Feb 23 2012
Finally, The Last Debate
All in all I think the large number of debates for the GOP primary was a good – if not torturous – exercise in democracy. But now thankfully we have seen the last debate. It was not really extraordinary and each candidate had good and bad moments. I think Romney’s worse moment was on ear marks. Newt nailed him on using them for his projects when it was fine and then trying to claim they were bad for others.
Feel free to weigh in below
Hopefully everyone involved has realized that this season represented the worst set of formats conceivable if you want to win an election! If you were going to plan a series of debates yourself, you would probably want your candidates to expound on their visions for the country, wouldn’t you? Instead, by inviting a hostile media to run these things, most of the debates turned out to be nothing but watching the hapless GOP candidates respond to Democrat talking points in short, meaningless soundbites that mainly served as fodder to be used against them. Intra-party debates are supposed to make all of the candidates look *good*, so the voters can choose which one is best. These debates made them all look like hapless fools most of the time.
Idiotic – it’s as if the party had already decided it wanted to lose before this game ever started. The sum total result of all of these debates was to make Obama far more electable than he was before they started, since my conclusion (and that of many others) is simply that none of these wannabes deserve to be President.
has anyone in this party learned a lesson? I doubt it.
The last debate with all the time spent on food fights and excessive rebuttal times by some candidates did nothing to flush out policy positions of the candidates.
Also ,as twitter was in full rage over last night, to have a debate in Az and not have Fast and Furious brought up was a epic fail for the moderator and CNN.
Ed Morrissey had a good discussion of the debate schedule on his show yesterday.
The schedule was pretty much all packed in to end before super tuesday with the idea that by that time the nomination would likely have been determined.
If delegate splitting continues and the nomination is unclear it is possible that later debate(s) could occur if the race is still in the balance.
John King kept asking he said she said questions to ensure a continuing food fight and several of the candidates played right into his hand by quoting specifics to another instead of framing their response as a stand alone.
Thus much time was spent on back and forth between a couple of candidates and left much less time for the others.
I did not watch the debate. After one too many debates, I resorted to twitters, live blogs, and post-analysis reports.
From what I’ve read about last night, it was not a good debate. Many conservative pundits thought Santorum did very poorly but then under different times, he might have done really great. People are not ready to embrace his ideology or know enough about the past to understand him better. Today’s secular society is not ready for someone like him.
They say that once you’re the frontrunner, you’re vetted. Santo has been vetted in the last few weeks. Newt was there but many of us already know about his past. The newbies did not. Mitt? Strange…so little vetting there…His RomneyCare makes me nervous about getting him elected.
Looks like all four will hang in there for just a few more weeks.
By the time I vote in my own primary, when no one knows for sure, my primary is already moot. I don’t even know if we will go to the state convention this year. The mechanics of getting there are going to be confusing.
Brokered convention? The GOP elites are still denying it as they keep referring to the one that happened years ago, which caused the GOP to lose the election to…Carter!!
I see that Wizbang refers to an article indicating that stagflation is back. And I’m now starting to see that the Misery Index is back. Got into an argument about Newt’s and Sarah’s slogan, “Drill here, drill now, pay less” with an idiotic liberal…he didn’t understand that the conditions had to be right for the gas prices to be low. This wizbang article indicated that even at four bucks, it’s actually low.
Gold is one of the attributes for the “high” gas prices…now at 1785. Watch your gold. There were increasing number of robberies in broad daylights into private homes…looking for gold. Even they will pose as “employees” of some electric company or wanting to make phone calls for car trouble. Oh gosh, I remember the Carter days.
Are they trying to remind people about Carter????
WWS, we are right where we need to be-having obama think he’s the winner. It’s February. Our candidate has been “severely” vetted. I would imagine that all the dirty laundry is out. What a travesty it would have been if it had not. obama has not been vetted. Ever. (HUGE McCAIN MISTAKE) Now it’s his turn. We will see what “everyone” is saying come September/October/November. America the Beautiful will be back on track!
Let the P.R. games begin!
The three stooges and the Crazy uncle have the microphone and a national audience it is up to them to make the most of it.
I have a hard time backing this crew of inept morons. Newt is still my guy as the smartest and most accomplished, politically, in the room, but by now these clowns should realize that in order to get the spotlight on Obama they have to put it there.
If Sarah Palin can do so from a Facebook page “Death Panels” then one of the three stooges should have figured out how to fold Arming mexican gangs, Fast and Furious, getting American agents killed, crony capitalism, Solyndra, into the discussion.
Newt and Mitt almost got there on several occasions, only to be drug back into the infighting by the inexperienced Sanitorium and the Crazy Uncle.
A side note it does seem that the crazy uncle never ever attacks Romney, only all the others. he seemingly has taken Michelle Bachmans position as hired hitman for the Mittster allowing him to attack yet seem above the fray. Perhaps in exchange for a Vice POTUS pick of Rand Paul?
I detest Mitt and the establishment for the dirty lowdown vicious attacks on all others who dare become a threat knowing full well this will stop when the target is Obama.
The Establishment has decide Mitts the guy and it will be hands off the Lyin kING just like it was with the old fool McCain.
We have a real problem and it is the entrenched old beltway fossils who in their desperation to preserve their golden benefits, their power over the purse strings and pampered existence cushioned by lobbyists and crony corporate welfare seekers are willing to burn the freedoms we have known to the ground in order to feather their gilded nests.
Why do I have to wear a seat belt under threat of fines, why cannot persons smoke a legal product, why do I have to pay for others contraception, mammograms, colonoscopies, pap smears? Why the food police deciding what kids will eat and not parents?
Because crony corporatist s through their lobbyists have teamed up with corrupt politicians, essentially on their payroll to enact laws that benefit corporate thieves.
Insurance companies, medical companies, AARP, GE , Chrysler, GM, Solydra are but a few.
Throw the bums out …..ALL of em and bring in Reformers or necessarily the system will crash. We are the frog being slowly boiled to death as we accept each new loss of freedom with nary a whimper. Boehner and McConnell McCain and Graham are as guilty as Obama, Frank, Dodd, Obiden and Kerry!
I watched the first hour of last night’s debate, then had to leave. After 20 debates what else is left but nitpicking each other? These presentations are nothing more than gladiator performances, with each man trying to out-maneuver the others in order to politically survive.
Basically, each person competing would be a better leader than our current one. That’s what I am taking away from these debates.
However, the senseless debasing of each other, is not only at the behest of liberal commentators leading these debates, but also the insatiable desire of the base for red meat feedings. When you bring down another, it shows that “fire in the belly” people yearn to see. After being digested, though, the heaviness of the feast usually brings on distaste for said remarks and “belly aches” about the people delivering them.
If one were to honestly look at these candidates, little politically separates them from each other. Both Santorum and Romney have had social evolutions in their abortion views, within several years of each other (in the early to mid-nineties) Both of these men have dealt with earmarks, either by requesting them or voting for them. Both men practice strong family values in their lives. The differences lie more in their life experience — one spending a lifetime in the public sector, while the other most of his time in the private sector.
Gingrich continues to come across as the seasoned intellectual. But, his background, like the rest has potholes and inconsistencies. It all depends on where one looks, and what one emphasizes. Most supporters rely on his Speaker days, pointing to a balanced budget as proof of his greater competency. However, the fact that this was done in an era of the dot.com bubble, astounding revenues, and a conservative Congress, seem to be mere side-dishes in attempts to attribute all the glory to Gingrich. Dismissed from this picture is the falling out he had with conservatives of his own party, and the lingering resentments cohorts still hold towards how he conducted himself and/or judgement used during his reign as Speaker. If he had been so instrumental in the implementation of the Reagan Revolution, why doesn’t he have more endorsements of others who served with him during this time? If Gingrich had so many great ideas why didn’t he go out into the private sector and implement them, after leaving office, instead of staying in DC and living off his sphere of influence by becoming a ‘consultant’ for big government projects?
I personally think many are latching onto a mirage, a human symbolism of past glory days, when they enthuse about Gingrich’s potential presidential timber. He like Santorum, Romney, or even Ron Paul has a better philosophical core in which to draw leadership from. But, the proof is in the implementation of ideas, and Gingrich has far fewer people in his corner in which to ask for cooperation and/or assistance in the realization of all his grand words.
“WWS, we are right where we need to be-having obama think he’s the winner.”
not meaning to pick on you – but I think Custer said the same thing about Sitting Bull one hot, dusty afternoon out on the plains.
Oh good! Genius POTUS explains his cancellation of the Keystone pipeline saying he has a new plan for energy independence…..Algae…..no kiddin.
my question is this;
is it the same crew of Bundlers floating this algae idea as the Solyndra bunch or are a new batch of envirocrooks gettin in on the free money train?
While the repubic contenders self-destruct, with the state controlled media’s happy help, Obama is coasting to reelection.
Did you notice how the same media is painting the economy in full recovery mode just ready to be used for Obama’s 2nd coronation?
The same media that cried about a depression during the Bush years when the unemployment was 5%!
The gas price is high?
GOP’s at fault. Forget the unapproved pipeline, forget unapproved drilling in Alaska (or elsewhere, for that matter).
It is stunning.
But it may work, because the demsheviks always target the stupid and the uninformed.
But it may work, because the demsheviks always target the stupid and the uninformed.
The way to combat that is to ridicule the Tyrannt! To make of him a carricature that is so uncool that the idiots would be ashamed to say they voted for him.
Some will say that is beneath the Republican opposition as the office of the POTUS deserves respect.
Respect was not given Bush, respect is earned not blanketly granted.
Ridicule, scorn, derision and marginalization is what would bring down the clown.
Good grief, Algae? I’ve been watching companies trying to get that to work for the last 20 years. I’ve known men who’ve worked in some of the experimental plants, and on the plus side the process for doing it is fairly well established.
here’s the problem – there is just no way to scale any of the plants we’ve devised up to producing commercial volumes, and because the volumes of product produced are low while the fixed costs are high, the oil produced this way is incredibly expensive; thousands of dollars per barrel equivalent.
If you really, really poured incredible amounts of money into building a system, you *might* someday get to where you could produce gasoline at $100 per gallon this way. But that’s the best you’re ever going to do, and given that new problems will come up at that volume even that number is probably unobtainable.
This is why everyone who was funding research into these things is now quietly dropping their efforts. The science has hit a physical dead end. It can be done, but it can’t be done cheaply enough to make it worth doing. Anyone who believes differently is a gullible fool. (ahem, like our current Campaigner in Chief)
Put it another way: you could drill North Dakota, Alaska and the Gulf and produce 100 years worth of oil for this country at less than 1/100th of the cost it would take to supply it with an algae based system. Maybe even 1/1000th.
It’s a similar situation to the idea of making gold out of lead. Give me a nuclear accelerator and I can make all the gold you want out of lead. Now it’s going to cost you about $50,000 an ounce in energy costs to make gold that way, so it’s a stupid thing to do, but it can be done.
Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it makes sense to do it.
WWS
the socialists will just make gas from oil cost 1100 per gallon then or, this is not about energy production at all, merely another payoff to another obama bundler with taxpayer funds.
The company I saw mentioned was Solix, sound anything like solydra, same bunch or new batch of bundlers lining up for free taxpayer funds
The solution to our energy problem is nuclear (pebble, thorium and, small old-style) plants whose energy can be used to gasify coal, in addition to the use of natural gas, and gas/diesel from domestic (and not only)oil extraction, for use in transportation.
It can be done in 8-10 years, only if the repubics have the guts to slam the marxists…
I’m reading that monetizing the debt is what’s driving the dollar down, which caused the gas prices up. Since the dollar is down, the gas price is actually cheaper and needs to catch up.
If that’s the case, Pelosi and Obama need to shut the fu*ck up. Nothing that Congress can do. Nothing that Obama can do. It’s too late.
So much for the economists to deny that inflation is…NOT YET here or that it is minimal…blah blah blah.
So Obama is offering small treats to buy votes and win November against a very weak race. UGH
This is something that the GOP has been doing for a very long time…Dole-wit, McCain, Bush (both), and now Romney????
The more Romney is vetted, the more I really don’t want him to win; yet, the GOP elites want him so bad.
The GOP needs to improve its message and find a strong candidate in all areas, including social conservatism. No wonder some conservative pundits like Redstate and Michelle Malkin are now focusing on the Congressional races.
Lurker
I’m getting from your above post that inflation is being covered up. Actually, I think government is in denial about it, as they are about UE numbers or any statistic that might indicate a flagging recovery, versus what they want the public to believe.
But, it seems you are projecting your anger onto Romney. How is he to blame for this, other than looking ‘weak’ in your eyes? Also, what or who do you think is worthy to address our problems? If the ‘elite’ are anointing a weak candidate, who is your strong candidate of choice?
OK… any of you who believe that Romney and Paul are in a conspircacy to destroy Santorum… I’m begging you…. please get back on your meds!
Turns out this nonsense (Ron Paul will be Romney’s VP) was put out there by Santorum’s top advisor. No basis in reality. No facts. Just something to distract people from Santorum’s weak performance.
Here’s my explanation for why Ron Paul behaves as he does at debates.
1: He despises Santorum. 2: He dislikes Newt. 3: He’s got a decent personal relationship with Romney.
Simple as that – without all the conspiracy theory stuff.
Again i will repeat what Andrew Breitbart has said:
If the candidate in the trenches is not perfectly satisfactory to you and you won’t support him, then you are on the other team…that would be the obama team. His words.
I COULDN’T AGREE MORE. If Michelle and Redstate are going to dis the republican nominee, whomever it is, then I consider them on the other team. Hear this: WE WILL NOT SURVIVE IF OBAMA IS RE-ELECTED. As O’Reilly has said this week: we will not recognize this country in 4 year if obama is re-elected. Start with the Supreme Court nominations. I care too much to let this happen.
Imho, Santorum is not ready for prime time. So Romney is it and he is just fine with me AT THIS POINT. He can win but not if the michelle’s and redstates of the world are going to say home or not enthusiatically support him. Is Romney perfect, HELL NO. But he is many times better than what we have now.
But, Santorum is the nominee, I will do what it takes to make him win. So, who wants to “split the baby in half”(Herod’s solution in the Bible)? Not me. I suggest Michelle and Redstate look in the mirror.
I think I’ve been clear that I’m currently pessimistic about the chances of any of the current GOP contenders this fall. BUT….
I don’t think the average person, not even the average politician, realizes how close we are to the precipice on these oil prices. It’s not just that they’re rising – it’s that WTI looks like it’s headed to $120, and Brent to $150, and there’s nothing on the horizon that would break that.
And releasing oil from the SPR will do nothing, since we currently have a surplus of oil in North Dakota and Cushing, Oklahoma, but a shortage of refining capacity. Some oil production may be curtailed in N.D. because there isn’t enough pipeline capacity to get the oil to where it needs to be refined. Our real problem in *this* country isn’t a lack of oil, it’s a lack of pipelines and refineries. Meaning that there ain’t squat the government can do to knock down prices.
If the situation with Iran continues to escalate, WTI could go to $150, maybe even $200, and this could happen with incredible speed. (short lesson as to why Iran can cause so much trouble in the oil markets: as China gets nervous about its own supplies, they outbid everyone else, especially the Europeans, for what supplies are available, driving up prices for everyone)
If we see WTI go over $150, this economy breaks. And if it goes to $200, we are looking at the fall of 2008 all over again – except this time it will be for real.
And i will add, woe be unto ANY talk show host, whether through benign neglect or otherwise gets in the way of a republican win. It will be over for them because a negative result will be unbearable.