Fox News Republican Debate

[Mr Bean]

I can't believe no one has put a thread for this because tonights debate is awesome
Fox New's Link

Tonights highlights to debate
Santorum Froths all over Ron Paul
Bachmann fights Pawlenty
Mr Cain gets in a few zingers but stays above the fray
Romney dodges and weaves and repeats talking points with the best of them

[Lord Zentei]

Interesting poll they've got there:

Who was your favorite in the Iowa debate?

Ron Paul 49.55%
Michele Bachmann 12.7%
Mitt Romney 11.17%
Herman Cain 8.58%
Newt Gingrich 7.26%
Tim Pawlenty 6.16%
Rick Santorum 2.39%
Jon Huntsman 2.19%

[Todeswind]

Dear god.... Ron Paul might actually be a viable candidate this year....

I mean I like the guy but still.....

[The Romulan Republic]

Holy shit. I still can't really accept the idea of Paul as a nominee, but still, those are surprising numbers.

[Flagg]

It's a Fox news poll on who did well in a shitty debate. Ron Paul has as much chance of getting the GOP Nomination as Barack Obama. Idiots.

[Darth Fanboy]

Paul will lose support when Perry gets into gear I think.

[Flagg]

Yeah, it's between Perry (insane) and Romney (John Kerry Republican Style). Perry would be a disaster as President, Romney would be to the left of Bush, but still a pro-corporatist whore.

[Lord Zentei]

I'm pretty sure people would have said the same of Obama in 2007 (rather, they would have said "Barry who?").

But yes, Ron Paul doesn't stand much of a chance. It's still amusing and interesting to see, though.

[Flagg]

I'm pretty sure people would have said the same of Obama in 2007 (rather, they would have said "Barry who?").

But yes, Ron Paul doesn't stand much of a chance. It's still amusing and interesting to see, though.

Ron Paul is the Dennis Kucinich of the Republican party. Except without the hot wife.

[Gandalf]

It really looked like the Mitt Romney show. He carried himself well, compared to everyone else who appeared to be various types of morons, loons and Ron Paul.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I know recently I put myself on a moratorium posting in News, But... I figured it couldn't hurt to just post the following.. Fact Check breaks down aspects of the debate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michele Bachmann cast her opinion as a settled fact when she told the Republican presidential debate Thursday that a key element of President Barack Obama's health care law is unconstitutional. And Mitt Romney danced around an attempt to learn why he stayed largely mum on the epic debt limit standoff between Obama and Congress.
The first big GOP debate of the primary season brought viewers a flurry of claims and counterclaims, not all built on solid ground.
A look at some of those claims and how they compare with the facts:

BACHMANN: Spoke of "the unconstitutional individual mandate" several times, a reference to a requirement for people to carry health insurance, a central element of the 2010 federal health care law.
THE FACTS: Nothing is unconstitutional until courts declare it to be so. The constitutionality of the individual mandate has been challenged in lawsuits in a number of states, and federal judges have found in favor and against. The Supreme Court will probably have the final word. But for now, the individual mandate is ahead in the count. And the first ruling by a federal appeals court on the issue, by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in June, upheld the individual mandate.

___
TIM PAWLENTY: "To correct you, I have not questioned Congresswoman Bachmann's headaches."
THE FACTS: Pawlenty was hardly dismissive when news came out about Bachmann's history of severe headaches, even if he did not go after her directly on the matter. "All of the candidates, I think, are going to have to be able to demonstrate they can do all of the job all of the time," the former governor said when first asked about the migraines suffered by the congresswoman. "There's no real time off in that job."
There was no mistaking that Pawlenty was leaving open the question of whether Bachmann's health history made her fit to serve as president. But he later tried to clarify his remark, saying he was not challenging her on that front and the flap was merely a "sideshow." Bachmann says her symptoms are controlled with prescription medication and have not gotten in the way of her campaign or impaired her service in Congress.

___
ROMNEY: on the last-minute deal to avert a national debt default: "I'm not going to eat Barack Obama's dog food, all right? What he served up was not what I would have done if I'd had been president of the United States."
THE FACTS: Romney was defending himself against criticism that he took a pass when political leadership was most needed in the mighty struggle to negotiate an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. In fact, he was largely missing in the crux of the debate.
Romney consistently backed a Republican "cut, cap and balance" proposal that would have combined deep spending cuts with a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But that proposal had no chance of becoming law and settling the crisis, and leaders in both parties knew it. It was one of several initiatives brought forward by both Republicans and Democrats for show before both sides got down to the authentic bipartisan negotiations.
During that process, Romney did not lay out a prescription that was achievable in a time of divided government. Supporting the earlier GOP bill was a far cry from stating whether he would have signed or vetoed the final debt limit legislation, because rejecting it risked an unprecedented federal default with potentially disastrous consequences for the economy.
When he faced questions at his campaign stops, he said he wasn't privy to the behind-the-scene negotiations, and his campaign aides refused to elaborate on his thinking about the proposals in serious play.

___
RICK SANTORUM: "The problem is that we have spending that has exploded. The government's averaged 18 percent of GDP as the percentage of the overall economy. ... And we're now at almost 25 percent. Revenues are down about 2 or 3 percent. So if you look at where the problem is, the problem is in spending, not taxes."
THE FACTS: The former Pennsylvania senator might have been mixing statistics on federal spending with federal revenue. The White House budget office has estimated that federal spending this year will equal about 25 percent of the country's $15 trillion economy — the highest proportion since World War II. But federal spending has averaged nearly 22 percent since 1970. In fact, federal spending has not been as low as 18 percent since 1966. Since the 1970s, federal revenues have averaged nearly 19 percent of the U.S. economy. This year's revenues are expected to equal just over 14 percent of the economy, the lowest level since 1950.

___
BACHMANN to PAWLENTY: "You said the era of small government was over. That sounds an awful lot like Barack Obama if you ask me."
THE FACTS: Pawlenty did not declare the era of small government over. (Neither has Obama.) Bachmann's jab was drawn from a Minnesota newspaper interview in which Pawlenty referred to a New York Times column on the subject, as part of his argument that "there are certain circumstances where you've got to have government put up the guardrails or bust up entrenched interests before they become too powerful." At the time, Pawlenty's office pushed for and received a clarification from the newspaper that he was relaying another writer's thoughts.
___
Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Alan Fram in Washington, Brian Bakst in St. Paul, Minn., and Philip Elliott in Ames, Iowa, contributed to this report.

[Knife]

lol, it's the Iowa straw poll guys, one of those very important campaign doo-hickies every couple years that mean jack shit in the long term. Very few people who win the straw poll go on to be the candidate. It is fun to watch the GOPers eat their own though. Pawlenty is going to do a lot of damage to Romney and to Bachman before it's all said and done.

Even better than the actual debate, Romney's stump speech where he told an Iowan crowd that 'Corporations are people, my friends' and got immediately heckled, booed, and laughed at was delirious.

[Darth Fanboy]

That's a good point Knife. Plus, when school isn't in session at Iowa State the town feels even smaller than it actually is. But if Iowa really wanted to they would caucus within six months of inauguration anyway.

[weemadando]

So, last night, I watched as a group of unpleasant people, which included a token black man and a woman, bickered and argued and went after each other, occasionally banding together against a common enemy, but otherwise remaining fractious and annoying the entire time I watched them.

Which is to say I watched Predators on one of the HBO channels. But I understand some of you watched that Iowa Republican Debate last night instead.

[Meest]

Gotta love how when Pawlenty schools Bachmann in a republican debate it's all part of the process. Commentators say the same things and it causes a big stir gets ripped apart by BS sexist labeling or just goes unnoticed.