Patterico's Pontifications

2/22/2012

Open Thread: Debate

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:51 pm



Who won?

50 Responses to “Open Thread: Debate”

  1. Uh, “ding”?

    Patterico (53a28d)

  2. contraception was the big winner though apparently not everyone’s a fan

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  3. Newt, the space man.

    sickofrinos (44de53)

  4. Newt was jowlly but was good Newt tonight.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  5. Newt,

    narciso (FL 20th, Baptist) (87e966)

  6. I agree it was Newt’s night. Ron Paul’s view on Iran drives me nuts.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  7. Newt. Yes. He was disciplined and exerted some self-control. I wonder who corralled him.

    After listening to RP on certain issues, I typically end up thinking he lives in some alternate reality.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  8. I want Newt to win this so bad I can taste it.

    He has his baggage and plenty of good folks have a beef with him, but he’s the most presidential and he’s the most conservative. Often you can tell he has a deep understanding and is sincere.

    Perhaps Mitt should drop out and endorse Newt (this is a joke).

    Dustin (401f3a)

  9. So…instead of momentum for Romney or Santorum…

    Scott Walker needs to make his vacation plans for July, visiting Jindahl…

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  10. I was hoping for a firey Zeppelin crash on the auditorium. Is that wrong?!

    JD (516dcc)

  11. JD- that will get you a brokered convention.

    sickofrinos (44de53)

  12. Newt. He masterfully brings the questions back to Obama’s failures, not his opponents.

    sybilll (9bb818)

  13. I agree, Dustin. At least we already know what his baggage is and the weakness of his character. I am, however, wondering exactly what it is that Pelosi supposedly still has on him…

    Dana (4eca6e)

  14. I am, however, wondering exactly what it is that Pelosi supposedly still has on him.

    Does it have to do with a love-seat?

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (440204)

  15. Rick Perry was in the audience. He lives!

    Colonel Haiku (b74f69)

  16. Newt was good… Santorum angry, snippy, on the defensive and once again showed he can’t stop himself from droning on and on about issues that highlight his weaknesses… Romney had a good night.

    Colonel Haiku (b74f69)

  17. Santorum’s closing statement was lame. He can do a little with a lot. And he’s from PA! Sorry he’s just off.

    Gerald A (cc0aaa)

  18. His eye rolls and the expression on his face when he realized the wheels were coming off the wagon were – if not priceless – close to.

    Colonel Haiku (b74f69)

  19. Well, this is all part of the vetting process . . . I’m glad we’re seeing this now instead of after the nomination.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (440204)

  20. Never again let the leftwing media moderate these GOP debates! Nothing more, nothing less than stenographers for the Obama administration.

    Colonel Haiku (b74f69)

  21. Isn’t the whole point of these useless debates is to assure Obama doesn’t have to deal with this in winning his re-election.

    Forgive me if I’m wrong.

    Ag80 (b0b671)

  22. Was that Tony Stewart in the audience?

    Colonel Haiku (b74f69)

  23. Who won?

    Turner Classic Movies.

    “FIDO says it couldn’t be any better.” NASA PAO, STS-1, 4/14/81

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  24. Newt dis well, but I’m not sure he had enough time to gain much. Romney gained on Santorum which is some comfort.

    I dislike Ron Paul intensely; not only what Stephen Green calls his “battered woman” foreign policy (“It’s our fault they attacked us”), his lying claims that Iraq and Afghanistan were not authorized by Congress, and his pandering to the naively cynical. But I’m not sure I’d prefer Santorum to Ron, since Santorum would paint Republicans as a religious party for a generation. At least Ron would stand for freedom and the Constitution as he lost.

    Since I don’t believe you can win the general election with a pickup team, my best case going forward is Romney/Gingrich. Assuming Santorum’s coming collapse doesn’t result in a new Gingrich surge, maybe he should get out and arrange to endorse Romney with a quid pro quo.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  25. did

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  26. Paul has too much sativa on the brain.
    Go smoke your bong in Iran, you mother fing idiot.

    sickofrinos (44de53)

  27. Looking like Romney/Rand Paul after 2nd ballot.

    Partial sop to TEAs, so-cons suck wind, again.

    45% of electorate turns out. Let’s just call the whole thing off.

    Good news, Hugo is wormfood.

    gary gulrud(MN#6, Anabaptist) (d88477)

  28. Bad news, Greek ‘bailout’ at this point includes no cash for Greece. Default guaranteed.

    China to build cars in Bulgaria.

    gary gulrud(MN#6, Anabaptist) (d88477)

  29. #17 Should have said “a lot with a little”.

    Santorum’s idea seems to be to make his lack of fund raising and organization into a kind of virtue. It’s kind of absurd.

    How long is he going to keep on with this thing about the fact he was elected in PA shows he can win the “rust belt”? Also someone should tell him that nobody calls it the rust belt any more.

    Gerald A (cc0aaa)

  30. Santorum’s idea seems to be to make his lack of fund raising and organization into a kind of virtue. It’s kind of absurd.

    Obviously he will need money and organization once nominated, but Santorum is showing he can compete at a serious money disadvantage. The GOP candidate has to have that ability. They can’t just win by jamming in attack ads. Obama will have much more of that.

    The Rust Belt is the key to the 2012 contest, which is one of Romney’s points, if I recall correctly. Santorum has appeal there too.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  31. 29. Lefty’s programming for leftys: Rightys are outraged, must watch TV!

    gary gulrud(MN#6, Anabaptist) (1de2db)

  32. 31. Agreed, the Rust Belt and South are unbowed.

    Rove today has an oped detailing the obstacles to a brokered convention. Not terribly revealing on a contested convention which he terms more likely but still a distant possibility.

    Thinks SuperTuesday will pare the field to two.

    No reasoning provided.

    gary gulrud(MN#6, Anabaptist) (1de2db)

  33. Part of the Dem narrative has always been (whether true or not, like everything else) that the Repubs are fueled by lots of money from all of the really rich people like the Koch brothers (who own all of the world supply of Coke and coke, which are named after them, being the Koch brothers, see?) who don’t mind paying less income taxes than their secretaries (do they pay their secretaries?).

    So in that sense, not having lots of money means you are part of the 99%’ers.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  34. Regarding that Romney-Paul “tag team”

    Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday left the door wide open to consider accepting a nomination for vice president on a Mitt Romney ticket

    Neo (d1c681)

  35. Thinks SuperTuesday will pare the field to two.

    Not counting Ron Paul, of course, who has nothing better to do.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  36. Ron Paul is a valuable member of Romney’s campaign. It’s a shtick Romney’s been pulling for quite some time. Amusingly, none of those he’s partnered with have really benefited from it. I wonder when they will notice that.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  37. Thinks SuperTuesday will pare the field to two.

    Not counting Ron Paul, of course, who has nothing better to do.

    Adelson will keep the grifter alive for as long Santorum poses a threat to his favored candidate.

    Thanks again for that USSC.

    morningafter (484a41)

  38. Adelson will keep the grifter alive for as long Santorum poses a threat to his favored candidate.

    Yeah, I think this is correct. I hope it backfires. It very well could, if Newt takes off again.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  39. “Ron Paul is a valuable member of Romney’s campaign.”

    So were Pawlenty, Bachmann and Cain before they dropped out. ZOMG!!!!!!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  40. Adelson will keep the grifter alive for as long Santorum poses a threat to his favored candidate.

    Yeah, I think this is correct. I hope it backfires. It very well could, if Newt takes off again.

    There are no more debates, so no more moderators to bully. Hard to see how the grifter can rise again. But if he does, Sheldon can deflate him easily enough by pulling his funding.

    morningafter (484a41)

  41. Hard to see how the grifter can rise again.

    I guess I should have phrased this more as a competitor failing.

    Dustin (401f3a)

  42. Too much time went between the debates, and the ratings dropped.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  43. Yes, we need more pablum and less of this;

    It is an outrage that President Obama is the one apologizing to Afghan President Karzai on the same day two American troops were murdered and four others injured by an Afghan soldier. It is Hamid Karzai who owes the American people an apology, not the other way around.”

    Gingrich added, “This destructive double standard whereby the United States and its democratic allies refuse to hold accountable leaders who tolerate systematic violence and oppression in their borders must come to an end.”

    narciso (87e966)

  44. Why do those aspire to leadership, almost invariably are never as clear as this,

    Obama apologizes for the inadvertent Koran burning this week; now the U.S. trained and protected Afghan Army can apologize for killing two of our soldiers yesterday.

    narciso (87e966)

  45. Ron Paul’s view on Iran:

    KING: Congressman Paul, all three of your rivals here make a passionate case that — all three of them make a passionate case that this is a vital U.S. national security interest. But you disagree.

    PAUL: I disagree because we don’t know if they have a weapon. As a matter of fact, there’s no evidence that they have it. There is no evidence. Israel claims they do not have it and our government doesn’t. I don’t want them to get a weapon. But I think what we’re doing is encouraging them to have a weapon because they feel threatened. If you look at a map of — if you look at a map of Iran, we have 45 bases around their country, plus our submarines.

    The Iranians can’t possibly attack anybody. And we’re worrying about the possibility of one nuclear weapon. Now, just think about the Cold War. The Soviets had 30,000 of them. And we talked to them. The Soviets killed 100 million people and the Chinese, and we worked our way out of it.

    And if you want to worry about nuclear weapons, worry about the nuclear weapons that were left over from the Soviet Union. They’re still floating around. They don’t have them all detailed. So we’re ready to go to war. I say going to war rapidly like this is risky and it’s reckless.

    Now, if they are so determined to go to war, the only thing I plead with you for, if this is the case, is do it properly. Ask the people and ask the Congress for a declaration of war. This is war and people are going to die. And you have got to get a declaration of war.

    And just to go and start fighting — but the sanctions are already backfiring. And all that we do is literally doing the opposite. When we’ve been — were attacked, we all came together. When we attacked the — when we — when we put them under attack, they get together and it neutralizes that. They rally around their leaders.

    So what we’re doing is literally enhancing their power. Think of the sanctions we dealt with Castro. Fifty years and Castro is still there. It doesn’t work. So I would say a different approach. We need to at least — we talked — we talked to the Soviets during the Cuban crisis. We at least can talk to somebody who does not — we do not have proof that he has a weapon. Why go to war so carelessly?

    There is no bomb. If they get a bomb we will be the cause. It would be self-defense. They’re surrounded. If there was a bomb, the Soviet bombs are and were more numerous. The Soviets and Communist Chinese killed more people – 100 million – but things turned out all right. We had negotiations with them. Sanctions don’t work. In fact they are counterproductive. They make people more loyal. If we do go to war, a 2/3 majority of Congress should authorize it. War is risky and reckless.

    Who;s he really working for?

    Sammy Finkelman (bbe5c1)

  46. he’s been that way since I first saw him on the Morton Downey show, back in 1988.

    narciso (87e966)

  47. otair.com/archives/2012/02/23/palin-when-does-karzai-apologize-for-one-of-his-troops-killing-two-of-our-soldiers-over-the-koran-burning/#commentform

    narciso (87e966)

  48. Who won?

    Me.

    Yep — definitely ME.

    I was totally successful in not even knowing in the least ways that there was yet another interminable debate hosted by leftist shill moderators.

    Thank you for your accolades.

    I Got Bupkis, Fomenter of "small-l" libertarianism (8e2a3d)

  49. After digesting the debate, I feel molested by the entire debate cycle.

    sickofrinos (44de53)


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