Yah. I didn’t watch it, either. 
I was just gonna post the same thing.
I did.
I was very disappointed.
Was there anything disappointing about it that wouldn’t be obvious to people with a skimming familiarity with the candidates?
Someone with only passing familiarity with Newt Gingrich might imagine he conducted himself fairly well.
That would be an error.
Is it just me or does it feel like the election campaign for 2012 started six months ago? All the talk about who’s running, who’s not, who won this or that state straw poll or popularity contest…feels like burnout already. And we’re still over a year away from the election.
So my response to the GOP debate honestly has to be “who cares?”, and I’d feel the same way if it had been a Dem debate.
Not one of them indicated a willingness to do a 10-1 spending cut/revenue increase budget deal, when asked straight out. Think about that for a second.
Obama couldn’t have asked for a better visual than the entire stage raising their hands when asked if they would reject that 10:1 ratio. I couldn’t watch a lot as I kept getting the heebee jeebees knowing that my television was for the first time tuned to Fox.
This morning’s local news disclosed the fact that Ricky Perry will, indeed, announce his run for the presidency tomorrow. Two Houstonians On The Street were queried. Both of them had been pretty sure he was running for months now. At least since his book tour.
But our city, like most in Texas, is full of Democrats. It’s those 'burbs & the rural areas that cause the problems.
I watched. I haven’t participated in political threads or discussions on these boards. My husband (from whom I’ve recently separated) and I had vigorous political discussions and I didn’t realize how much I’d miss that. More than policy debate, we would have sort of heckled.
Does anyone who watched think it was accidental that Ron Paul’s mic didn’t get turned up until one third of the way through each of his answers?
I think Newt should’ve waited for an actual “gotcha question” before rolling out that line…
Is anyone other than Fox News even reporting about it? Did they pick a “clear front runner”
With so many participants and 1 minute responses it wasn’t really a debate, anyway. Just a soundbite parade.
I grew up in a staunchly Republican, very politically active family. I was told by the staunchest of the staunch never to vote straight party line, but to vote my conscience. It gives me a small backwards bit of comfort that he passed on before yahoos wrecked the party that he loved and for which he worked so hard.
A couple of my tweets from last night: “Pawlenty and Bachmann decide - 2 Minnesotans enter, 1 Minnesotan leaves!” and “Gingrich reminds me of a cranky old guy yelling at the kids on his lawn.”
Those were a couple of the things I took away from watching. That and blaming Obama for everything from the recession to the weather to the Minnesota Twins’ lack of hitting in the clutch. Oh, and the “we’ll never raise taxes EVAAAAR!!!11!!!”
It’s kind of sad that today’s GOP “centrists” would be seen as virulently right-wing fanatics in the party just a few years ago. Heck, Obama might have fit in as a liberal Republican 30 or so years ago. Times have changed …
Well, there’s an obvious reason for that. Everyone thought for some time that Obama was head of the GOP - he determined what they did because their every word, thought, and deed was always the absolute inverse of his.
Then we thought that Rushbo was the head - anyone who spoke any words he disapproved of would be publicly groveling within hours.
However, it turns out that the actual head of the Republican Party is Grover’s piece of paper.
Pathetic, really.
-Joe
Bachmann declared the mandate for purchasing healthcare was unconstitutional. That is an error. It has been given passes by several courts and rejected by some. Until the SC gets it, it is up in the air.
She also said submitting to her husband was merely the same thing as respecting him. I don’t think so. She could have said I respect his decisions and no problems would have followed. But she said she took up tax law because he said she should. A woman should submit to her husband was the explanation. Not the same thing.
I watched for about 15 minutes or so until I couldn’t take the utter bullshit and mendacity of every single one of them. The fact that they made Newt look sane was not a help. I have to say, though, that Newt’s assessment of the “Super Committee” was spot on.
Oh, and Sarah re-started her bus tour, in Iowa this time, which must have them all sweating.
Watched it at work this morning. Simply terrible, as should have been expected. I’m not sure what was the worst: Bachmann insisting that the Constitution does not protect people suspected of crimes, Pawlenty offering to mow my lawn, Santorum saying empowerment of Iran would literally be the end of the world, Bachmann’s factual misrepresentation of S&P’s rationale for lowering the US credit rating, or the endless bickering over who most strongly opposes a woman’s right to choose.
Painful to watch. Bonus points for Ron Paul coming off as a crazy old man yelling at cloud again, and Herman Cain being a national embarassment.
Bachmann accusing Obama of not cutting the deficit by a large enough amount was downright laughable. Who was it again that proposed $4T in cuts, and who was it again that shot it down? Spin, lies and bullshit, and they don’t even try to hide the fact.
I’m starting to suspect that she’s just trolling and doesn’t have any plan for anything. Which is fine. Keep that woman under a bridge, please.
-Joe
She has no intention of running, but the other candidates probably think they need her endorsement. She’s there for the courtin’ and to try to grab some headlines.
It shows none have the balls to challenge anything the tea baggers want. That is such a minimum proposal, but they knew what to say. Bunch of pussies running scared.
The party chose this path 20 years ago. Getting the GOP away from anti-tax absolutism is going to be incredibly hard.