How did the debate go? I saw the opening when Newt Gingrich came out with real aggression against John King, but I had to finish making dinner and I surrendered the teevee to the kids. I did notice on Twitter that Mitt Romney continued his weaselly ways concerning his income tax returns. Did I get it right? He won’t release them because the Democrats will attack him over what’s in them? Isn’t that precisely why Republican voters deserve to see how bad they are?
Anything else interesting happen?
I only read my time line but it looks like Mitt was a hot mess, Newt tore into John King who’s still reeling, it was Santorum’s best performance and Ron Paul was Ron Paul.
Everyone believes Newt won and looks like he might win SC. Romney is headed to his “quiet room”. Oh and hr really fucked up on taxes. Journos asking why he wasn’t prepared.
Something broke in the Romneybot9000 from what Twitter was saying tonight. And According to PPP, The Newt might be up 9 on Romneybot9000 in S.C. If somehow, Newt pulls off a double-digit win, this race might not be over after all.
The “base” would rather go down in flames with Gingrich than slit their wrists in a warm bath with Romney.
If Newt wins in S.C. the story will be that Romney is only 1 for 3 and that it’s anybody’s ball game (… well, not Ron Paul’s).
If Romney wins, everyone will ignore the news that Santorum really “won” Iowa and pretend that he’s swept the nomination.
If Newt wins by double digits, he’ll be treated like the second coming by the media. Right up until Florida votes, at which point people will start talking up Jeb Bush and brokered conventions again.
The Romneybot9000 was confused by high-intensity enemy jamming and went into “safe mode”.
Reports that it landed in Iranian territory are unconfirmed.
Lots of dogwhistles from Gingrich. My liveblog:
“Gingrich mocks Obama’s intelligence. BLACK BLACK BLACK!!! I was wrong about the mandate…I figured it out. Dumb blackity black!”
Ron Paul also lied a lot more than usual, especially about the post-War debt and Medicare/Medicaid.
Santorum did good, but Gingrich soared. He won in the first five minutes.
Thanks Seabe, I think that that pretty much says it all…
I didn’t watch, but I did follow on twitter and elsewhere and “Meh” has it right. Newt def won the night and his answer to John King was planned strategy as evidenced by the fact that after the debate Newt said that John King was a good moderator. He was obviously ready for it.
But the real video of the night is this one:
From the Apollo fundraiser, POTUS sings a little Al Green:
http://youtu.be/T-hDt2E8MoE
It appears that Republicans are ready to accept mistress-as-First-Lady.
…that’s “Misstress-du-jour”, thankyouverymuch.
The First Mistress serves at the pleasure of the President, if you’ll pardon the expression.
Instead of watching the debate, I watched the live comment widget at redstate.com. The difference in perception was very strange. Josh Marshall and other progressives thought Santorum was very strong, but he (and to a lesser degree Romney) were mercilessly ripped apart by those who would actually consider voting for a Republican. It was pretty shocking – they HATE Santorum – more than we do almost. Towards the end, they were saying stuff like “it’s weird – I agree with him – but I still can’t stand him”. I mean – he is grotesquely unlikable, but so are Romney and Gingrich.
At this point, I guess I’m rooting for Gingrich since he would presumably lose more spectacularly and with more reverse coattails. As to who would actually be a worse president – it’s a scary thought.
Someone made an interesting observation about Florida: they’ve been turning in ballots for some time now.
If Romney has a good ground operation there (and no matter what I’m sure it’s better than Gingrich’s), they’ve been banking votes while Romney is way ahead in the polls there.
I’m betting Romney is counting on Florida as a firewall, and who knows – it may be one for him.
I never watched Jerry Springer’s show either.
But Molly Ball is quoted (in covering Perry’s flameout) as saying that Santorum and Gingrich are “Washington insiders with a wonky bent”.
William Buckley, here is your legacy.
It does seem interesting that as the ‘put your returns on the table’ pitch got louder today, proportionately Romney got more off message. First he bit head off questioner in a crowd then he lost his train of thought at the debate.
As everyone has noted, for an organized campaign it is strange that they haven’t given Mitt any closing arguments to pull his millions into a good talking point argument. And being without a good argument about his moneyreligion is apparently rocking Mitt’s yacht.
Having to put his returns out for public consumption before it’s too late is looking like it just might be more than losing a nomination.
Republicans are such such suckers.
If a candidate was caught mutilating grandmothers, all he’d have to do is look angry and complain that the media is accusing him of mutilating grandmothers, and 3/4 of the Republican base would stand up and cheer him.