5:57 PM PT: So....welcome to the party! The crazy party...the Republican Party. The debate starts in about 5 minutes or so...and to give you a flavor of what to expect, I just saw an ad before the start of the debate railing against the idea of government-funded bridges. Which I guess are almost as bad as government-funded fire departments.
6:00 PM PT: Tonight Gary Johnson will be back on the debate stage, I hear. As will Jon Huntsman. Thad McCotter also withdrew from the race today, endorsing Romney. Of course, the big question in tonight's debate is whether Mitt Romney's plan to turn himself into Mittens Delano Romney works...or whether Rick Perry's retort — that Romney is "Obama-lite" — carries the day in crazy town.
6:02 PM PT: Ron Paul wins the award for the ugliest tie. Michele Bachmann wins the award for the loudest dress. Newt Gingrich wins the award for most likely to knock over the podium.
6:03 PM PT: Brett Baier says that thanks to complaints from dog owners the "time's up" signal won't sound like a doorbell. (I thought he was going to say Mitt Romney had been banned for strapping his dog Seamus to the top of his station wagon on a long road trip.)
6:06 PM PT: First question is what will the candidates do to give small businesses an incentive to hire people. Rick Perry starts out by comparing himself to Medicare fraud kingpin Rick Scott, but his basic answer is to "free" small businessmen up to do whatever the hell they please. (Problem is, they're already free to do whatever the hell they please...but there's not enough demand. And without demand, there's no reason for businesses to expand.) Brett Baier follows up and asks Perry for more specifics. Perry's basic answer: TBD.
6:08 PM PT: Baier asked a long question about criticism of Romney's plan. Romney's answer: Obama sucks. Then he proves he count by listing six of his 59 points. It was pretty impressive: Romney got all the numbers right: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Baier's follow-up: What's your definition of rich? Romney says he doesn't have a definition of rich...but he wants everybody to be rich. And Obama sucks.
6:10 PM PT: The feedback/echo is really horrible. The question is to Michele Bachmann comes from a submitted: "Out of every dollar I earn, how much do I deserve to keep?" Bachmann says the questioner deserves every single penny of every single dollar. In other words, she just endorsed a zero percent tax rate. Awesome.
6:11 PM PT: Rick Santorum, at the Google debate, is surprisingly not asked about his Google problem. Basically he's asked whether he supports a Federal right-to-work law; his answer is that he doesn't think there should be any public employee unions at all. (Which wasn't the question.)
:13 PM PT: Newt Gingrich just said that if you want to get unemployment insurance benefits you should be forced to work for free. He says he wants all states to be allowed to experiment at the state level with their own rules for UI programs. Hmmm...seems like he's reminiscing about antebellum times.
6:15 PM PT: The question to Huntsman is about Solyndra. Reminder: Huntsman was part of the Obama administration when the Solyndra loan was guaranteed. Huntsman says subsidies are terrible, however. Wallace points out that he said he wants to subsidize natural gas. Huntsman says to forget everything he just said, that he does in fact like subsidies. As long as he likes what he's subsidizing.
6:17 PM PT: Herman Cain says his 9-9-9 plan is a bold solution. True, a 9% tax rate on everything would be "bold." But I think Godfather's Pizza also says its pizza sauce is "bold." So I'll pass on the bold, please. Michele Bachmann, of course, is even bolder, having endorsed a zero-percent tax rate: 0-0-0. Chart that one on a Laffer Curve, why dontcha'!
6:19 PM PT: Ron Paul is asked what his plan is for restoring the 10th Amendment. Paul's answer: veto every single bill that would violate the 10th Amendment. Uh, I guess he hasn't heard about the whole "override a veto" thing. And the crowd just LOVES his ignorance.
6:22 PM PT: Gary Johnson says his claim to fame is that "I've vetoed more bills as governor than every other governor in the nation combined." But he also says he wouldn't dare tell a libertarian why he would be a better choice than Ron Paul. Smart move. Don't ever try to tell a Paultard there is a better choice than Ron Paul. In there world, there just isn't. Ever. But if you want to have fun sometime, ask a Paultard to choose between Ron Paul and Rand Paul. You'll literally force a short-circuit in their brain.
6:23 PM PT: Commercial break. The tease for the break is that the word cloud in the next question has "ILLEGAL" at the center of it. Which means of course they will be asking about Waterboarding, right? Ah, who am I kidding: it's beat up on brown people time
6:26 PM PT: And we're back from break. Oh Gawd! They are giving Rick Scott segment to brag about what a great governor he is. Trigger warning next time, please, Fox. Rick Scott is not a pleasant site on my TV screen!
6:28 PM PT: Question to Rick Perry: "Can you explain how 50 individual Social Security programs in 50 states would work?" Perry denies the premise of the question, saying all he wants is to allow state employees to have their own Social Security programs. Romney is now accusing Perry of flip-flopping. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Mitt Romney, accusing Rick Perry of flip-flopping. Priceless!
6:30 PM PT: Perry fires back on the flip-flop charge, slamming Romney for removing a line from his book in which he said there should Romneycare nationwide. Romney claims he never removed any such thing from his book. I'll have to look at this later, but if memory serves, Perry is right.
6:32 PM PT: Question to Mitt Romney: Is Obama a Socialist? Romney doesn't directly answer, says he wants Obama to be known as a former president, but he does say that he thinks President Obama has been inspired by Social Democrats in Europe.
6:34 PM PT: Jon Huntsman's tax plan: 8-13-23. Have you noticed that Huntsman has had much more time to speak so far than Michele Bachmann. Yawn. There's just too many yokels in this debate to be entertaining. Clear out the riffraff, Fox!
6:35 PM PT: Herman "9-9-9" Cain wants to Deep-Six the EPA. He is pissed off that the EPA wants to regulate dust. And he wants the Chilean model for Social Security. Which would mean eliminating Social Security and replacing it with IRAs.
6:37 PM PT: Newt Gingrich, responding to a question from Megyn Kelly: "We might as well buy Greek bonds and go down together." He wiggled a little bit as he answered. I think he was trying to flirt with her. I don't think she was flattered.
6:39 PM PT: Another question for Johnson, another for Santorum. Let's start a chant: Let Michele Speak!
6:42 PM PT: Everybody on the stage seems to agree the Federal government should stop trying to do anything about education. Perry slams Romney for being in favor of the "Obama Race to the Top" program. Romney's response: "Nice try."
6:44 PM PT: Baier follow-up Romney: Was Perry right? Mitt: I don't know what Perry was saying, I don't support any particular thing the President has done. But I do think Arne Duncan (Sec'y of Education) is doing good things.
6:44 PM PT: Bachmann finally gets a chance to speak. She'd pass a law repealing every single Federal education law on the books, then she'd physically shut out the lights of every education building in DC and lock the door. And take the HPV vaccine syringe out of Rick Perry's hands.
6:47 PM PT: When it rains it pours: Bachmann is getting another question, this one about immigration—would she support letting states enforce their own immigration laws. Bachmann says the Federal government has failed to set immigration policy, and it's reprehensible that Obama sued Arizona over its immigration policy law. Of course that's called setting policy. She says she'd put a wall on every single inch of the border with Mexico. (She's from Minnesota, and doesn't say anything about the border with Canada.)
6:49 PM PT: Okay, I hate to go meta, but I'll say this again. There are just tooooooooo many candidates in this debate. Who cares what Gingrich says? He's totally irrelevant as a candidate. So are Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, and Rick Santorum. At a minimum each of those three candidates should be booted from the next debate, and pretty soon thereafter Gingrich and Cain.
6:51 PM PT: Romney beating up on Rick Perry for letting "illegal aliens" get instate tuition for Texas. He says it's unfair to Americans in other states. Of course those "illegal aliens" are actually the sons and daughters of undocumented immigrants who have grown up in America and aren't responsible for their status. Romney's position is vicious, disgusting, and inhumane. Worse, I'm sure he doesn't believe it: he's just beating up on brown people because he thinks it will help him win votes over Rick Perry. What a pathetic man.
6:54 PM PT: Wow. I'm impressed with Rick Perry. He called out Mitt Romney for his disgusting comments: "You don't have a heart," he said, if you oppose the Texas Dream Act. The kids who are here are here through no fault of their own, he says. If we don't educate them, he says, they'll become a drag on our society. Duh.
6:56 PM PT: Rick Santorum says Rick Perry is soft on sovereignty. He brings up the binational health care thing, but it gets lost in the shuffle. Perry's response is that Santorum has no idea what he's talking about, saying that the idea of building a 1200 mile fence, with another 800 miles to go to the California border, is ludicrous.
6:58 PM PT: Ron Paul is asked whether he really believes that a border fence is a bad idea because it could be used to keep people from escaping America. Paul says that indeed that is the reason he thinks its a bad idea. I think that makes him the first major presidential candidate to defend a policy in terms of the right of Americans to flee their own country.
7:03 PM PT: Before the commercial break, we learned that 47% of people responding to a Fox survey online about the debate said they wanted to eliminate the Department of Education. And now that we're back, we're going to talk about Middle East policy. Yay.
7:05 PM PT: Romney says he'd give Israel a blank check, and strongly implies he'd go to war with Iran to stop it from getting a nuclear weapon. Herman Cain starts saying something but the main thing—and this is a shock—he didn't say 9-9-9.
7:08 PM PT: Question to Perry: If you got a 3am phone call that Pakistan had lost control of its nuclear weapons, what would your first move be. Perry dodges, talks about what he'd do before it gets that point.
7:11 PM PT: Butch Russell of Troy, OH wants to know when is someone in the White House going to say the U.S. will stop sending money to our enemies. Gingrich blah, blah, blahs about foreign aid. Of course, the main way we ship money to overseas enemies is through our energy policy.
7:23 PM PT: Herman Cain says he would have died if "Obamacare" were in effect when he had colon cancer in 2006. Of course, as CEO of Godfather's Pizza, he'd have had the exact same coverage under "Obamacare" that he had back in 2006. But the crowd loves Cain's lie.
7:25 PM PT: Wow, finally a question from the left — a YouTube question asking whether the candidates on stage would support repealing the requirement that parents be allowed to cover their children up until age 26 under their health care plans. Huntsman gets to answer...and doesn't...just rambles about how he wants good affordable health care.
7:27 PM PT: True fact: the percentage of time that Huntsman has spoken during this debate is 15x his level of support in polls.
7:29 PM PT: Bachmann is again asked about the HPV vaccine and her claim that it is medically questionable and suggestion that it causes mental retardation. She says she never said it causes retardation — that she was just quoting someone who says it did. She then slams Perry for forcing little girls to get a vaccine for an STD. Perry says he went about the program the wrong way, but that he made the decision he did because the HPV vaccine saves lives by preventing cervical cancer.
7:38 PM PT: Before the break, Mitt Romney said that his book, No Apologies, proved he was a man of character, and that every word he wrote in that book was a word he meant. Except when that book went to softcover, he changed words in his book.
7:43 PM PT: Here's another link detailing the major changes Mitt Romney made in his book: basically Romney had initially argued that the public option was the main difference between his plan and Obama's plan. But when the public option fizzled, he eliminated that paragraph, and added seven new paragraphs trying to explain why his plan wasn't like "Obamacare."
In other words, at first he said the difference with "Obamacare" was the public option. When the public option was eliminated, he had to scramble to come up with a new difference. So, on this, on the substance, credit Rick Perry with being on the side of accuracy.
7:46 PM PT: Okay, I'd stopped listening to the debate, and then Rick Santorum said Obama is King George III. Hey, it's better than calling him a Kenyan Anti-Colonialist, I guess. And now we're in the middle of the final commercial break of the debate, and about to enter (mercifully) the final round. The next debate is October 11th, on Bloomberg TV, and after that, October 18th on CNN.
7:53 PM PT: Each candidate is asked to pick a running mate from someone on the stage. Johnson says he'd pick Paul. Santorum initially won't answer, but then says he'd pick Newt. Gingrich says get the fuck off my lawn, I'm not going to answer this stinking question. Paul says he won't make a choice because right now he's not in first. Perry says he wants to mate Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich. (Gross!) Romney says he won't answer, but anyone on the stage would be a good VP. Brett Baier followup: But didn't you say Perry is unelectable? Romney: No I didn't say that. Bachmann says she won't answer, but that conservatives don't have to settle, because President Obama has the lowest approval level of any president in modern times. (Uh, dumbshit, Bush was lower.) Cain, says Romney has a shot if he agrees with 9-9-9, if not Gingrich gets the nod. Huntsman picks Cain because of his sartorial sense.
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