Texas Rumble - Gov. Rick Perry Versus Public Integrity Unit

As no doubt you have heard, on Friday a Travis County Grand Jury (that's Austin for you non-Texans) indicted sitting Governor Rick Perry with two counts of "abuse of power" over a line item budget veto. His alleged crime centers around Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, head of the Public Integrity Unit who Perry demanded resign after she was arrested, pled guilty, and served her time for DWI while serving as head of the "Public Integrity Unit".

On April 13/14, 2013, District Attorney Lemberg was minding her own business drifting back and forth over several lanes on a major thoroughfare in Austin, Texas. A concerned citizen who did not want to die, informed the cops who stopped her for suspicion of "driving while intoxicated".

Okay, because actions speak louder than words and because it is so darn entertaining, here are the videos of Lehmberg's field sobriety test and subsequent booking at the police station. Keep in mind this is a person who is charge of the "Public Integrity Unit". I have got to applaud the cop administering the test. He should win some kind of commendation for patience...



And her subsequent booking at the police station where she had to be physically restrained for being threatening and belligerent. [I mean, almost Hannibal Lector restrained...]



Yeah, my personal favorite is the insistence that she only had two glasses of wine so she couldn't possibly be drunk. Judging by her obvious stumbling, slurring, and other "tells", I am guessing that the wine glass must have looked something like this:

The blood test showed that her blood alcohol level was at .239, three times the legal limit.

There are ten things that you should know:

1. Governor Perry repeatedly demanded that Lehmberg resign because of her DWI and subsequent jail time.

2. When Lehmberg would not resign, he threatened to use his power of the line item veto to defund her department (Public Integrity Unit) and then made good on his threat.

3. The Governor of Texas (not just Perry) has the State Constitutional power of the line item veto.

4. Travis County District Attorney is an elected position.

5. Ms. Lehmberg is a very blue Democrat.

6. Austin/Travis County is the bluest county in the state.

7. If Lehmberg resigned, Perry had the authority to appoint someone to fill her position,

8. In a political attack ad by Wendy Davis, Dem candidate for Governor, it was alluded that the Public Integrity Unit was or should be investigating Perry and current Republican candidate for Governor candidate Greg Abbott for misuse of funds related to a grant to a cancer treatment center.

9. Wendy Davis is trailing Greg Abbott by double digits.

10. "Public Integrity Unit" is a wonderfully classic Orwellian name for a government investigative unit.

ADDENDUM
#11. I should add that Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg has not resigned...

Those are the basic facts. [Okay, #10 is just my opinion.] Now put all that together and come up with a reason that this is not purely political and why Perry should be sent to prison. I know you have thoughts. So let's hear them.

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Rick Perry Is A Mean Doo-Doo Head

Governor Perry's not the most popular guy around here (though that's his own fault), but in fairness, liberals really don't like him either. And they have much dumber reasons for not liking him. Observe.

A little backstory. Here in Missouri, our special legislative session is about to kick into gear, in which the lawmakers vote whether or not to override bills vetoed by the governor. There's several this year; you may have heard of a gun bill that would nullify all federal gun control laws, which won't go anywhere but I wouldn't mind seeing it passed, just to annoy our genius overlords. But I digress. Around these parts, the main thing being discussed is one House Bill 253, which would cut our state income tax from 6 to 5.5%, and the corporate income tax from 6.25 to 3.25%. Whether or not it'll pass, I don't know. Governor Jay Nixon (D) vetoed it, the Republicans have just about a supermajority in both chambers, but a lot of them are coming under pressure from school districts, which are afraid of losing funding if it passes and state revenue goes down. So pass or fail, it'll be close.

What does all this have to do with Rick Perry? Well, given the doubtful situation for the bill and the businesses in whose name the bill is being pushed, Perry decided to make some hay. For the past couple weeks, he's been running ads in Missouri, saying basically, "Hey, Missouri businessmen. Just to let you know, Texas doesn't have any state income tax. Also, it's f@#$ing Texas. So if this whole tax-cut bill doesn't work out for you, we're a pretty welcoming people down here. Just saying." Again, I paraphrase. And he's made a couple appearances in the state, and has the backing of the MO Chamber of Commerce, which I take it is looking to put pressure on the legislators rather than actually suggest businesses leave the state.

This has not pleased certain liberal organizations in the state, notably the news outlets. I speak in particular of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (known to some as the "St. Louis Post-DisTrash"), which put on its Indignant Face in the editorial page earlier this week. First paragraph:

A couple of weeks before Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed House Bill 253, the dangerous bill that would give wealthy Missourians a tax cut while starving education and other important state services....

You know they're upset when they don't even wait a few lines of text before the appeals to emotion.

And I'm guessing someone really wanted to work in "starving children" in that lead sentence, but then they thought it would be too on-the-nose.

But can they do ad hominem attacks? Yes, they can:

Mr. Perry likes to brag about his state's lack of an income tax. Never mind that he had nothing to do with it, and that the state's wealth of oil and gas reserves make such a tax unnecessary.

Er, I'm pretty sure his not having anything to do with it is irrelevant. I'm also pretty sure Perry never took all the credit for it. Whatever his faults, he doesn't claim to be responsible for all that is right with the world. I mean, he's not Al Gore.

Don't worry, though; the paper does put forward some actual, you know, facts. Like the fact that Missouri's corporate tax rate is actually much lower than Texas; and that its overall tax burden is slightly less than the Lone Star State's. From this, the editorial concludes, ours is "a low-tax, low-service state. Missouri's problem isn't that it taxes too much, it's that....we don't invest nearly enough in schools, in transit, in our future." So the "argument," for lack of a better word, is this: Missouri's taxes are very low, so there's no reason for businesses to leave for Texas, and really they should be higher to give us more services and make the tax burden worse than in Texas. Ummmm.....okay.

And just to let Perry know he's not wanted here, the Post-Dispatch adds: "Missourians don't unite behind many things these days, but we don't take too kindly to strangers not respecting our borders."

Unless they come from Washington, of course.

I assume that in this case the paper thinks it's speaking for all Missourians, including the rich ones who want tax cuts for themselves while they heartlessly starve state government. And probably children.

Do I have a point here? Not really. All things considered, the effects from the bill will be a wash either way, I'm guessing. And I'd rather not see our businesses leave the state for Texas, though I don't begrudge Perry trying to lure them away. But I do find it interesting/amusing, how liberals such as the Post-Dispatch's editors keep pushing their ruinous policies, and then when people try to escape those policies and their consequences, denounce them as traitors to the sacred Fatherland. Maybe that's what Ned Flanders meant when he said "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."*

*There's a chance I have Ned Flanders confused with someone else.

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News Round Up

All right, we are in a very, very slow news period as we wait to see what immigration reform will look like and how Obama’s gun regulation scheme will prove to be a paper frosted tiger. So let’s do a news roundup and talk about a few random things.

● Moving to Texas: Rick Perry sent out letters to gun companies in states like Colorado and Connecticut where Democratic legislatures have passed anti-gun ownership laws. He’s apparently bagged his first prize: Colt Competition of Oregon, who make high-accuracy AR-15-type rifles for shooting competitions. Others may soon follow. Several gun equipment makers in Colorado have claimed they will leave as well, but we’ll see if they do. Let’s hope they do because it’s time to show people that legislative stupidity has consequences. And losing jobs is the best way to show that. Speaking of jobs...

● Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: The jobs report was ugly. The media tried half-heartedly to blame this on sequestration, but no one believes that because almost no one feels the effects of that. Others blame it on seasonal hiring, which is more likely the case. In the end though, bad economic performance falls on the president and his party. The media is trying to deflect this, but when the best they can say is, “both parties should be embarrassed by the latest depressing jobs report,” then you know they know they have problems.

Right now, people are worried that the next three years of Obama won’t be any better than the first four. And there’s really no reason they should be. None of the things holding back the economy have changed. Basically Obama tossed some money out the window of his car as drove through the streets, that didn’t work and now he’s begging for gas money to do it again. No one has considered finding ways to lower the cost of labor or to make working more profitable. Maybe it’s time for a change? Maybe it’s time for Hillary...

● Hillary Clinton: The leftist media is starting to go all fan-boy over the prospect of Hillary running for President in 2016. Indeed, many of the articles I’ve seen on this are practically orgasmic:

“It was another week in American politics highlighted by the overwhelming and deep yearning by Democrats that Hillary should run for president in 2016, and the overwhelming and powerful support she would receive from Americans if she does.”

Yeah, everyone would love our Goddess... unlike that black guy, that pretend-messiah who can’t solve our problems. In fact, this particular article said something that struck me as rather interesting on this very point:

“It would be spectacular if Bill and Hillary Clinton would work with the Clinton Global Initiative to devise major new jobs proposals.”

This is interesting because it suggests that our slobbering author has given up hope that Obama will solve the jobs crisis, doesn’t it? And if Hillary can come up with a jobs plan as this hack believes, then why doesn’t the hack want Hillary sharing this with Obama? Why hope that Hillary waits to unveil it in her own run? I’d say the media crush is shifting to Hillary.

In fact, in the past few weeks there have been a series of things that make me think the media is done with Obama. There’s been a ton of coverage of the failures of Obamacare. There’s been extensive coverage of Obama’s “gaffe” of complimenting a chick attorney general on her looks. There’s been coverage of how big business is raking in the cash from Obama’s programs. There’s been coverage about Obama’s gun push failing because he didn’t really plan it right. And there’s been a lot of anger about the jobs report directed at “both parties.” These aren’t things that would have been covered in the past and the fact they are now suggests that the media is ready to be harsher on him.

Back to Hillary, the only real question right now is whether or not rank and file leftist fruitcakes are on the same page as the limousine media leftists. I have my doubts. So while it looks like Hillary will be anointed the heiress apparent to the pretend messiah by the media, I’m not so sure she’s going to do all that well in the primaries.

At least there’s only one Clinton, right? Uh...

● Spawn of Clintons: As if this will surprise anyone, Chelsea is now dropping hints that she might one day very soon be interested in being handed an elective office. Shocker! I’d rather vote for a Kardashian.

Anything I missed?

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Debate Wrap: Romney By A Length

. . . and the debates keep coming. Last night was the first of two debates this week from South Carolina. It was an interesting night and it will be interesting to see if this changes the race. Romney continues to roll and Perry helped himself a lot. Newt did well, sort of. The rest, not so much. Let’s discuss.

● Loser: Juan Williams. Juan was the biggest loser because he proved he’s a race baiter extraordinaire. All he talked about was racism: cutting taxes is racist, being white is racist, not offering money to poor blacks is racist, telling blacks they need jobs is racist, the word “poor” is code word for “black” and is racist, repeating Obama’s words is racist, and criticizing Obama is racist. Juan even suggested that Romney betrayed his own race (he’s part Mexican) because he’s opposed to illegal immigration and won’t pander to Hispanics on that issue. Juan needs therapy.

● Winner: Mitt Romney. Romney won the debate, hands down. Not only did he handle the other’s attacks on him well, but he continues to come across as increasingly more conservative (and thoughtfully conservative). For example:

When they attacked his Bain Capital record, Romney pointed out that Bain bought over 100 different businesses and turned most of them around (22 ended up in bankruptcy). The steel mill he shut down in South Carolina only closed after seven years of Bain trying to turn it around, it failed because of Chinese dumping of steel, and Bain later managed to open a newer mill in Indiana. This, he pointed out, gave him solid knowledge of how the economy really works and of the threat posed by China. He also mentioned that Bain’s companies created more than 120,000 jobs.

He then mentioned that his success as Bain led to him being asked to rescue the Olympics, which he did. And during his time as Governor of Massachusetts, the state had a 4.7% unemployment rate, a balanced budget, they reduced taxes nineteen times, and filled a “rainy day” fund with $2 billion. In effect, he went from success to success to success and proved he could succeed in the real economy, succeed at fixing bureaucratic messes, and succeed in running a state dominated by Democrats. That’s a solid sales pitch which easily defused the attacks on Bain.

In addition to defending his record, Romney continues to take solid conservative positions on taxes, regulations, deficits, foreign policy, military strength and even social issues. Moreover, he keeps making excellent conservative promises in each debate. This time he promised to (1) halt ALL “Obama era regulations,” effectively reversing Obama’s term, (2) push for voluntary self-directed retirement accounts, and (3) get rid of all campaign finance laws. It was another strong night for him.

● Winner: Rick Perry. Apparently, Rick Perry has a retarded twin named Goober Perry. For some strange reason, they let Goober handle the debates up to this point. Last night, Rick stepped in and the difference was remarkable. It’s not that Rick said anything substantive, he didn’t, but for once he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Indeed, he made it clear that he favors lower taxes and less regulation. He attacked the regulatory abuses of the EPA, Obama’s Labor Board’s attacks on Boeing, and the Justice Department’s interference in state voting issues. He attacked something he called Obama’s war against organized religion. He said Obama’s claim that the border with Mexico is secure is ludicrous and that traffic only slowed because this is the worst economy in 40 years. He defended the soldiers who urinated on the Taliban corpses by contrasting this with the Taliban killing and desecrating Americans. And most interestingly, he made the point that it’s not the government’s responsibility to fix housing and said (roughly): “the best way to get the economy going is not to think about how much we can push the government into the economy, but instead to think of ways to get it out of the economy.”

If this Rick Perry had showed up early on, he would be cruising to an easy win. But he didn’t. So now the question is, does this help Perry or not? Can he steal back voters who have fled to megalomaniac Gingrich or socialist Rick Santorum? It’s not clear, but Rick probably bought his campaign more life after the debacles of Iowa and New Hampshire.

● Sort of Loser: Newt Gingrich. Gingrich is a frustrating candidate and last night really displayed why. He is capable of excellence in debating, especially at flipping sucker punches back onto hapless fools like Juan Williams and really taking them down. BUT there’s never any substance to his answers. Instead, he just makes a lot of noise attacking the questioner, mentions Ronald Reagan a dozen times, and then leaves an impression that he would do something different than Obama or the questioner. . . but he never actually tells you what he would do. Example:

Q. “Newt, should the government sell strawberry ice cream?”
A. “I find it insulting that you would ask such a blatantly biased question at a time when few Americans can afford ice cream of any type, and I certainly am not like Obama who doesn’t even realize that strawberry ice cream exists.”
Q. “But should the government sell it?”
A. “Look, I worked with Ronald Reagan and I’m not like Obama.”

Newt’s performance reeks of bread and circuses, but the clown act serves him well with a public that long ago lost the ability to spot substance. He was quite entertaining last night, but as you’ll see below, he lost because of Perry’s surge.

● Loser: Ricky Santorum. Ricky again exposed himself as a socialist and a liar. He spent the night denying his own votes and pretending he actually led the charge against the things he voted for. In one particularly galling moment, he tried to deny his vote to force states to let felons vote by (1) attacking Romney for being a governor of a state that lets felons vote (something Romney did not support or sign into law), (2) somehow wrapping himself in the Tenth Amendment and declaring this a state issue, and (3) suggesting it was racist not to let felons vote. In effect, he denied his own vote, accused Romney of doing what only Rick himself had done, accused Romney of not being a conservative because he lived in a state which did what Rick tried to force upon every state, and then flipped it around and accused Romney (and conservatism) of racism for not doing what Rick now denies that he himself did. . . by hey, it’s a state issue. This happened all night on issue after issue and I’ve come to believe Rick is a pathological liar with no sense of shame.

Rick was also rude, as usual, and debates like an angry child. He also has a habit of flip-flopping in the middle of answers. And even beyond that, Rick’s a socialist. He does not trust you to invest in your own retirement, he wants the government to do it for you. He wants to micromanage the economy and stated very clearly that he believes certain companies should be given tax breaks and others not depending on which competitive forces he thinks are at play. But don’t worry, he assured us, he is all for capitalism once he and the government have fixed the economy.

Worse yet, Rick will latch onto any liberal attack and run with it. Last night, he played the race card twice, first when he attacked Romney for wanting to keep felons from voting, which Rick suggested was racist against blacks, and when he played along with Juan Williams’ equation that “poor equals black” and thus not giving money to the poor equals racism. Rick also suggested very strongly that he supports affirmative action.

There is some speculation that Rick is playing for the VP slot, but only a fool would pick the toxic Santorum as a running mate, especially with Allen West saying yesterday that he’s open to being on the ticket.

● Loser: Ron Paul. Paul is insane and last night was just too much. Once again he suggested our problems in the Middle East were because we started it by bombing these countries. Then he played the race card by suggesting that the war on drugs is racist and that our criminal justice system is racist. So not only is Paul’s foreign and military policy suicidal, and his economic policy little more than extreme platitudes, but now he’s playing right into liberal smears on conservatism.

Conclusion

Last night helped Romney once again. Not only did he continue to seem presidential, but the anybody-but-Romney camp will remain split and in disarray. With Paul draining away 15% of the vote and Romney earning a consistent 40%, the only hope of the anybody-but-Romney forces is for one of the other three to emerge as the ABR champion. But Gingrich, Santorum and Perry are all horrid candidates, which is preventing any of them from becoming the natural challenger to Romney. Moreover, with Perry showing actual competence last night, he will likely steal back lost supporters from Santorum and Gingrich and thereby stop either of them from pulling ahead.

And in truth, I must say Romney really is earning the nomination. With each passing debate he becomes a better debater and sounds more conservative. He has slowly but surely raised my comfort level with him.

Thoughts? (fyi, there’s another debate Thursday night. . . ugh.)

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Republican Candidates Fall For Smear, Again

Some people never learn. These people are called failing Republican candidates. This time the media smeared Mitt Romney and like a pack of jackasses these candidates bought into it hook, line and sinker and promptly set about blasting Romney. . . and capitalism. Ug.

Here’s the set up. The Washington Post and other liberal outlets reported the other day that Mitt Romney said he likes to fire people. In fact, as presented by the leftist Post, the quote reads: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

That sounds kind of Grinchy. But it’s not actually what Romney said. Here’s what Romney said:

“I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.”

This is not what the Post described it as. Romney is not saying he likes firing people. He is saying he likes having choices as a consumer. He likes having the ability to change companies when he doesn’t like the service being provided and he wants Americans to have that power when it comes to health insurance companies. This is how all Americans think.

Of course, this didn’t stop the idiots from jumping on the liberal smear-version.

Rick Perry, who really is proving to be a total dipsh*t, turned the “I like to fire people” portion of the quote into a ringtone that people could download. Then he channeled Karl Marx and said this about Romney’s time at Bain:

“Allowing these companies to come in and loot the, loot people’s jobs, loot their pensions, loot their ability to take care of their families and I will suggest they’re just vultures. They’re vultures that sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass. They leave with that and they leave the skeleton. I don’t think they want someone who has killed jobs in South Carolina on the altar of making more money for themselves and their company.”

It doesn’t even make sense what Rick is saying, how could Romney make money buying companies and letting them fail? This is Oliver Stone “I know nothing about finance but I hate it” thinking. But even worse, this is Marxism. Rick is criticizing the very idea of capitalism here. He is saying that somehow it’s wrong (1) to buy another company, (2) to fire employees, and (3) to seek profit.

Gingrich piled on, saying: “If somebody comes in, takes all the money out of your company and then leaves you bankrupt while they go off with millions, that’s not traditional capitalism.” This is, of course, nonsense as well because no one gives a company away for nothing so someone else can suck millions of dollars out of it. Huntsman jumped on this too just as stupidly.

The Club for Growth, the driving force behind much of modern economic conservatism, blasted these attacks:

“[The] attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital are disgusting. Because of the efforts of Bain Capital, major companies like Staples, Domino’s Pizza, and the Sports Authority now employ thousands of people and have created billions in wealth in the private economy. Attacking Governor Romney for participating in free-market capitalism is just beyond the pale for any purported ‘Reagan Conservative.’”

Ron Paul also has properly defended Romney.

“I think they’re wrong. I think they’re totally misunderstanding the way the market works. They are either just demagoguing or they don’t have the vaguest idea how the market works. . . You save companies, you save jobs when you reorganize companies that are going to go bankrupt. And they don’t understand that.”

Gingrich, by the way, finally backed away from attacking the “I like to fire people” quote claiming that he didn’t know it had been taken out of context, but he has yet to repudiate his sudden embrace of Marxism.

This is frustrating. Once again, these candidates fall for an MSM smear without ever bothering to ask whether there is any truth to the smear. What’s worse, they knee-jerk attack Romney by blasting capitalism. All this does is reinforce liberal propaganda -- capitalism is evil and heartless and profit is bad. This is shameful and it hurts conservatism.

It’s no wonder 58% of Republicans want more choices.

Romney, by the way, had a devastating response to Gingrich and Perry:

“It is no surprise that, having spent nearly half a century in government between them, Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry have resorted to desperate attacks on a subject they don’t understand. We expect attacks on free enterprise from President Obama and his allies on the left — not from so-called ‘fiscal conservatives. Speaker Gingrich and Governor Perry seem to think that running against the private sector is the way to revive their floundering campaigns.”

Yep.

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Debate Wrap: We’re Doomed (with bonus rant)

For those of you fortunate enough to miss it, we had another debate on Saturday night. To put as positive a spin on this as possible, at least we now know six people who should not be President. The debate summary and a bonus rant follows! :)

● Overall Impression: What?! For the first half of the debate, I wondered whether I had damaged my brain. Everyone was speaking, but no one made any sense. They seemed to spout random thoughts, mindless slogans, and pure idiocy. It was nonsense. Sadly, it turns out my brain wasn’t the problem.

● Loser: Newt/Romney/Perry/Bachmann. Childish, petty and vile. They spent the night calling each other names: serial hypocrites, liars, whatever. There was NO (0.0%) substance in this debate, there was no order in this debate. It was like listening to a group of whiners trying to tell you everything they hate about their boss in 20 seconds.

● Loser: Diane Sawyer/ABC. Sawyer either has a drinking problem or mental health issues. Her questions were rambling, confused and pointless. And most of them were borderline-retarded, like when she wondered aloud: “why can’t people who disagree just come together to agree for the good of the country.” Gee, I don’t know Diane. Why don’t we agree for the good of the country that you will hand me all your money while I beat you with a Jack Daniels bottle? Maybe that will help you answer this seemingly intractable quandary?!

● Winner: Pandering. The level of pandering was pathetic. It truly was a dignity free night. They all heaped fake praise on Iowa, calling its crappy colleges and cities the best in the nation and identifying their subsidy sucking politicians as personal heroes. In hindsight, it’s a bit of a shock none of the candidates wore overalls or tried to eat corn on stage.

And that was only the beginning. Newt tried to claim Libertarian instincts when he favored forcing people to buy health insurance and he tried to win over Perry’s supporters by telling us how Perry taught him about the Tenth Amendment. Perry thinks he’s the only Christian. Santorum and Romney laughably made plays for Paul’s supporters. And Michelle Bachmann took the cake when she kept praising Herman Cain and his 9-9-9 plan which she had previously derided as his “6-6-6 plan.” She even came up with a catchy new name for her plan: “the win-win-win plan.” Now she just needs a plan to go with the name.

● Loser: Yo’ Momma So Po’ Contests. At one point, Diane Sawyer slurred a question about whether or not the candidates had ever been poor. This was a stupid identity politics question, but that didn’t matter. The idiots were off to the races.

Rick Perry grew up in a septic tank. . . Mitt Romney wasn’t poor, but by God, he had a father who taught him how to be poor! Rick Santorum not only had a father who wanted him to be poor, but he had a mother who wanted him to be poor too. . . Michele Bachmann was raised by a single mother, below the poverty level, who put Michele to work in a mine at age 13. . . Ron Paul grew up during the Depression and had to have a real job (until his wife paid for his medical school). . . and Newt didn’t always fly in private jets and get lobbyist-created $500,000 expense accounts at Tiffany’s. This was like watching stereotyped “old rich white people” in films pretending they like rap.

● Least Loser: Ricky Santorum. Rick Santorum won in the sense of someone winning a nuclear war: he came across as least radioactive.

● Double-Down Loser: Perry/Romney. Perry claimed he read Romney’s book, which we know is impossible. He claims he read something offensive in it. Romney denied that. Perry said, “yuh huh!” Romney said, “Wanna bet $10,000 on it?” Perry looked panicky and thereby proved he’s a coward who doesn’t believe the things he says. Romney looked way-out-of-touch and came across like some jerk trying to buy a poker pot. What’s worse, they were arguing about a technicality in a book no one takes seriously.

● Winner: Herman Cain. This was our first post-Cain debate. And the utter childishness we endured is a testament to the power Cain had to keep these career politicians acting like adults. I guess the presence of a businessman makes all the difference. Essentially, Cain is to the other candidates what Peyton Manning is to the 0-16 Indianapolis Colts.

● Loser: Us. Not one of these clowns should be allowed to visit the White House, much less live there. And if it weren’t for the fact Obama is 100 times worse, I would probably endorse him at this point. . . that’s how bad the performances were last night. These people are clueless, gutless panderers with no ideas, no leadership ability and no sense of self-respect. Our democracy is becoming a joke.

BONUS RANT

Yahoo annoys me. Not only do they hide stories written by their ignorant, borderline- illiterate bloggers among wire-service stories, but they’ve started messing with their news headlines. Instead of the reputable headlines you find at other places -- things like “Romney Challenges Perry to Wager” or “Bachmann Praises Cain,” which are informative and tell you whether you might find the article interesting -- Yahoo has gone to headlines like: “The Shocking Thing Romney Did” and “Bachmann’s Amazing Claim.” These are headlines for stupid people. These are headlines you see at gossip rags: “Clooney’s Humiliating Mistake”. . . “Is Famous Star Gay?”. . . “What Matt Damon Doesn’t Want You To Know.” This is crap. These are teases spit out by celebrity gossips who get off on self-importance. They are designed to trick you into opening the article. They are a declaration by Yahoo that they think their audience are suckers. This is what the MSM is becoming now that it’s lost our trust.

In Aliens Sigourney Weaver asks: “Did IQs drop sharply while I was asleep?” I get that felling all the time.

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Debate Wrap Up: 89 Seconds And Counting

The current debate system is a joke, as highlighted by Saturday’s foreign policy debate. There isn’t enough time to get anything useful from the candidates, the format encourages speaking in soundbites, the division of time is incredibly biased, and the questions asked are awful. Here is your debate wrap up and a few complaints.

● Unequal Time: If you’ve watched the debates, then you noticed there are too many people on stage to get any useful flow of discussion or meaningful answers. In fact, the candidates are being asked to speak in soundbites. But before we get to that, have you noticed that the distribution of time is highly skewed toward Romney and Perry? Here’s some proof.

A University of Minnesota study has determined how much time was given to each candidate in the last three debates before this week. Here are the results:

41 min. Romney
34 min. Perry
24 min. Bachmann
22 min. Huntsman
21 min. Cain
21 min. Gingrich
21 min. Santorum
18 min. Paul

Fascinating, isn’t it? Romney gets twice as much time as anyone except Perry. In last Tuesday’s debate, Romney actually got 25% of the total time, leaving the other seven to divide the rest. In Saturday’s debate, Ron Paul was given a grand total of 89 seconds to speak. . . less than one second for every minute of the debate.

After the debate, Bachmann’s campaign produced an email proving that CBS intentionally minimized candidates. In an email inadvertently copied to Bachmann’s staff, CBS News political analyst John Dickerson was lukewarm about a post-debate interview with Bachmann hoping he could get a higher-tiered candidate. Interestingly, he mentions in this internal e-mail that Bachmann would not be getting many questions during the debate: “let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”

Why invite her at all?

● Inadequate Time: Even beyond the issue of the time being divided unfairly, the real issue is the completely inadequate time in these debates. How in the world can you explain how you would reform health care in 30 seconds? How can you explain what’s gone wrong with Obama’s foreign policy and what you would do different to solve both Afghanistan and Pakistan in 30 seconds?

Unfortunately, this leads to speaking in soundbites, which tell us nothing. Newt in particular has mastered this art, and that’s one thing that keeps me nervous about him. Indeed, Newt’s answers all follow this pattern: Attack the moderator for asking the question and complain about being unable to answer in the short time given. Huff. “Reluctantly” agree to answer and spit out a rapid succession of key words and phrases to give the impression Newt has significant knowledge about the issue and that he was prepared to give a lengthy response before he “shockingly” learned he would only be given 30 seconds to respond. Finish with soundbite. The next time he does this, ask yourself if he actually told you anything? The answer is no, he didn’t.

Romney, by comparison, goes straight to soundbite speak. He spits out lots of words and generic thoughts that mean nothing: “I’ll be tough with people that deserve it and rebuild our relationship with our friends while maintaining America’s interests.” Does that actually mean anything? No. Being tough could be anything from nuking them to sending a harsh letter, and how do you rebuild a relationship with a friend, whoever that is, and rebuild it into what? And what are America’s interests? This is placebo-speak. Newt finishes his responses the same way.

Moreover, the questions are horrible: How do you make decisions? Do you believe in torture? Should we ever go to war? How do we “fix” Pakistan? These are softball, meaningless questions that are so vague they cannot lead to genuinely useful answers.

● Saturday’s Performances: Finally, you want to know how the debate went, so here's a summary.

● Gingrich: Gingrich won. He had excellent soundbites and sounded the most knowledgeable. He also had an excellent answer, which he and Cain seemed to share, about how to handle Iran -- covert action to disrupt their nuclear program including killing scientists and supporting Iranian opposition groups. He also said when an American joins a terrorist group and goes to war against the United States, they have no civil rights and our military can kill them just like any enemy combatant -- it's sad this even had to be explained to the MSM. Newt also has adopted Cain’s happy outlook and has nothing but love for everyone else on stage. That plays well.

● Cain: Cain had a great night because he had solid answers (though the neocons continue to mock him). In particular he led off on Iran and his answer was a home run (see Newt's answer above). He also gave a solid answer about how he would make decisions, which is listening to knowledgeable people with a variety of opinions and choosing among them. He gave a good answer on torture too, which is he wouldn’t allow torture, but he doesn’t think waterboarding is torture.

● Romney: Romney offered many platitudes. He believes in sanctions against Iran. . . and war, though he won’t call it that and he won’t say when it would become an option.

● Perry: Perry wasn’t drunk or drugged, but he made it clear he still doesn’t understand the difference between Texas and Washington -- his answer to how he would make decisions was that he knows good people in Texas. He had a great applause line about zeroing out foreign aid, BUT he actually backtracked immediately and said each country could then explain why they needed aid. . . so “zero” is actually “no change.”

● Bachmann: Bachmann tried to bury us with minutia by listing lots of troop numbers. Yawn. She also said the US has nowhere to put people it captures in the field, which is laughably stupid.

● Santorum: Santorum exposed yet another serious flaw in his thinking when he said he would only hire people who think like he does. Those are called “yes men,” and Santorum sounds increasingly like someone who should never be trusted with power. He also continues to whine that if all those evil Republicans in Washington hadn’t opposed him over and over, the world would be nearly perfect today.

● Paul: Paul didn’t promise to disarm. To the contrary he said that if we need to go to war, then he would go to Congress, get the authority and win it and get it over with.

● Huntsman: I’m going to say something nice about Huntsman, though it pains me. Huntsman was more honest than the others. On instances like how to handle China to the elimination of foreign aid, the other candidates said things to rile up the pitchfork crowd, but always quietly reversed that in the small print. Huntsman was the only one to be honest about these issues and went straight to the small print. For that, he deserves credit. Unfortunately, his foreign policy sounds a lot like Obama’s.

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Debate Wrap: The Education of CNBC

Another debate is in the books. We learned little. CNBC made fools of themselves. One candidate imploded spectacularly. A couple impressed. And the rest were there too!

●Epic Loser: Rick Perry. Do you remember the “agony of defeat” guy from Wide World of Sports? Rick Perry just topped him. For the first half of the night, Perry proved he doesn’t realize that being President won’t be like being Governor of Texas where even the Democrats are solid conservatives. Then it happened. Perry proudly claimed he would eliminate three departments if elected. He named two. . . and then he froze. For about a minute, he was unable to tell us which agency he passionately wanted to eliminate, and he couldn’t think of a way to end his sentence either. He just stood there stunned like Wiley Coyote with his arm pointed at Ron Paul and two fingers stuck up in the air. Finally, he said, “Oops.” Then someone suggested “the EPA” and he heartily agreed, only to admit a moment later that wasn’t the agency and he still couldn’t think of the name of his nemesis. Rick. . . quit.

●Winner: Newt Gingrich. Newt was the big winner, just edging out Cain. Newt was on fire. He was calm and brilliant. He showed both the breadth and depth of his knowledge and he took down the CNBC hacks with devastating wit:

● He took down Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer with: “it’s sad the media doesn’t report accurately on how the economy works.” Both Cramer and Bartiromo had shown a lot of economic ignorance, like when Cramer demanded from each candidate: “do you really believe a company can make a profit and create jobs at the same time!!!” Uh. You pretty much have to Jim or you fail and all the jobs go away.

● Or when he blasted Maria’s ridiculous question asking the candidates to tell her in 30 seconds how they would fix health care (18% of the economy): “My colleagues have done a terrific job of answering an absurd question!!” Maria didn’t like that.

● Or when he crushed a sleazy question by John King on what Gingrich told Fannie and Freddie (King wrongly implied Gingrich was paid $300,000 by Fannie and Freddie to act as their lobbyist): “I gave them advice which they absolutely didn’t follow.”

Ultimately, Gingrich won because he gave the strongest performance. This will continue to solidify him as the alternative to Cain for conservatives, which will keep him in the race and may let him overtake Cain when Perry/Bachman/Paul and Santorum start quitting. Don’t be surprised if he draws neck and neck with Cain soon.

●Winner: Herman Cain. Everyone wanted to know how Cain would handle THE question. He was brilliant. He tossed it away by pointing out the public wants to hear about important matters and said America deserves better than character assassination. An upset Maria Bartiromo immediately tried to assassinate his character with the sleazy tactic of asking Romney if he would hire Cain given Cain’s answer. The audience booed her. This is significant because it tells us Republican primary voters despise the gotcha game the media is playing with Cain and want to move on.

Beyond that, Cain explained why his 9-9-9 plan works: (1) it eliminates $430 billion Americans waste manipulating the tax code each year, (2) it eliminates hidden taxes, and (3) it gets Washington out of the game of picking winners and losers. He argued it would make America more competitive against China: “the tax code is what sends jobs overseas.” He also shot down the argument it would result in higher rates by first questioning the stupidity of the idea that this was a unique problem to his plan (this argument can be used against any plan) and then by saying the transparency of his plan would make it harder for politicians to get away with raising rates -- an argument against the tax code tinkerers.

Cain was jovial and knowledgeable -- something which tells us he’s not affected by the harassment issue. My one criticism is he needs to speak more broadly than just his 9-9-9 plan or it will start to sound like snake oil... it can’t cure everything.

●Winner: Ron Paul. Ron Paul was excellent. He made the great point that the areas where we have problems (housing bubble, student loans, stock market bubbles, health care) are all the direct result of government intervention and government money. And when the government helps one group it often hurts another, such as when the government keeps interest rates low to help banks, it cheats the elderly who rely on interest for income. The CNBC crew were oddly stunned to hear this. Call it a teachable moment.

●Draw: Romney. On one hand, Romney’s a clear winner because he continues to come across as acceptable. But I suspect he’s actually a loser. His current strategy is like a prevent defense in football: rather than trying to win the nomination, he’s just trying to survive while the others all lose the nomination. The problem with this strategy is he’s letting others decide his fate for him. Right now, that works because people haven’t made up their minds -- so 25% support keeps him tied for the lead. But once the other 75% begin to settle on one or two candidates, 25% won’t be enough and he will have blown his chances to win people over.

This strategy also confirms the fear conservatives have that Romney has no leadership skills. You see this whenever he gets criticized because he starts to dance because he’s afraid to defend his beliefs. He had no response when CNBC pointed out that his tax plan accepts the Democratic premise that progressive taxes are good and the implicit class warfare arguments. At one point, he firmly agreed with Ron Paul about health care, only to turn to Jello moments later when he was asked if that means he no longer believes there’s a role for government to provide insurance to the uninsured.

His answer to the Cain question also demonstrates the problem. Bartiromo sleazily asked him to attack Cain (“would you hire Cain as a CEO given his answers”). A leader would have seized the moment: “I don’t know what Herm did or not, BUT I think it’s obscene the way the media.....” Romney didn’t do that. Instead, he said it wasn’t his place to comment. If he doesn’t think it’s his place to comment when an American citizen is being slandered by the media, then why would we want him as a our leader?

Last night, it struck me for the first time that this prevent defense wasn’t working anymore. Romney seemed a lot less relevant than before. So I suspect he may eventually look back on last night as the moment his candidacy started to slip away.

●Loser: Maria Bartiromo/CNBC. CNBC sells itself as a no-nonsense pro-business channel. Their claim is based on having more knowledgeable reporters and deeper analysis than others. Last night was full of nonsense “gotcha” questions, cheap shots, and whiny, abusive and shrill comments. Maria and Jim Cramer were particularly rude and proved they don’t actually understand economics.

●Loser: Michele Bachmann. Bachmann continues to talk about her tax plan, which doesn’t exist. If you ask her any question, she whines her way through all of her talking points, always in the same order, and she’s never seemed less relevant than last night.

●Loser: Rick Santorum. Rick can’t win the nomination. So presumably, he’s playing to raise his profile for fundraising purposes. But Rick is not helping himself. In the last couple debates he was simply obnoxious, talking over people and making unfair attacks. Last night, he smugly fell in love with himself. Then he declared himself an advocate of the poor by throwing the Republican Party under the bus. He didn’t understand what “picking winners and losers” means or why it’s bad. He also chastised the others for wanting to cause problems with China, after saying last time he wanted to start a trade war with them. He also promises subsidies to his favored industries while saying his plan (which also doesn’t exist) would eliminate subsidies. And yet, Mr. Inconsistent attacks the others for not being consistent in unspecified ways.

●Loser: CNBC. Finally, CNBC gets a thumbs down for not streaming this over the net.

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2012 Campaign Weekly Round Up!

Lots of interesting news this week from the 2012 Campaign, one item in particular has me truly fascinated. . . a debate! Then there’s the other stuff. Bachmann continues to implode. Perry offers a plan to entrench liberalism. Santorum has indigestion. And George Will slapped Mitt Romney. Read on. . .

● Item One: Lincoln Douglas II (electric boogaloo)! The big COOL news is this: Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain have agreed to engage in a “modified Lincoln-Douglas debate” in Texas on November 5.

Bill O’Sullivan, the treasurer of the Texas Tea Party Patriots explains that: “We initially wanted a forum with all of the candidates. But when we heard Gingrich say he wanted a more serious debate, like the Lincoln–Douglas debates, we wanted to do that, especially since watching the recent superficial debates has been frustrating.”

The debate will involve both men going back and forth, “in a respectful way,” with no moderator. Sadly, no network has agreed to broadcast this debate (HINT: INTERNET BILL!!!), but I would LOVE to see this.

● Item Two: Flatsnake Oil Rick Perry. Last week Rick Perry told us he wants a flat tax. This week he finally released the rate. Who knows what next week's fortune cookie might bring?! His plan apparently calls for a 20% flat tax with a $12,500 deduction per individual OR household (plus all the usual deductions). This is a HORRIBLE idea:

○ 1) This makes the problem of 47% of Americans not paying any taxes much worse. This plan takes at least another 48 million people off the tax roles, which increases the number who pay no taxes to 62%. Way to entrench liberalism Rick!

○ 2) This doesn’t produce anywhere near the income needed. Hence, it is fantasy meant to dazzle you only. Do not take internally.

○ 3) This creates a massive marriage penalty, something Republicans worked for decades to fix.

○ 4) Perry's deductions only apply if you aren't rich, which he defines as making $500,000 a year. In other words, Perry plays right into the Democrats' class warfare strategy.

○ 5) Ricky also doesn't address what constitutes income or valid deductions, which is where people with lobbyist blood (like Perry) make sure their friends like GE pay no taxes.

Somebody drag Rick back to Texas before he hurts himself.

● Item Three: Irritable Bowel. Ricky Santorum says a Ron Paul nomination would “give me indigestion.” Ironically, that’s how I feel about Santorum. . . only the pain would be lower and involves too many tacos. In fact, I would prefer the rollercoaster of a Paul presidency and his attempts to dismantle the government to the stifling idiocy of a Santorum presidency and his Jihad against the scary, essence-sapping homosexuals in our midsts.

● Item : Mutiny On The Bachmann. For months now, Bachmann has been experiencing a steady flow of staffers quitting her campaign. Many have taken the highly-unusual step of calling her a liar on the way out. Indeed, I recall one of her senior Congressional staffers very politely explaining that he still supported her, but he just got sick of trying to explain away her constant lies and fictions to the press.

Now Bachmann’s entire New Hampshire staff has quit on her and badmouthed her in the process. She promptly went on the radio and denied this had happened and tried to blame other campaigns for smearing her, going so far as to say that she had “called the New Hampshire staff” and they “said that isn't true.” This was yet another lie. So yesterday, the ex-staff released a letter in which they describe the campaign as “rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel.”

● Item : Duller Than Dirt Squared. George F. Will has always struck me as the dullest man alive. In fact, I’m pretty sure the first question doctors ask about coma patients is “were they listening to Will?” So when the Willster tells you someone else is dull, you should listen. You’ve probably stumbled upon the essence of dull, or at least dull extract. Will just slammed Mitt Romney by describing him as the GOP’s own Michael Dukakis: “[Cain] is rising as more and more Republicans come to the conclusion that the Republican Party has found its Michael Dukakis -- a technocratic Massachusetts governor running on competence, not ideology.” Ouch! Careful George, Mitt might strongly disagree with your premise in a very stern letter.

● Item : Rolling In The Mud. I can't tell you how little I respect Karl Rove. If he gives you an opinion, you can put money on it being wrong. He’s now after Herman Cain because that's how Rove stays relevant. To that end, he’s declaring Cain “finished” because of five “gaffes” Cain supposedly made. Three of these involve foreign policy minutia, which doesn’t resonate with people. And the other two are Rove’s interpretation of Cain’s statements and require you to assume Cain doesn’t know the difference between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” and doesn’t understand his own 9-9-9 plan. Obviously, this is bull.

However, Herm is making a mistake: he’s letting the establishment’s yammering heads get him frustrated and he’s shooting back. Cain needs to ignore them and stay positive -- counterattacking should be done by Cain's friends, not Cain. When the candidate gets dragged down into the mud, they cannot win no matter what they say. So let the pigs like Rove wallow . . . no one listens to them anyway.

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Jokers To The Left of Me, Clowns To The Right

Last night’s debate was a disgrace. Newt tried to blame CNN at the end for using a back and forth format that encouraged bickering. He’s wrong. CNN had nothing to do with it. Several candidates (including Newt) made conscious decisions to act like jackasses. They acted disgracefully and honestly need to drop out.

● Winner: Obama. The big winner last night was Obama as the Republicans as a group came across like liars, fools and angry children. Also, our biggest idiots (Santorum, Bachmann) both fell for Obama’s Iran-Mexico diversion even as everyone else on the planet has decided Holder made it up. Bravo.

● Not Loser: Mitt Romney. If you look at Romney in isolation, he came across as knowledgeable and well-briefed, and defended himself well. On the minus side, I don’t recall anything he said and he never came across as conservative. But the real problem last night was the nastiness of the entire debate. This was a debate filled with cheap shots, lies, unprofessional conduct and childish behavior. Even though his performance was solid, Romney gets downgraded for guilt by association because no one looked good. I do, however, give Romney a slight win over Cain because Romney seemed more in control.

● Not Loser: Herman Cain. Cain was smart, knowledgeable and relentlessly positive. He defended himself well and always remained a gentleman. He displayed his sense of humor about electrifying the fence to Mexico and during the unfair attacks on his 9-9-9 plan. He proposed a real healthcare solution (not just “repeal ObamaCare”), i.e. allowing insurance across state borders, loser pays laws, and allowing patients and doctors to make decisions. And he refused to apologize for telling the OccupyWallStreet kids that it’s their own fault they don’t have jobs -- he said they should blame Obama, not bankers.

But the mud was too thick last night. Each of the others used numbers from a leftist think tank and liberal arguments to attack his 9-9-9 plan. It was bizarre to hear conservative Ron Paul defend progressive tax rates. Bachmann and Santorum falsely claimed Cain’s sales tax is a VAT. Newt pretended it was hopelessly complex. And Romney and Perry tried to mix in state taxes to confuse the plan. Essentially, seven supposed conservatives either knowingly lied or used the liberal ideas they have themselves criticized to attack a solidly conservative plan. Even worse, these attacks were done in smarmy, condescending ways. It was shameful. I thought the pile-on effect hurt Cain, though CNN's Gloria Borger thought Cain defended himself extremely well.

A bigger problem came when he suggested he would negotiate with terrorists. He actually said he would consider a hostage trade for a captured American soldier depending on the circumstances -- and the truth is every leader negotiates with terrorists. But since this was hypocrite night, the others jumped on this even though they would do the exact same thing. Cain backpedaled. He should have stood his ground. The public can accept views with which they disagree, but they don’t like backpedaling. Cain also seemed to backpedal on the TARP issue. He says he supported the concept, but not the execution. Personally, I don’t think that plays well for a man who is known as a straight shooter.

● Ron Paul: Not much new to report here. Paul wants to bring the troops home from Korea and Japan, causing an arms race in Asia. Other than that, he was mostly right all night, but still 10% insane. Last night’s secret word was “inflation.”

● Loser: Newt. Newt reminded us why people don’t like or trust him. He claims to be an outsider, yet he attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and then advocated “targeted” tinkering with the current code instead. Welcome back to K Street Newt, we missed you.

Then he got caught lying about supporting the individual mandate for health insurance when he attacked Romney for including such a mandate in RomneyCare. Romney shot back saying he got the idea from Newt. Newt acted outraged and called that “a lie.” Except it wasn’t. Newt danced for a while and then had to admit he did in fact support and advocate the idea. And he tried to explain his lie away by saying Romney had falsely said “Newt” came up with the idea when it was really “Newt AND the Heritage Foundation.” Only a corrupt politician would think that’s a valid distinction.

Newt also pandered to the Religious Right by saying he wouldn’t trust anyone who doesn’t pray. . . though he didn’t specify how many minutes of prayer are required. Finally, he tried to blame Anderson Cooper for his own misbehavior and that of the other children.

● Total Loser: Rick Perry. Perry’s performance was pathetic. He interrupted and spoke over people. He took nasty cheap shots all night and even went back to the same ones after they were discredited. He got booed repeatedly. He kept talking about his “plan,” which he apparently released last week or might release next week, depending on which Perry you believe. The only economic idea he could mention was drilling for oil. He tried to attack Romney for hiring illegal aliens, which turned out to be a contracted lawn service and then tried to leverage this into making himself sound tough on illegal immigration -- until Romney pointed out that Perry wrote an editorial supporting amnesty. Perry also got caught lying about supporting TARP. He tried to blame all of Texas’ problems on the federal government, but offered no solutions. He smugly tried to redefine conservatism to fit him. And he tried to go toe to toe with Romney in verbal gotcha and got destroyed. The boy is stoopid. Rick needs to find an exit strategy pronto.

● Total Loser: Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is proving to be a politician in the worst sense. She's a clueless hypocrite who doesn't understand the Constitution. She's incapable of answering direct questions. Her whole platform depends on emotional appeals based on irrelevancies. And worst of all, she speaks in disingenuous generalities and then attacks anyone who won’t ante up to her pandering. Here are some examples.

She attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for being too extreme and then proposed eliminating the entire tax code. Huh? And as usual, she gave no hint what she would replace it with. Why? Two reasons. First, she doesn’t have a clue. Secondly, the only thing it could be replaced with is a sales tax. . . like the one she keeps slamming Herman Cain for proposing. Also, despite being a former attorney for the IRS (which actually means nothing -- she was just a debt collector), she doesn’t understand the difference between corporate income tax, a sales tax and a value added tax. And after attacking Cain's 9-9-9 plan for “raising taxes on millions of people,” she then said she wants 100% of Americans to pay taxes -- which would raise taxes on at least 145 million people. Also note that she hasn't proposed even a hint of a plan how she would do this.

Bachmann jumped on Cain for the supposed “negotiate with terrorists” thing even after he clarified his statement and denied that’s what he meant. Then she tried to one-up herself by stupidly claiming she’s so tough she wants to demand “reimbursement” from Iraq and Libya for what it cost us to invade both countries -- that's how World War II started.

She also dubiously claimed she will ban immigrants from getting “any government benefits” (which would violate the Constitution) and she equally dubiously claimed she could fix the “anchor baby” problem through legislation without changing the 14th Amendment.

● Total Loser: Rick Santorum. Santorum is a disgrace. He's a whiny fake who tries to disrupt the other candidates by talking over them, by mischaracterizing their statements and plans, by hitting them with liberal talking points, and by making illogical, disingenuous, contradictory and hypocritical attacks. All he’s done is poison the debates. And for the record, while Rick claims he’s the only one ever to win in a swing state (cough cough Romney and Bachmann) and he claims he did better than Bush, let me remind you how his last election went: 2006 Bob Casey 59%, Rick Santorum 41%. Get bent Rick.

Conclusion

What really struck me last night was the difference between the professional politicians and the businessmen. The businessmen kept trying to promote their ideas and tried to stay positive, though Cain succeeded more than Romney at that. The professionals (excluding Paul) used gotcha questions, false logic, cynical emotional appeals, lies, distortions and distinctions so fine they were nonexistent. They were angry. They offered nothing but the same old, same old. And frankly, it made me sick watching them. Am I wrong?

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Yet Another Debate Wrap Up

Last night saw yet another fascinating Republican debate. Most of the attacks were on Cain or Romney. Perry attacked Romney as did Bachmann. Paul and Santorum attacked Cain. Huntsman focused on Perry. Gingrich focused on the Fed. Romney focused on Obama. Cain focused on his own plans. And the moderators attacked Romney, Cain and Perry. In the end, I think Cain was a huge winner, even though that may not be immediately apparent, and the race is now between Romney and Cain.

● Cain: Cain needed to show he could take the pressure of being number two. He did. At no point did he fall flat on his face or lack for answers. His two worst moments came:

● When a moderator asked why he told the unemployed it was their own fault they didn't have jobs. This mischaracterized Cain’s comment, which was aimed at the idiots squatting on Wall Street, but it still sounded bad and his explanation wasn’t particularly strong.

● When Ron Paul attacked him for being on the Kansas City Fed, Cain gave an ok (not great) answer that the Fed didn’t act then like it does now. That won’t satisfy Fed-deniers.

Cain defended other attacks quite nicely, such as:

● When a moderator attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for raising only $2 trillion in revenues instead of the $2.2 trillion claimed, Cain shot back with one of the best lines of the night: “The problem with that analysis is that it’s incorrect.”

● When a moderator attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for being “regressive” and making “food and milk and beer” more expensive, Cain made the solid point that eliminating the payroll tax would more than offset that. I like that he didn't apologize for imposing a “regressive” tax.

● When Romney attacked Cain’s 9-9-9 plan for being too simple and claiming simple is not good, Cain turned this on Romney by asking him if he knows all 59 points in his own plan. Romney didn’t and instead came up with the “7 pillars” of his plan and thereby proved that simple is better.

● Several of the underlings jumped on the idea Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would give Congress a new source of revenue by creating a national sale tax, but this only emphasized how deeply entrenched in the system their mindsets are. Following their logic, we shouldn't try anything.

Cain had a brilliant line too: “The capital gains tax is a wall that stands between people with ideas and people with money.”

Cain didn’t blow anybody away, but he did show solid skills and he proved he won't trip himself up. He also did such a masterful job of selling his 9-9-9 plan that every other candidate talked about it constantly, as did the moderators, and it even came up in questions that didn’t involve him. He made his 9-9-9 plan THE take away from this debate and that will prove to be a huge win, even if it isn’t immediately obvious.

● Romney: Romney just needed to be smooth and for the most part he succeeded. BUT the problem with Romney was on full display again last night. He would say something great and then he would keep talking until he backtracked out of it. He also imploded during the TARP question because he danced so long around whether he would do another Wall Street bailout that it became clear not only that he would do another bailout, but it was also clear he was trying to lie to us.

Newt also had a solid hit on Romney by pointing out that “on page 47” of his plan (a slap at Romney’s inability to describe his 59 point plan) Romney plays into Obama’s class warfare argument by promising capital gains tax cuts “to people who don’t have capital gains.” Romney missed Newt’s point and tried to defend this by saying he favors the middle class because the rich can take care of themselves. . . conceding Obama's case.

In the plus category, Perry took a shot at Romney over RomneyCare being like ObamaCare, but Romney’s defense was even better this time than last: (1) we didn’t raise taxes like Obama does, (2) we only insured poor people, we didn’t try to force everyone onto it, (3) this is a state issue, and (4) Massholes like the system 3-1. Whether those are true points or not, they remained un-refuted and made this a dead issue.

Romney also had a great shot at Perry, Bachmann and Huntsman when he said, “I would not be in this race if I had spent my whole life in government.” He then detailed some of the companies he founded.

● Perry: Perry really needed to shine to stop his nosedive. He failed. He barely spoke last night and when he did it was all generic. In particular, he mishandled his pending economic plan. He didn’t seem to know what’s in it and he just kept promising that he would release it soon as if he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. When it was pointed out that he should be able to tell us what’s in it, he responded with a very bad answer, claiming he’d only had eight weeks to work on it, whereas Romney’s had six years. Frankly a candidate who understands what they believe can detail an economic plan off the top of their head.

The moderators also smacked Perry by saying that the way Texas develops business is similar to Solyndra. Perry’s response was basically “everybody’s doin’ it,” which will only add more fire to the cronyism charge.

● Paul: Ron Paul had another bad debate. He had little to say as Newt stole his thunder. When he spoke, he made good points, but they weren’t memorable.

● Gingrich: Newt was the most interesting last night. He repeatedly tried to win over Paul supporters with angry broadside attacks on Ben Bernanke and the Fed, and he tried to win over Palin supporters by defending her even though no one else had mentioned her. Neither group are traditionally Newt people, so he’s clearly trying to branch out. Paul seemed a little stunned by this.

● Santorum: Santorum needs to go. He kept interrupting and he bizarrely continues to paint himself as an outsider. He also did things like blast everyone at the table as insiders and then (in the same sentence) attacked Cain for his lack of experience. Huh? Also, after blasting all the horrible insiders, he bragged how his years as an insider would let him pass his plan. . . whatever that plan actually is. Then he said he wanted to go to war with China, though I think he meant he wanted to fight a trade war, which isn’t much smarter. And his economic plan seems to be to make people get married.

● Bachmann: Bachmann and Santorum came across as lifer politicians with bland platitudes and repeatedly using candidate speak, e.g. “I just spoke to a man who told me blah blah blah.” This is something annoying people do when they've been in politics too long. Bachmann also needs to stop telling us she has 5 biological kids and 24 foster kids and that she was an attorney for the I.R.S. It's become like Al Bundy talking about scoring 4 touchdowns in one game.

Bachmann's attack on Cain's plan also struck me as a negative. She said if you turn Cain’s 9-9-9 plan around, “the devil is in the details.” Ha ha ha. First, that's trite and she has no comedic timing. Secondly, how does that make sense? The beauty of Cain’s plan is the lack of hidden details, it’s the tinker-with-the-current-system advocates who are playing with details. Third, what does she know of details as her “plan” (a term I use loosely) has none -- it's pure platitude. She should join Santorum on the short bus back home.

● Huntsman: Huntsman remains a sniveling jerk. He takes hypocritical cheap shots and radiates smugness, and he continues to adopt Democratic rhetoric to attack the candidates. Last night he said Cain’s 9-9-9 plan sounded like a pizza price, which is a standard attack you’ll find in the leftist blog world.

● Speculation: Finally, there was more evidence for my theory that Cain and Romney have a deal. Cain inexplicable bailed Romney out on TARP and then while seemingly criticizing Romney in the direct question section actually gave Romney an open platform to discuss his economic plan. Romney then used his question against Bachmann, when tactically, he should have blasted Cain. My guess is Cain doesn’t think he’ll win, so he’s agreed he will eventually bow out and endorse Romney in exchange for becoming the VP.

Thanks to everyone who participated last night and thanks to T-Rav and his sockpuppets!

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Tuesday Night At The Debates!!

In case you haven’t heard, there’s another Republican debate tonight -- 7:00 pm EST, on BloombergTV. So watch for periodic interruptions from Hugo Chavez Bloomberg himself as he tries to declare himself President. Tonight’s debate will be in New Hamster and could be fairly interesting. This will be Cain’s first test as the field’s punching bag. Perry needs to prove he’s not finished. Romney needs to find Waldo. And the rest need to find graceful exit strategies. Join us here for a play by play. . . join us.. In the meantime, here’s an update on recent events and some bad boxing nicknames:

● Mitt "the Rambler" Romney: Romney has been mocking Obama for creating a “Where’s Waldo economy” in which “finding a good paying job in this economy is harder than finding Waldo in one of his books.” This is of course a horrible analogy made about a book that hasn’t been culturally relevant in 15 years. Nice work Romney. . . way to show us groovy cats that you’re the bees knees.

At the Citadel, he gave a foreign policy speech in which said: “This century must be an American Century.”.... which is a mutual fund. After that it got a little confusing. He has four principles that he claims he will follow in foreign policy, but these were extremely generic. He will use American power with clarity and resolve to support our friends and promote capitalism. He intends to be a leader in multinational organizations, and he wants a strong military. You tell me what that means.

● The Herminator: Cain continues to surge in the polls. Most national polls have him in second place and climbing, though a couple had him in first place. Two separate polls released this week have him moving into second place in liberal New Hampshire: Romney 38%, Cain 20%, Paul 13%, Perry 4%. This will make Cain the candidate all the other conservative will shoot at, just as they attacked Perry before him. How he handles the heat could well determined his future. A failure tonight would likely stop his momentum dead and kill his candidacy.

Meanwhile, in establishment land, The Washington Post is trying to mock him as the “flavor of the month” and scoffs that “conservatives will tire of him at some point and once again search for the next big thing.” Thus proving that the Post is indeed clueless about conservatives. We are looking for a good candidate, we don't have ADD like liberals do.

It also scoffs that Cain can't fool the Post about his lack of foreign policy experience and it notes that candidates who don’t know foreign policy always fail. . . assuming you ignore Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush II and Obama, each of whom had squat in the way of foreign policy experience when they took over.

● Texas Trainwreck Rick Perry: Most pundits are saying Perry needs to win big tonight or he’s finished. For his part, Perry is taking this debate very seriously. He has reportedly been practicing against a stand-in for Romney. . . who did indeed dress like Waldo. He also apparently intends to follow Commentarama’s advice and issue a “significant economic plan” next week. Personally, I’d release it right now, before the debate, but what do I know?

Perry went through a bit of an embarrassment last week when Perry supporter Evangelical leader Robert Jeffress decided to tell the world that Mormonism is a cult and thus, we should not vote for Romney. Perry’s campaign quickly issued a statement disavowing this comment: “The governor does not believe Mormonism is a cult,” and urged us to vote for Romney. Jeffress is now being compared to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

● St. Ron Paul: In a bit of a shocker, Ron Paul won an informal straw poll at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit. He won 37% of the vote. Cain came in second with 23%. Perry got fourth with 8% and Romney scored sixth with 4%. Paul isn’t exactly known for being a darling of the Religious Right, so how do we account for this? FRC leaders say Paul's support came from younger FRCVVS attendees. . . which doesn’t really answer the question, does it? Could Paul have more supporters than we think? Should we prepare for a Paul Presidency? Tune in November 2012 and find out!

● Jon Super-Butch Huntsman: Huntsman continues to pound his chest to prove to us that he’s not an effete liberal. He’s now promising to bomb Iran, and no, I’m not really kidding: “I cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iran. If you want an example of when I would use American force, it would be that.” To quote the late Al Davis, “just nuke ‘em baby!”

● Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and the other guys whose names I’ve forgotten, all continue to exist.

● The End Is Nigh: Finally, nothing you’ve just read matters. The Detroit Lions are 5-0, which means the world is ending. The Mayans were right. We’re screwed.

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Suckers For Chris Christie

Christ Christie is reconsidering whether or not to run for the Presidency. Ok. I don’t think the Democrats will give him the nod over Obama, but he’s entitled to try. Wait, he’s thinking about running as a Republican? And there are conservatives pushing him? Grrr.

Rick Perry is flaming out. After Perry’s horrible debate performance, Herman Cain cleaned his clock in the Florida straw poll (37% Cain, 15% Perry) and Romney took him out in Michigan (51% Romney, 17% Perry). This has created an opening if someone else with strong name recognition wants to jump in. And to some people that means Christie.

Apparently, several big money types, including Rupert Murdoch and the billionaire Koch brothers have spoken to Christie about running. A group of 50 business leaders including Ken Langone, Jack Welch, Charles Schwab and Mort Zuckerman appealed to him in person. Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has been pimping him as well. So has The Weekly Standard and Bill Kristol. Even Ann Coulter, normally a thoughtful conservative, is a fan of Chris Christie and encouraged him to run as recently as this summer.

Mitch Daniels, who is generally conservative, has been agitating for someone new to jump into the race as well, and he just had a private meeting with Christie. Said Daniels of Christie, “he’s different, right?” Yes he is, but not in a good way.

Listen conservative suckers, this has to stop. Christie is barely even a RINO, much less a conservative. They think he’s a pro-life conservative who appeals to conservatives, moderates and liberals because he has Tea Party ideas, but isn’t ideological and won’t “demagogue” on issues like abortion or immigration. But that's not true. Consider these FACTS (read: not delusions) about Christie:

● Christie has been a tax raiser. His first budget included $250 million in new taxes and eliminated $1.3 billion in property tax refunds.

● Christie has been a big spender. Christie claims he cut spending by 9% ($2.56 billion), but spending actually increased by 6%. And even that relies on gimmicks like delaying $3 billion in payments a couple weeks into the next budget and forcing $1.2 billion in spending down to the local level through unfunded mandates.

● Christie took $1 billion in stimulus money, after promising he wouldn’t. And he borrowed $750 million to build schools in Democratic districts, after promising he would never borrow money.

● Christie took on the unions right? Wrong. There don’t appear to have been any job cuts and salaries went up 7% per year.

● He believes in global warming. In the past, he claimed he wasn’t sure, but now he claims he’s always been sure:

“In the past I’ve always said that climate change is real and it’s impacting our state. (lie) There’s undeniable data that CO2 levels and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are increasing. (wrong) This decade, average temperatures have been rising. (wrong) Temperature changes are affecting weather patterns and our climate. (wrong) . . . When you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it’s time to defer to the experts. (false logic)”

● Christie favors unspecified gun control because he “wants to make sure that we don’t have an abundance of guns out there.”

● Christie favors amnesty for illegal aliens:

“Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime. The whole phrase of ‘illegal immigrant’ connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime. . . It is not.”

* * *

“What I support is making sure that the federal government plays each and every one of its roles: Securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and having an orderly process — whatever that process is — for people to gain citizenship. It’s a very easy issue to demagogue and I’m just not going to participate in that.”

● He appointed liberals to all of his key positions. He appointed liberal Democrat Paula Dow as Attorney General of New Jersey. He appointed a global warming enthusiast as Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. He appointed an ObamaCare supporter as Commissioner of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

● He tried to appoint a Kinseyan (sexual perversion advocacy, masquerading as science) as Director of the Department of Children and Families.

● He fired the only conservative in his cabinet (Brett Schundler, his Commissioner of Education) for failing to grab Stimulus money which Christie had previously promised he would not accept.

So how is he different than Obama?

Let me say this to the conservative glitterati: do your damn research! Stop falling for soundbites and false images. Politicians have records and you need to examine them. If you don’t, then you end up choosing the wrong people, people who will destroy and discredit conservatism. . . people like your latest crush, Chris Christie.

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Last Night At The Debate

Last night saw yet another Republican debate. Who won? Who lost? Who should quit now? And a couple surprise thoughts! All this and more will be yours in this very special episode of Last Night At The Debate.

● Winner: Romney came across as confident and conservative. He ran to the right of Perry on immigration and states rights. He had a solid control of the facts and some seriously pithy moments. For example, he latched onto one of Perry’s backtracks and said: “there’s a Rick Perry out there saying [the opposite of what you just said,] you better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that.” Everyone laughed and Perry had no idea how to respond. Romney won a lot of people last night.

● Winner: The Hermanator was brilliant. He’s got a strong set of ideas and a compelling personality. His 9/9/9 plan is so well designed from a marketing perspective that it’s the only plan anyone remembers. His discussion of his cancer truly personalized why ObamaCare needs to go. His attack on the EPA “regulating dust” was one of the best received moments all night. And he offered a strong, clear and moral foreign policy. He not only had a command of the issues, he had a commanding presence. Cain should leapfrog Bachmann and maybe Perry if Perry falls as far as seems likely.

● Toast: Put a fork in Rick Perry, he’s done. Seriously. . . he’s the Hindenburg of candidates. Perry came across like he was drugged. He looked intimidated and sleepy. He sounded pissy. He never answered a single question, choosing instead to make whining attacks on Romney. All that was missing was Nixonian sweat to make the total implosion complete. I honestly expect this debate finished him. Consider these self-inflicted wounds:

● He stands by giving illegal aliens instate college rates. Perry tried to argue these people would be an economic burden unless they got education. Then Santorum slapped him down by pointing out that Perry was subsidizing illegals at rates people in the other 56 states can’t get. Zap.

● Perry tried to claim opponents of subsidizing illegal aliens “have no heart.” Well, f@#$ you, sir. Frank Lutz’s focus group HATED that.

● Perry had a couple good attacks on Romney but they fell flat because he kept tripping over his words. All night, he sounded a lot like Bush when Bush got into trouble in debates.

● Perry’s attempt to dodge his horrid answer on Social Security was a disaster. Now he claims he was only talking about creating state programs for government workers rather than privatizing the whole system. . . which Romney pointed out isn’t what Perry said in his book.

● Loser: Fox News. The acoustics were horrible, like the debate was held in a cave. Everything echoed and was hard to hear. Their format was horrible and created a dull, disjointed debate: (1) they asked individual questions of candidates, which prevented any sort of back and forth, and (2) they took so long getting to each you all but forgot about people. And they wasted time on stupid and confusing Google promotions. CNN made Fox look like amateurs.

● Toast: Michele Bachmann all but vanished last night, and she had problems. In particular, they re-opened the vaccine wound by questioning her story about the Gardasil vaccine causing retardation in a 12 year old. She tried to distance herself from that by claiming she was just repeating what she had been told -- not a good answer. She was also asked why she avoided answering a question at the last debate about how much of a person’s income they should be allowed to keep. She responded first by saying she wanted to answer and her answer would have been “all of it” (implying a 0% tax rate). Then she immediately said that “of course” some of it is needed to run the government. . . and then she dodged the question a second time.

● Winner/Loser: Gary Johnson had a couple good moments, including the best line of the night: “my neighbor’s dog has produced more shovel-ready jobs than this administration.” BUT he came across as highly uncomfortable and he said he would cut the military budget by 43%, which probably kills him. He’s like a less refined, less smooth version of Ron Paul.

● Winner: Ron Paul not only gave some brilliant answers (and some paranoid ones), but he easily fended off the possibility that Johnson would replace him with the Paul crowd. The USS Ron Paul sails on.

● Winner: Newt continues to impress. His answers are smart and workable. He reminded people that he balanced the budget and millions of jobs were created when he was Speaker. He’s pushing states’ rights strongly and he focuses on Obama.

● Winner: Joe Sixpack. Once again, the questions from the audience were great (except for one whiner from Michigan). I love Americans.

● Loser: Santorum collapsed on the don’t ask don’t tell repeal. Not only did he seem scared to even talk about gays, but he ended up suggesting the policy had to be put back in place to protect the military. . . except he would allow those currently in the military to stay. Huh? Basically, he lost both sides.

● Winner: Bev. Bev nominated herself for Vice President and that seems to have gone over well with Commentarama fans.

● Interesting Thought: At one point, Romney seemed to flirt with Cain. . . no, not in that way. This raises the suggestion of a Romney/Cain ticket. That might be enough to win over conservatives to Romney. Let’s see if there are any signs of a follow up.

Thoughts? Predictions?

P.S. Thanks to T-Rav and everyone else who participated last night. You all made a rather dull debate much more entertaining.

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