bladder, and we’ll head into the final leg of this debate (thankfully)
And we’re back with the lightning round.
huckabee would you veto the SCHIP bill?
I’m not absolutely certain I would have vetoed that, Democrats politically won.
Romney, Arab Americans feel a bias since 9/11 how would you change that?
People of all backgrounds and faiths are welcomed.
Thompson, dangers of a weak dollar?
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Rudy, do you agree with Hillary that a danger is how much foreign companies own our debt?
Let’s be positive about this?
Brownback, who would be your economic advisor?
You need a number of them, not just one.
Paul, do you promise to support the Republican nominee next year?
No, not if they continue to support the stuff that has taken the GOP down the tubes.
Tancredo, same question?
Not if he doesn’t agree with who it is.
Brownback, same question?
Yes because they will be pro growth and pro life.
Hunter, same question?
He said something about Republicans respecting human beings, and I kinda just laughed through the rest of his answer.
Rudy, will London replace New York as the economic center of the world?
Got schooled on the stats by Maria, and Giuliani goes into patriotism, but fails to address Maria’s facts.
Romney, same question?
Of course New York will not be replaced. and he will support the republican nominee, and evokes Ron Reagan.
Romney gets a DAMN good dig on Thompson.
Fred, how would you get along with Canadian minister Harper?
Talks about the GWOT ™.
I wish I could take comfort in knowing that now the GOP voters will see he has no clothes, but I haven’t much faith.
Huckabee on air travel, and he’s got way more to say than can be encompassed in thirty seconds.
McCain, how would you catch bin Laden?
Develop an OSS type organization. Anything it takes… I kinda take umberage with this idea.
Romney, what is the biggest long term threat to the country?
Lack of optimism. I totally disagree with his answer, but he delivers it well, and I’ll reiterate something that I’ve said many times before. Of all the people on the stage, Romney is the candidate who most embodies presidentialism.
And that puts an end to this… well… I’ll be nice.
I’ll be honest, there were some somewhat pleasant surprises in this debate. The fact that some of the candidates were willing to at least acknowledge certain things such as climate change and the vast disparity between the uber rich and the dwindling middle class was something of a breath of fresh air.
Also, it should be noted that Hillary Clinton has been named multiple times, indicating that this is not just the inevitable candidate, but also, the preferred one (for more on this, you can search our site for conventional wisdom for my opinion on this phenomenon).
But for the most part, you can imagine my disagreement with much of what was said this afternoon.
Some other things of note. I think Mitt Romney looked particularly strong during the event, and would be, I would say, a conclusive winner. McCain also looked strong, and you would not know his campaign is struggling from the performance he turned in.
Giuliani continues to be somewhat charming if you don’t find the entire idea of the man completely offensive, and he will have done little to hurt his standing.
The real crapshoot is Fred Thompson who delivered a meandering performance. He looked as though he came to the debate with a handfull of jokes and talking points, and he seemed to meander from those two things an awful lot into a nearly hypnotic state of rambling.
It will of course come down to the voters, but I would hope that they had enough sense to realize this guy is all smoke, and no fire.
Thanks for staying with me through this liveblogging event, and have a good evening.
that debate was total garbage. the last debate, the one all the frontunners bowed out of, was the only passable one they’ve had. Even Alan keyes, who is insane and has no eyebrows, had a good night. There was a camraderie between the candidates and the audience.
in sharp contrast was this dimly lit cold boring waste of time. Why don’t they just go down the line with the question? Why do we need to hear Mitt Romney answer 5 times and huckabbe once? Does huckabee have tourettes? The last debate they went down the line so you knew when the person was going to speak and what they were going to ask. Mitt Romney, Rudy Guliani, John Mcain and now Fred Thompson are the most boring pieces of shit imaginable. John Mcain gave the most bush-like / retarded answer I’ve heard since Bush himself when asked about the interest rates, he said he didnt know but that’s why h’e'll appoint guys like bernanke to do a real good job.
this answer you noted
“Brownback. Halfway decent answer that goes beyond just not raising taxes, or cutting spending, but goes into some decent specifics, and I’m not thoroughly opposed to a Brac like kind of deal for more than just the military as far as government programs.”
was the only non ron paul answer that had any substance at all to it. Mike Huckabee sholdn’t have bothered showing up.
who likes these things? i don’t care how much of a Romney or Mcain supporter someone is, you can’t enjoy watching them give those answers. “bored to tears” is not just a figure of speech
I agree with lester. The whole debate was mostly a waste of time, and clearly weighted to the “favorite” candidates. I thought they treated Ron Paul unfairly–he’s the only candidate with anything worth saying. At least, when he did speak, he nailed the others on their “war propaganda” speech. I liked the way that just hung in the room and you got to watch the others struggle for a bit trying to dodge it with more patriotic platitudes.