Tag: Debate

GOP New Hampshire Debate

Live blogging the event….

Ron Paul notes that Santorum is a “big government conservative”. He is. (click for a long list of evidence).

Santorum is doing well. He is making me doubt the things i’ve bashed him for:

Lobbyist? He says he approached a local coal company to lobby for them specifically to defeat Cap & Trade.

Voted Most Corrupt? He says that’s a charge sent by a liberal organization every election cycle just to smear conservatives.

hmm… there could be truth to both of those. Got me wondering…

Yahoo! has this question:

UPDATE: they fixed it…

Moderator asks okay question that rests on stupid premise: “only 2 of you have served [in the military] – do you think that makes you better suited to be President?”. This is so stupid. Didn’t work for George Bush Sr – didn’t work for Bob Dole – didn’t work for John Kerry – didn’t work for John McCain and although G. Dubya won twice, it wasnt at all thanks to his Air Force Texas and Alabama Air National Guard service. this issue is a dud.

Ron Paul refines his “chickenhawk” argument against Gingrich so it sounds more sane: says that if you got multiple deferments when you had the chance to serve then you shouldn’t order anyone into war. that makes total sense but is a big difference from the chickenhawk argument which smears everyone who did not elect to join the military as having actively hid from it. That is stupid. Paul is doing really well tonight. I wish he ran this good a campaign in 2008 and/or performed this well in the 08 debates.

Newt says it is “inaccurate and false” that he asked for deferments. I don’t care cuz I’m more annoyed that he said “inaccurate AND false”. They mean the same thing, dude…

[commercial break]

Do states have the right to ban contraception? what in the what? — oh shit – Romney is voicing my exact reaction and chiding Stephonopolous for asking it. The question was based on a court case but still asked oddly. — NOW Stepho cuts to the chase and asks whether the Constitution has a “right to privacy”.

Ron Paul on the right of privacy in the Constitution: it pertains to your personal belongings and the state meddling with them with warrentless searches and whatnot.

Question from Yahoo asker: Since you’re against same sex marriage, what do you want gay people to do with their partners?

Gingrich: Favors hospital visitation rights, will and similar sensible laws. just quibbles over the word “marriage”

Huntsman: “Civil Unions are fair and I support them”. Doing well until he uses the old trope by saying he doesnt believe his marriage is affected by gay couples or same sex marriage or civil unions or idk what he;s referring to there but either way its stupid because no one has ever said gay relations of any kind affect their marriage. dumb thing to say.

Santorum: Let the states decide – but then stops himself and says there should be a singular Federal law so people arent married in one state and not married in another. derp? Then says “this is a state issue not a federal issue” – double-derp? Moderator asks what happens to same sex marriages if Santorum passes a law saying marriage is one man one woman – Santorum doesnt answer. just repeats that if the law passes it passes.

Romney: says its a “wonderful thing” for people to commit to each other long term but they don’t need to call it “marriage” and receive approval from the state that way and I bite my nails because I like Mitt and that is almost the right answer but only if he follows it up with “BUT, lets give le gayz more legal rights” like what Newt said. Thankfully he did go on and is talking about those rights right now as I type this: basically favors civil unions, legal partnerships, etc and just wants to preserve the word marriage. I don’t care about the word marriage but I dont have a problem with this traditionalist-but-non-hater position. whew! glad he got it right and remained the only candidate to avoid saying things that I would be embarrassed by if I were to publicly support.

Gingrich comes back and asks (openly, not to any individual) whether the Catholic church (he is a convert to Catholicism) should be forced out of the adoption business because they dont adopt out to same sex couples. gets applause.

Romney agree’s and notes that that is exactly what happened in Massachusetts by a court order he disagrees with.

Stepho beats the dead horse of Ron Paul running as a 3rd party candidate even though he says he doesnt want to and has never expressed interest in doing so. Paul gives the same answer as always: he’s not doing it and has no plans to do it but won’t promise not to do it.

Ron Paul says he’s doing well in the polls and says with a warm smile that he’s getting “closer to Mitt every day”. People laugh. its a nice/friendly moment.

Perry is asked if everyone on the stage should rule out a 3rd party bid. Perry doesnt answer and instead says anyone on the stage is better than Obama and then goes back to same sex marriage and says he wants a Constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Romney and Huntsman on when to leave Afghanistan: Huntsman says leave right away and dont invest another penny in that boondoggle. Romney says get em out soon but no hard date cuz you’ve got to asses the details as President first.

Perry says to send troops back into Iraq… when pressed: Perry says we need to because Iran will move in “literally at the speed of light”. Holy shit, those are fast Iranians…

[commercial]

Romney says that there are things Government can do to help the job market – like fix bridges n shit, but fundamentally government does not create jobs, it can only encourage the private sector.

I miss these two:

Romney: bring down taxes to be competitive with other nations and give relief to people who need it most and mostly hurt by the Obama economy, the middle class. Reduce rates. Reduce the amount of exemptions. Simplify the tax code and broaden the base — God damn you Republicans who don’t love this guy are stupid. He’s SO your best candidate in decades…

blah blah boring stuff – im checking twitter for a few minutes…

Huntsman vs Romney on China: Huntsman pulls the “i know Chinese” card and says a sentence to Romney in Mandarin and doesn’t explain what it means. SO. fucking. Douchey….

Huntsman says Romney wants a trade war with China. Romney says “nigga, the fuck you talkin bout?” (paraphrase) and does a thing with his hands saying he doesnt want a trade war but “we sell China *this much* [higher raised hand] – they sell us *this* much [much lower hand gesture] – who do you think doesnt want the trade war?” – bam.

[commercial break]

oh. that’s the end.

Well that was one of the best ones they’ve had. Everyone did very well.

Post debate commentary by ABC panel: Donna Brazil, former Gore campaign manager said that it was a good night for Democrats because no one attacked Mitt Romney. When everyone on the panel gave a hearty “wtf?” to that comment she explained that the weakest candidate is the one that no one attacks and that was Mitt Romney so Democrats are happy. Everyone reacted in unison with a “nooo. you don’t mean that” in the tone of when you say “aawww, c’mon” when an elderly great aunt says something controversial but you want to brush it off and ignore it instead of deal with it.

UPDATE: here’s an out-of-context recap, but the clips are not at all in chronological order.

Thanksgiving Table Family Chat Thing

There was some faith and family forum thing going on yesterday and I watch-listened to it – meaning, i had the stream playing on the computer while I did other things. I was mostly bored with it. One super weird thing was the consistently terrible camera work of the streaming video. The wide shots were okay, but every single closeup of a speaking candidate was way off center. I took a bunch of screenshots to illustrate:

Former Senator Rick Santorum said “Gay marriage is wrong” and went on a soapbox speech I didnt at all care fore and furthered my distaste for his awful campaign. I always honor truth regardless of whether I disagree with a person and Santorum has had a lot of smearing go his way so for awhile, when he was still a senator, I thought he was kindov okay. Since he lost his re-election bid in 2006, he hasn’t done anything I’ve seen for me to give him much respect. His performance in the GOP debates has solidified that and this dinner table discussion-whatever-thing was no diff. There was one moment that started out strong when he was talking about his youngest daughter who, according to my calculations of how gustation timing works, was conceived as pity-sex at the time of his re-election loss. She has something similar, but more life threatening than Downs Syndrome and wasnt expected to live this long. The story started out solid about a families determination to overcome a hardship and – BAM – happy ending, motherfkkers, cuz she’s still alive and bringing joy to the world – but he went on too long and it got kindov rambly towards the part where he was talking about how he lied to his wife (his words) that he was dealing with the medical problems in cold and steadfast manner because he needed to be the rock of the family when in reality he was purposefully treating his daughter less-than-human so when he lost her, he wouldn’t be as emotionally effected. The point wasn’t terrible – he was revealing this because he was saying how he fought against partial-birth-abortion (a practice where a baby is pretty much delivered and then – surprise! – guillotined, French Revolution style) in the senate, yet found himself guilty of the same dehumanizing sin with his own daughter – but it just wasn’t delivered as crisply as it should have.

A successfully touching moment was delivered by Herman Cain when he talked about battling and winning the fight against cancer recalling, fighting back tears in his eyes, how he reassured his wife “I can do this” to which his wife replied “WE…can do this”.

Rick Perry went on a “when I gave my life to Jesus Christ” speech (ug) and Michelle Bachmann did a similar “what Jesus wants from us” blah blah thing that pushed me further away from both of them than I already was. Not that you can’t be totally horny for Jesus or whatever and still be a valid candidate – it’s just the pandering. so icky. I’d be just as uncomfortable if they talked about their love of ice cream or golf or any other, admittedly less, but still important passion in their life. Talk about the economy, dammit. Or if you insist on this family, Jesus, children, love and sparkles stuff – at least make this worth my time and say what you plan to do about it in the job you’re trying for.

The only 2 candidates that perk my personal interest in this primary weren’t present here: The two millionaire Mormons, Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. They made the right choice in skipping this – though I’m told that Huntsman wasn’t even invited. Mitt spent his time doing something that actually mattered instead – doing a Townhall meeting in New Hampshire. Good for him. Answering questions from voters in a key primary state is a thousand times more important than sitting at a table in a church talking about how important God is to you while you run for a secular government job.

Summary: Cain and Gingrich were the stars and would make an awesome, interesting and respectable ticket if this were 1996.

Newts real line of the evening was when he told the Occupy Wallstreeters to get a job right after taking a bath:

Rick Perry: Oops

Train vs Campaign: Who derails harder? Amtrak or Rick Perry?

[since the name dropping is a little esoteric for a wide audience who may not know wtf an Amtrak or a Perry is, here is an alternate version of this line that expresses the same sentiment without the specifics]:

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Here is an exclusive reaction from a Perry advisor:

Here is an exclusive reaction from the Obama administration:

UPDATE: The Perry campaign has officially responded (for real) by asking the following question on the official campaign website…

UPDATE: Perry continues the self depricating humor via a Letterman Top 10:

Liveblogging the CNN Republican Primary Debate

Each new line is a new thought… Play the drinking game if you’re watching live too.



this tweet is obviously a joke, but it makes great sense. Government jobs should be like jury duty: everyone contributes but no one should want to. I like the thought of candidates saying “elect me and I will give myself less power than the current guy is giving himself”.

Bachman looks great (she doesn’t always). Gingrich looks creepy (he does always).

Bachmann answered a question about how she would repeal Obamacare with a 1 minute response saying Obamacare is bad. Romney is answering the question by answering the question (he will repeal Obamacare and replace it with a better program in addition to issuing a waver to all 50 states

Pawlenty is asked about a criticism he made of Romney just yesterday. Doesn’t answer.

Romney’s gotta lose the smirk. I remember it from 2008. When an opponent is making a scurrilous attack, dont smile at it unless it’s funny.


Santorum gets a bad rap, mostly cuz of the “he hatez teh gahys” smear, so I wanna defend him. but… c’mon dude. why are you up there? Couldn’t be president if he was still a senator. REALLY can’t be president when he lost his last re-election for senate by 18 points (in 06).

I’ve said it before but i’ll say it again: why wasn’t it McCain/Bachmann in 08? She’s answering mostly in soundbytes and is weak on substance so far but still comes off a lot better than Palin. I think it’s more than just the [lack of] accent.

Lol. Hermain Cain. You go, brother. oh, shit. that’s racist. cuz he’s black. I can’t explain why calling a black guy “brother” is racist, but I think the rule is “anything you say in regards to a person of color is or can be racist”. Oh well. I like hearing him add his spice into this. He has no chance of winning.

I got super bored with this and Facebooked for awhile. Pawlenty is talking now. Just said his family listens to Rush Limbaugh, which I think was an intentional name drop so Rush would play the clip on his radio show tomorrow. Smart move from a candidate who needs the publicity.


[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Lol. Hermain Cain. He says “I studied” as “Ah Studded”.

Enouughhhhh with the “ah..al..alr…alri…alrigh…alright…” interruptions by John King 5 seconds into every single answer. Jesus. I get that there are time limits, even though there shouldn’t be. Lincoln and whoevertheotherguywas famously debated for hours and there was only 2 of them. I get that cable news isn’t about news so much as it’s a profitcenter for advertising dollars paying for news based entertainment, but come ON… give everyone an extra minute to give their shitty blowhard answers.

“Mr Speaker: Dancing with the Stars? or American Idol?”. Wtf CNN? this is pathetic. The last question before the break was to Santorum, asking “Conan or Leno”. He said “Probably Leno” but then botched the answer by throwing both under the bus saying that he doesn’t watch either. This is all a gimmick over what a news headline it was when Bill Clinton was asked at an MTV sponsored debate in the 90s “Boxers or Briefs?”. We get it. silly question to a person of power. teehee. 20 years later? These are stupid. CNN: the MTV of cable news except not as popular.


[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Lots of boring stuff. I took a break again until — HAHA, oh wow. Ron Paul just said the First Amendment is the right for anyone to practice their “Christian” faith. oh geez…

This before-break “this or that” question is to Mr Cain: Deep Dish or Thin Crust? oh giggle giggle snicker teehee. Cain said in a deep authoritative voice “Deep. Dish”. eha..ehaaa……


[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Romney says spicy wings are better than mild. This is a real question and answer in a real presidential debate…

Is Bachmann still in this debate?

Oh, next question to Bach. about New Hampshires same sex marriage law. she says it’s not the Presidents role to mess with state laws like that. right answer. good for her.

“Are you a George Bush republican, meaning a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and woman or a Dick Cheney republican, meaning leave it to the states” – um…George Bush never instituted a constitutional amendment to define marriage. He mildly supported a theoretical amendment, what? once? in response to a question about it? lame misleading question.

Ron Paul touts the old “get the government out of marriage” line. dislike. government is in maraige for the kids.

Moderator from the audience asks Santorum if Romney is a big fake phony over switching from being Pro-choice to Pro-life 6 years ago. Romney fixes the smirk issue and has appropriate body posture. Santorum answers the question with class, talking about his own opinion on life instead of attacking Mitt.

Mitt says he’s firmly pro-life and will appoint Justices that will follow the constitution.

Bachmann: “I am 100% pro-life, I’ve given birth to 5 babies…” lol.

Romney says troops need to come back from Afghanistan ASAP and hand leadership over to “the Taliban military” as CNN cuts to a General in the audience giving the same “da Fukkk?” response everyone who heard it at home did until Romney quickly corrected, saying “excuse me – the Afghan government, to DEFEND from the Taliban”.

Ron Paul says he wouldn’t listen to the Generals on the ground in Afghanistan if he was president and would pull out no matter what.

-DEBATE ENDS-

An Obama supporter analyst after the debate keeps saying that Tim Pawlenty needed to “cut” him and “make him bleed”. “You need to cut them and make them bleed”. said it 3 times. geez. The dude is black. I wonder if a white guy who said that about Obama would be called racist…. hmmm

UPDATE: Conan recaps:

Why Did William F. Buckley Jr. Talk Like That?

An article in Slate sheds some light on it:

But if you listen to Buckley’s many debates—with Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, and others—the first thing you’ll notice is a distinctly British rhythm and melody. His pronunciation was likewise British-influenced in its lack of rhoticity—meaning he drops his “r”s. (An American “r” is generally pronounced with a tongue curled about 45 degrees; the Brits leave their tongues flat. Buckley is often somewhere in the middle.) This style of speech used to characterize upper-class New Englanders as a whole, since many of the region’s earliest settlers hailed from (old) England. (Fewer “r”s were dropped among the more diverse mix of immigrants in New York.) There’s also the yod, which is the “ew” sound in music and usual—like our friends across the pond, Buckley keeps the yod for words like news and pursue. He also pronounces the “t” in words like writer. And for vowels in words like thought and wrong, he rounded his lips, not unlike the English. Meanwhile, he stressed few words when he spoke but would pounce on an important one, every once in a while. (Contrast with John Wayne, who tended to stress every single word, in exactly the same way.)

Buckley Debates Chomsky: 1969