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Debate CoverItLive/Open Thread

By: Leon H. Wolf (Diary)  |  October 11th, 2011 at 07:43 PM  | 

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  • wonkish1

    And this is just the first 2 minutes.

    • Jim Tomasik

      jhlj

    • txindependent

      But wish they wouldn’t spend so much time on candidates with no chance. Perry has only had one question.

      • wonkish1

        nt

  • http://whattoreadtoday.blogspot.com/ Paula

    was pretty much MSNBC on another channel, including the protesters in the background.

    And TWICE the moderators have used the technique of rephrasing the candidates questions in their own words.

    “So governor Romney, what you’re saying is…”

    “So Mr. Gingrich, Congresswoman Bachmann just said that…”

    If this continues, look for them to completely twist what they’re really saying.

    Newt just said he’d put Barney Frank in jail. Heh.

    If you’re not watching, they’ve gone to commercial so they an clean up the blood from the exploding heads.

    • wonkish1

      I was just commenting on that.

  • wonkish1

    Answers are when you don’t limit them to 1 minute. Bloomberg is embarrassing the other networks right now.

    • circlegranch

      unfortunately, Romney tries to suck everybody else’s air. he just tries to hard. he comes across as a big fake

      • wonkish1

        So that if you end up talking to much in the first half your time runs out and you have to sit out of the 2nd half.

  • perry4prez

    He was asked about bailouts and who would be advising him and he names two Harvard Professors. All he can do is cozy up to his elite Ivy League buddies, we need someone who is a real conservative. Romney is so smug and smarmy. How can we pledge to support him!

  • center77

    Reagan video question. They tried to get him.

    • kestrel

      I wasn’t sure if I’m just too tired or what, but knowing it would be some kind of out of character (for Reagan), gotcha clip, I couldn’t even process it. But Perry got to the heart of it, and I liked the plain way he said it: “I see him saying that he’d trade tax increases for spending reductions… and he never saw those reductions.” Then he cited Reagan’s own diary. This is the Perry of the first debate, the thinking, trustworthy-in-his-thinking, provenly competent Perry who has been, and still is, a successful long-term governor (who doesn’t need to try to “look” presidential). And he looked fine, more comfortable than in that first debate. He did tack on the BBA point, which was the kind of thing a coach would probably tell him to do, but it did not detract (and may have helped) because it was brief and not at the center of his answer.

      Yes, that was classy. He avoided the gotcha while answering clearly, briefly, and well, without acknowledging that it was a gotcha attempt. He handled it presidentially, imo.

    • kestrel

      I just heard one of the bozo commentators say there were no gotcha questions. Whew, good riddance.

  • http://whattoreadtoday.blogspot.com/ Paula

    Dumb.

    • Jim Tomasik

      .m

      • http://whattoreadtoday.blogspot.com/ Paula

        with Herman Cain in the middle. Now Santorum is going after him on 9-9-9.

    • bzip

      I don’t but I do know Michelle is against starting a new national tax and anyone with any brains would be too. Hard for me to say but I agree with Michelle on this one.

      Cain’s plan is lousy, lets face it.

      • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

        and kills transitioning our tax system towards consumption.

        • Jim Tomasik

          Slow it down, maybe.

          FairTax has a life of it’s own. ;}

          • d_lamar

            It’s just a federal sales tax. And sales taxes are the worst taxes of all taxes because they can be totally hidden in any products purchase price. For instance, does anyone know how much tax is included in your telephone bill or the price of a set of tires?

            Frankly, most people don’t know or care how much the imbedded tax is. With a “fair tax” at the federal level, there would be no end to the size and means of putting exorbitant taxes on everything.

            For what it’s worth, the only fair tax is a flat tax, the same rate of tax on all income of every kind – - no deductions, no credits, no rebates, no exceptions. With a flat tax, with everyone having skin in the game, maybe the whiny liberals who are so eager to tax the rich, would be a little more thoughtful.

          • Craigpennsylvania

            It does nothing to bring in the underground economy. All the people working under the table still get a pass.

            The Fair Tax is a 23 percent tax on new products or services. It’s a very easy tax to understand. It’s not an excise tax. When you buy something for $100, $23 is going to the feds.

            If a drug dealer buys a $400,000 Ferrari, he just paid $92,000 in taxes. Under the Flat tax, he can still avoid paying anything.

            Under the Fair Tax, illegal aliens become taxpayers while not getting the prebate from the federal govt.

            The Flat tax is better than the current tax, but still inferior to the Fair Tax.

            Of course, if one thinks that allowing illegal aliens, drug dealers, prostitutes, bookies and others who currently avoid income taxes to still avoid them is a good idea, then one should be against the Fair Tax.

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            Using emotional names like ‘fair tax’ makes it sounds like you have something to hide.

          • Craigpennsylvania

            Neil – I never named it the Fair Tax. Fair Tax Dot Org did. The person to whom I was replying also called it the “Fair Tax” in his heading.

            It is a National Sales Tax. It also is a program with a built in provision intended to help it avoid the “regressive tax” label. That provision is the “pre-bate”. A pure national sales tax would not have the prebate included.

            The name one wishes to apply to is is not important, Neil. An intelligent conversation about the virtues, or possible lack of virtues, of this type of change in our tax system is what is important.

          • d_lamar

            Why is it fair if some are required to pay a tax, and others are not. It seems that with this tax, and our present progressive income tax, some people are more special than others — some have no obligation to support the government’s programs while others must pay more. Nothing fair about that.

          • Craigpennsylvania

            Are you against this “Fair Tax” program because of the prebate? Or are there other exemptions for certain individuals?

          • d_lamar

            nt

          • Craigpennsylvania

            d_lamar, both the flat tax and fair tax (aka national sales tax) eliminate the corporate income tax.

            GE is not a part of the underground economy. Current corporate tax law allows corporations to accrue prior losses against future earnings.

            That being said, under the flat tax OR the Fair Tax, GE would pay nothing in taxes as a corporation. Of course, neither would any other corporation.

            Both would be a boon to the economy.

        • http://www.nighttwister.com NightTwister

          no-text

  • txindependent

    But they are not being consistent with the number of questions.

  • bzip

    Perry hasn’t been given much time but the time he has been on he has sounded real good. Perry finally jump out of his boots and he got started :-) .

    I like the format where people have some time to answer with substance but it doesn’t allow for everyone to take part equally.

    • onemovoter

      Everyone else pretty much had 3 or 4 per that 30 minutes. They ignored Perry and it was obvious.

      It was also obvious that most of the questions were directed to the 5% group instead of the 10% or better candidates.

      Watching the after debate, they are saying there was no energy with Perry when he barely got to talk.

      • wonkish1

        But again this debate style was A HUGE IMPROVEMENT over the “give me your 30 second answer to the economy”.

        If Fox, CNN, and MSNBC don’t figure out that they just got schooled and they need to change I’ll be shocked.

  • onetrickpony

    For war with China. Worst gaffe I’ve heard the night.

    • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

      who was most China-belligerent.
      Methinks he is using that issue to cover for his softness on other issues.

  • wonkish1

    Its that type of theatrics that does well and I was surprised that Santorum actually went with that.

  • Jim Tomasik

    vcvc

  • florajo

    .

    • aesthete

      I’m not watching the debate… am I missing some important context for this comment?

  • bzip

    The first question went to Michelle and she tried to hit Perry with the Al Gore nonsense and Perry hit it out of the ball park, in my opinion,.

  • txindependent

    …

  • runner12

    NT

    • snowshooze

      Thanks,
      Mark

      • dvdmsr

        http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/

        • snowshooze

          nt

  • bzip

    From what II have seen so far I really do think both Cain and Michelle are out to ensure a Romney victory

    • Xasteius

      nt

    • kestrel

      What, tonight, gives you this impression? Bachmann has very little in common with Mitt. You could hardly pick a pair that is further apart in terms of Tea Party vs. establishment than she and Mitt.

  • Jim Tomasik

    Fdsdf

    • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

      NT

  • rechts

    Perry is doing better but Romney is still clearly in the lead in my opinion.

    • txindependent

      He’s just given more time to talk.

      • avagreen

        What a crap pool that was advertised as a “debate”. More like a monolog of Cain and Perry as I’ve stated on another thread.

        The libs (on whose site this was guested) don’t want to give Perry any leeway to comment.

        • avagreen

          monolog of Cain and Romney.

        • wonkish1

          The debate was very good. Cain and Romney got some extra time, but the other candidates did ask them their questions though as well.

          It looks like the only person that got screwed over on time was Perry which was unfortunate.

          But the style is an infinitely better model to the debates at Fox, CNN, MSNBC.

          • Jim Tomasik

            Did you not notice Cain being overlooked at the beginning thee same as perry at the beginning? He had to barge into the conversation at one point. They seemed to keep the attention on Huntsman.

          • wonkish1

            But there is an easy remedy to this little issue and that is to adopt balance of time rule. If a candidate talks to much in the beginning and uses their time up then your cut off later on in the debate.

            Still a great debate model though! Way better than what we’ve dealt with from other debates.

          • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

            There is a simple way to have a balanced debate without cutting off speakers.

            Each speaker gets an allotted amount of debate time on a clock.
            When they speak, they are ‘on the clock’. They choose to get off the clock when they want. If someone wants to butt in, they go only when the previous person goes off clock. Giving each person the same amount of time means a fairer allocation, and its up to them to make their points in the alloted time.

          • wonkish1

            nntt

    • nepanyrush

      I don’t think there is anything one can say to throw him off his game. He has a plausible sounding answer for every attack. He would clearly beat Obama in the debates.

      But Perry? Have the time it seems like Perry uses the wrong words. He sounds so awkward. I honestly have trouble listening to some of his answers because his poor use of vocabulary throws me off. I tried to tell myself that maybe that is just southern speak, but I had no problem listening to Bush. In fact, I enjoyed Bush in the debates. Perry may have the best policies (which is another word he misused), but I don’t think the public will think he is very smart. Sorry. I wanted him to do well. But he made me cringe too often.

  • ideasmatter

    No one said they would not bailout the banks. Think about that.

    • bzip

      the ones that did didn’t seem to object to it.

    • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

      Nobody defended TARP. Several said it was implemented wrong. Gingrich said they didnt know what they were doing.

  • falconflight

    Newt just quietly bashed Romney’s head into the pulp most of the thinking citizens know him to be. Newt asked Mitt why in his 59 point economic plan does he propose lowering capital gain rates for those earning less that 250K. The implication being that those earning less than 250k isn’t where capital formation gestates. Mitt Never answered the question. Newt is so much smarter than the Mitt, and Mitt is a typical GOP Loyalist.

    • beric

      Newt’s well-informed question made perfect sense. Romney ignored it completely.

      Newt is also extremely articulate, which doesn’t hurt him.

    • Common_Cents

      “OK, great answer Mitt, now will you please answer the question?” Boom…

  • ideasmatter

    I don’t hear anything new here.
    Economics is not the strong point for any of these candidates.
    Which is odd, its almost like they all have liberal-syndrome tonight.
    Goldwater would have cringed.

  • kestrel

    it is frozen in time at the time they implemented it. So what if they didn’t raise taxes then? It is blowing out the budget and forsee-ably so, yet he takes no responsibility for this.

  • ideasmatter

    Come on Perry, youuuu can do it, you can do it…hit ‘er home, repeal, dont rethink, replace or reengineer.

    Tort reform is nice, but wheres the beef Perry?

    Flexibility? Efficiency?

    How about, Hands-off-ity?

  • ideasmatter

    God, no, Greenspan held rates too low, too long, and helped destroy the econ.

    Cain is D- on econ

  • ideasmatter

    No question.

    Cain can even it out on ntl def. though. next debate please.

  • wonkish1

    So what is the best way to use this to convince folks like Fox News that 1 minute are bull$hit and allowing candidates to ask each other questions is not a bad thing.

  • center77

    This is not working very well. They tried to get Perry a few times. Perry looked 100% better than the last. I would have to say the only thing to get out of this debate is the Perry had gotten much better. He had stated stuff that will help, not a 999 plan that. Bloomberg tried to say Perry bombed, but that’s the liberal media for you.

  • kestrel

    no text.

  • bzip

    Cain plan 999 is lousy and it showed all the problems in the debate.

    Perry did really really good but now needs specific plans but boy he did great. He deflected many low blows and came out of it real good.

    In my opinion Perry came as a winner because he did so good,.

  • txindependent
  • nvrepub

    nt

  • dio55

    I like you all but we have got to get serious now and you all have no chance so why should we care what your views are on anything you all are no better than the good conservatives sitting in the crowd . so go join them in the audience

  • retire05

    It isn’t difficult. People, who want to start businesses have to know that they can spend more time building a business than filling out bureaucratic paperwork. People who already have business want the same thing. When you have to spend so much time trying to comply with over burdensome paper work and government regulations, that takes money away from being able to expand or hire another employee.

    The more people hired, the more people working, the more people working, the more other goods are purchased and taxes are collected.

    It ain’t rocket science.

    Why does everyone want to make Economics 101 so damn convoluted.

  • avagreen

    The majority of the questions were fed to Romney and to Cain. I left the room, one of them was speaking, I returned, one of them was speaking.

    Occasional bones were thrown to Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, and Newt. Anytime someone mentioned either Romney or Cain, both were allowed to retort. Perry tried to retort to Romney one time, but the male mod did not allow him to and then quickly went on to the next question. Newt was allowed to break in and gave razor-sharp replies, but is not a threat to Cain or Romney as he cant? win an election.
    Santorum complained that he wasn?t allowed to speak(which was true), and spoke beyond the obvious prompt to stop talking (about 3 times on one comment). He did prevail, but was again quickly pushed aside for the two RINO?s to shine.

    This debate was obviously engineered to give both Cain and Romney (who sat right in the middle opposite the mod) time and opportunity to speak, with all the others being side-lined to the side. Ron Paul (another non-threat as he?s been tabled as a ?nut? by the MSM and others) was given more time to speak then Perry (the third man on the tier), or to Bachmann or Santorum.

    Rigged debate, which is to be expected on a liberal site.

    NYTimes surprisingly echoed my thoughts.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/us/polit…identialdebates

    One has to ask “why the favortism to Cain and Romney”? Why push the third person on the top tier to the side, while allowing Paul (who has no chance of winning the election and is considered to be a “nut” to most people) to have more time to speak than one of the top runners? Is it because the liberal media is trying to push him aside? My guess is a resounding “Yes!” H.e.l.l. yes! This obvious attempt to silence one person should give pause to any honest voter, who is teetering on the edge of who to vote for. Are they afraid this ONE person could beat Obama, based upon his proven record? Yes.