Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Election 2012: Last Night's Debate At A Glance

0:11 - It didn’t take Bachmann a long time to make me cringe (“what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” joke).
0:17 - Everyone is beating up on Cain’s 9-9-9 plan.
0:21 - I hope Bachmann was paying attention, Romney just correctly pronounced “Chutzpah.”
0:26 - Perry proposes fixing the economy by more oil/natural gas jobs.
0:30 - Romney and Santorum spare over “RomneyCare” and it looks like with Santorum trying interrupt Romney repeatedly is something that the audience apparently doesn’t like.
0:34 - Bachmann is calling for attention in a way that reminds me of a kid in a 3rd grade class.
0:42 - Perry accuses Romney of hiring illegals in his home. Shouting match ensues as Perry interrupts Romney’s time and for a second, it really looks like these two are about to break out boxing gloves.
0:45 - Romney calls Perry on interrupting him again and smacks him down (not literally).
0:48 - Bachmann mentions having signed a pledge to build a fence. So…how many pledges has she signed so far? Oh, and she (and the audience) will make English the national language.
0:50 - Perry is talking down to (about) Bachmann on immigration and it really seems like that exchange with Romney (and the audience’s reaction thereto) has him pissed.
0:55 - Paul mentions how we too many time parse people into groups where some win and some lose. Guess who loses with the GOP…
1:05 - This audience really doesn’t like Rick Santorum
1:10 - Cain defends Wall Street against Occupy Wall Street, says people should be protesting the White House. Paul blames the Fed for the bubble/bailout.
1:29 - Cooper mentions that Paul has advocated eliminating pretty much every governmental department…except defense. Paul talks about cutting the defense budget by getting out of various military conflicts.
1:36 - Paul is for cutting ALL foreign aid spending.
1:51 - Bachmann manages to work “one-term president” and Reagan into 1 sentence.


OVERVIEW

-Michele Bachmann: At this point, she is pretty much relegated to one-liners and even less substance than we are used to hearing from politicians in general (which is really saying something).
-Herman Cain: 9-9-9 was hammered into as this was the first debate where Cain was a front-runner. His main problem was about a hypothetical on negotiating with terrorists and prisoner exchanges.
-Newt Gingrich: He tried to deny that Romney’s idea for a mandate in the Massachusetts healthcare plan came from him…unsuccessfully. I guess he didn’t make much of an impression on me because I can’t really think of how to evaluate him. He only raised 800k$ Last quarter anyway, so I guess he isn’t making much of an impression on anyone.
-Jon Huntsman: He “boycotted” this debate (and I’m still not sure why) and opted to stay in New Hampshire instead. I’m not sure he was missed.
-Ron Paul: The audience loves this man. Pretty much every answer he gave was about liberty and getting government out of our lives even more so than the other candidates. He even talked about reducing the defense budget by getting us out of places where we have been for decades (Japan, Germany, etc.) versus some of his counterparts doing more sabre-rattling.
-Rick Perry: His attempt to knock Romney down by constantly interrupting him was met with boos from the audience repeatedly (which Romney pointed out). In some interviews after the debate, people were saying Perry turned them off. Not really surprising.
-Mitt Romney: He seemed to get a little rattled, but given how many hits he took from the others (especially Perry and Santorum), I would say that he still held firm and had the audience more-or-less on his side.
-Rick Santorum: This man never ceases to amaze me in how he manages to be tangentially homophobic. He was asked about getting the Latino vote and his answer centered around family (GOP code for anti-gay) and faith (GOP code for anti-gay). Some of his answers, and how he responded with regards to Mitt Romney, were met with boos.

This debate was a bitter battle far more than the others have been. Civility, if not dead, is at least on life-support. I would say that this time around, the audience liked Romney and Paul, and disliked Santorum and Perry. We apparently have a while until the next debate, so everyone is going back to their corners after this melee.


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