Official Discussion Thread for Tonight's GOP Presidential Debate

[Wonkish1]

I don't get how anybody could possibly act like the media isn't in the bag for the Dems. Just listen to this $hit. They don't have on that panel before the debate one person who is actually a conservative they're all liberals.

[Wonkish1]

I don't get how anybody could possibly act like the media isn't in the bag for the Dems. Just listen to this $hit. They don't have on that panel before the debate one person who is actually a conservative they're all liberals.

Um... FOX??

What are you talking about? Bloomberg!

[Wonkish1]

I mean now they are going into full 60 minutes style attack pieces on each of candidates ahead of the debate.

I mean what the he!!?

[Wonkish1]

I support Mitt Romney.

They went after him before in a piece about how he's driven up healthcare costs in Massachusetts.

While I agree with the piece on that, how is it right to spend the entire pre-debate time attacking the people that are nice enough to grace their presence on your network and give you 10 times the normal ratings you otherwise get.

[Wonkish1]

Honestly, this is the first time I'll ever watch Bloomberg.

Me too.

I watch Bloomberg on occasion, but it is a really $hitty network.

[Wonkish1]

Lol Wall Street protesters in the background.

I'm surprised they're not pushing them back further.

The reports are that they are just chanting anti-capitalist $hit and these people are somehow representative of America?

[Wonkish1]

Looking like Perry is just being avoided.

[Wonkish1]

Alright I'm going to really hand it to Bloomberg they are asking some damn good questions.


I still don't get why they had to spend the hour before the debates going after each of the candidates, but right now they are doing a very, very good job.

[Wonkish1]

I think Bloomberg is making all of the other networks look stupid and foolish right now.

They are showing first hand how stupid "Give me your answer on how to fix the economy in 1 minute" questions. Thank God some network has actually realized that longer answers are more interesting.

[Wonkish1]

That was a good Romney answer!

[Wonkish1]

Holy $hit Santorum just used my idea of having the audience show hands to something.

[Wonkish1]

I'm REALLY looking forward to this asking-questions-to-each-other thing.

It should be exciting and will make it very clear who is being attacked by whom.

I've been pushing for that for 4 years now. I'm so happy they are finally allowing that in a debate.

[Wonkish1]

Picking Greenspan kind of bothers me a little. Should have picked Volcker.


And Paul said that about 2 minutes after I posted this.

[Wonkish1]

Greenspan's tenure at the Fed lead to the 2008 financial crisis...

No sh**t!

[Wonkish1]

Cain likely only knows three chairmen: Volcker, Greenspan and Bernanke. He can't say Bernanke and Volcker is one of Obama's advisors, so the only answer is Greenspan.

Volcker was barely an adviser.

[Wonkish1]

Best Debate of the Year Not Even Close.

Now maybe you guys can help me by brainstorming the best way for Fox and CNN to get the message that 1 minute answers suck and candidates are capable of asking each other questions.

It took the little network Bloomberg to just destroy the model of all the other major networks.

[Wonkish1]

Romney: A+
Gingrich: B
Cain: C
Bachmann: C-
Santorum: D+
Huntsman: D
Paul: D-
Perry: F

This is almost dead on!

[Wonkish1]

Romney: A-.  Co-winner of the debate.  Did well, especially in playing to the establishment audience.  This economic debate was his home turf, so to speak, and he had ready, complex responses to everything.  Extra credit: for really the first time, he spent a lot of time talking, and for the first time I am pretty sure he would beat Obama in the debates.

Cain: A-.  Co-winner of the debate.  Survived attacks much better than Perry or Bachmann did- I don’t really see any reason for him to lose standing in the polls.  Some confusing answers (secret economic advisors, secret Fed chairman nominees) but it will all play well in Iowa.  Also, I don't think he terrified the establishment.

Perry: B.  His best debate thus far, easily.  If he had done this well in other debates he would probably still be the frontrunner.  Trying to, like Cain, build his economic message around a single issue (energy exploration).  But didn't participate and didn’t gain any ground- just didn’t lose any.

Paul: B-.  Didn’t get much time here.  And when he did, it was all Federal Reserve, gold standard, the usual.  Many of the other Republicans have moved into these policy spaces.

Bachmann: B-.  Again, much much less effective when she is not attacking.

Gingrich: B.  Energetic, as usual.  Wonky with sound bites, as usual.  Faded away in the second half a bit.

Huntsman: B-.  Again, no flash, didn’t stand out except to the people who already like him.  A lot of unnecessary moderation, especially on China.

Santorum: B+.  Not a lot of time, again.  But when he spoke, it seemed like conservatives should like what he’s saying- I still don’t see why conservatives aren’t giving him more attention.

Charlie Rose/Bloomberg: A-.  Co-winner of the debate (hey, it's Dartmouth, we can have some grade inflation).  Needs no explanation.

Not bad!!

[Wonkish1]

Bloomberg has a great debate, but before and now after its just, "We're going to attack the GOP candidates at every chance we can."

How anybody can't see obvious bias at this $hit is just unbelievable.

[Wonkish1]

They just "fact checked" the 999 plan, and said it comes up with "only" 2 Trillion. only 200 Billion less than current revenue? that's a lot closer to target than I thought.

The "fact checking" on that was some of the laziest reporting I have ever seen.

No $hit. It was particularly bad that they used the original CBO scoring for ObamaCare that was jam packed full of accounting gimmicks and cuts that they just reversed in a subsequent bill. Now every single cost scoring of Obamacare has it well beyond $1 trillion over the next 10 years and rising fast.

[Wonkish1]

Nah, $2 trillion territory sounds about right. But just think about that once.

The average middle class family pays an effective income tax rate in the teens, plus another 13% in payroll(employer and employee side is truly paid for by the employee), plus 15% capital gains(soon to be 20%), plus 35% top corporate tax rate, plus duties/fees/misc/etc.

And you lower the tax rates to 9, 9, 9 and you get pretty much the same revenue. That should annoy some Dems on here. And the sales tax increase is netted out against a fall in payroll and income taxes so barely anybody could possibly experience any sizeable increase in their tax burden.


But as all the GOP candidates said and I've said for a long time, if you give congress another tax rate to mess with they'll make you regret it.

[Wonkish1]

Paul owned Cain on the Federal Reserve.
Cain's 9-9-9 plan is atrocious and many people will see that unfold in the coming weeks. That's his whole campaign. Sales tax and income tax... yuck.
Romney is obsessed with China. He also admitted to favoring bailing out the banks, but he tried to spin it like a frisbee.
Santorum is probably the one person who sounds like a douche if he simply said the word 'hi.'
Newt looked liked Paul's buddy/ sidekick (has anyone else noticed this).
Bachmann and Romney clearly have a deal together.
Perry looked lost and confused.
Huntsman can't stop telling people that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Newt has been a price stability focused monetarist(Hawk) for a long time. Libertarians aren't the only ones that have focused on this issue. A lot of conservatives including myself have really honed in on the Fed.

The first elected leader I remember publicly attacking the Fed's response to the crisis wasn't Ron Paul. It was Norm Coleman in mid 2008 well before Lehman, AIG, Freddie, Fannie, etc.

[Wonkish1]

Ron Paul didn't attack the Fed before 2008? What planet do you live on? I wasn't a Paul supporter then (McCain) and I still knew he did. New was buddy buddy with him during the debate, after the debate (they were talking), and he mentioned Paul later on, when there were a bunch of Paul signs behind him.

Of course he has and did. Not to many people were vocally opposed to the Feds lowering of the FFR in 07. At that time I wasn't really seeing Paul making a big deal out of it. At that time he was just generally against the Fed he wasn't screaming that the Feds decision to cut base rates was a serious mistake(although he probably did personally worry more about it he just wasn't saying it publicly). The first elected individual I remember criticizing the Fed's decision to cut base rates before the crash happened was Coleman. Just making a point.

Just saying that it isn't just libertarians that have criticized fed policy. The Reagan administration made it very clear to Chairman Volcker in the 80s that if he cut rates prematurely they were going to oust him. So don't think that the libertarian party owns stable monetary policy. There are many conservatives including myself that feel the same way.

[Wonkish1]

First of all, Conservative. Rudy Giuliuani, John McCain, and George Bush are not Conservative, neither is Norm Coleman. They are Neocons, which only has the last part of the name in common. Ron Paul has been on the FED for 30 years now. Gingrich has a record that is to be admired, and he is my 2nd choice behind Paul,  for that. If your a Neoconservative, come out and say it.

Rudy is and Norm were and are fiscal conservatives. They aren't "NeoCons" even though Rudy did make a lot of his campaign about 9/11 for obvious reasons.

I never said that Ron Paul wasn't on the Fed issue for 30 years. Just saying that it was Norm not him that first criticized the FFR reduction before the crash. I don't mean to take away any of Ron Paul's strength on the issue just to point out that there are conservatives that care and have cared about this issue for a long time.

And I never really understood the "NeoCon" obsession. If you want to know what I am in a nutshell, I'm a reform conservative(aka Rebel Republican) that has some libertarian tendencies.

[Wonkish1]

That was an epic smackdown.

Really you sure about that?