That debate was really depressing, because it really proved how absolutely crazy the entire GOP has become. There were brief moments of sanity from Huntsman, Paul, and even Gingrich made sense once or twice despite the fact that I loathe him, but the rest of the debate it was like watching a bunch of circus geeks trying to out do each other. Romney and T-Paw are both so transparently phony it pains me to listen to them. And as phony as Pawlenty and Romney are, Santorum and Michele Bachmann are crazy believers. And I honestly have no idea what Herman Cain is trying to accomplish, and after listening to him, I am not sure he does either.
And if all of that was not crazy and depressing enough, remember that Perry and Palin are still on the sidelines. This is going to worse before it gets better, assuming it does.
Poopyman
BTW and just for the record, dieing really does poll poorly, especially if it occurs in the focus group.
Cat Lady
Couldn’t watch and didn’t watch, but just read MSNBC’s recap – Santorum defended gay rights in Iran? WTF? The dense matter that is the stupidity represented there all in one place is the wingularity event horizon, and when Perry participates with his hair, boots, pistols and god bothering, well, the Mayans were right.
ETA: The MSNBC poll shows Paul and no one winning, and I think the commenter who said Obama won is right.
EconWatcher
This nation is doomed.
Sly
@Poopyman:
I bet there were a lot of focus group coronaries, to be honest, what with the pure adrenaline represented in the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act and the prospect of having Tim Pawlenty mow their lawn.
Joseph Nobles
The handraising moment was the dealbreaker for me. I wish one of the questioners had doubled down on that one:
And by God, I think they would all have raised their hands again. Madness.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
You need to catch Mornin Joe’s rant today. He blistered Bachmann in particular, “Anyone stupid enough to vote for her doesn’t have enough sense to run the slurpee machine in Des Moines”! Then he screamed a Steele for 5 minutes, it was fun.
Poopyman
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Oh shit! I must have left for work by then.
Damn, I hope Mrs. P didn’t delete it from the DVR.
Butch
The one that floored me was Bachmann’s answer to Pawlenty’s challenge on her experience, essentially that she sponsored the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act. All she can say is that she sponsored a nonsense bill, and that’s it?
Poopyman
@Sly: See here during the debate circa 11 PM.
cat48
Ron Fournier wrote that Obama and Perry won the Debate last night.
Read at the Atlantic that Hertzberg said of Perry: “Perry wears more Cowboy gear than a 6 year old on Halloween.” I thought that was a total Win!
beltane
But everyone’s saying we have to be scared of Rick Perry. We must tremble with fear at the mere mention of his name lest we invoke his awesome wingnut powers.
As awful as the debate was, Palin could not have held her own in it. The GOP is full of crazy people who are somewhat more articulate than Granny Grifter.
seabe
States should be in charge of their own affairs…except for gay marriage (we need a fed amendment for that). Individuals should be in charge of their own choices for schools, jobs, gun ownership, etc….except for women who don’t want to be pregnant, gays who want to be married or (for Herman Cain) ppl who don’t want to be Christian. We’re a military junta that should always respect our military before our Commander-in-Chief. All taxes are evil and we should eliminate most of them and institute a 10% flat tax. Oh, and “the fed is evil.”
Cat Lady
Would someone with a stronger stomach than me let me know who the Strike Farce and K-Lo’s House of Crazy thought won? We here in the reality based community who don’t speak wingnut need to hear from the up is down crew, and not Joe Scar who’s old school.
Poopyman
I understand how you’re depressed, because the GOP is fading. It had a good life and a long run, but everything must come to an end.
Circle of (political) life, man. Circle of life.
gnomedad
I dunno — it’s painful to watch, but I suspect Republican bloodletting is mostly beneficial at this point. We’re not yet within a Voter Attention Span Unit of the election, but gaffes live forever on the intertubes.
Robin G.
This whole debate worried me. I think Perry could come in and wipe the floor with these assholes simply by virtue of his batshittiness being less known, and I think Perry’s the biggest threat to Obama because he will pull in the already-forming “GWB Looks Better As We Forget” folks.
I genuinely want the GOP to nominate the person who would make the best president, because Obama is not a lock no matter what and we can’t risk a President Bachmann. Realistically that’s Huntsman or maybe Paul, but I’d settle for a Romney nomination. (And by best president, I am of course saying relative to the other options presented by the GOP.)
Events that raise the chance of success for the severe lunatics are troubling, and I think last night was one of them.
General Stuck
Sure, for the short term. Everything will look up once we hit bottom.
Welcome gentleman, to your new life
Violet
@beltane:
Palin wasn’t terrible in the VP debate, but she did benefit from sub-basement level expectations. Her ability to word-salad her way through everything might work in a room full of crazy people.
Hill Dweller
I didn’t watch it but someone at Benen’s site said Romney made a bizarre statement about eating Barack Obama’s dog food. Did anyone see it and/or can explain it?
Cat Lady
@Hill Dweller:
Romney should really never mention dogs. Nothing can be explained about any of this without having a DSM reference manual.
PurpleGirl
I’m glad I missed that there even was a debate last night. I have to watch my blood pressure and I’d have been a manic, screaming woman.
I was watching Highlander TV episodes… (No, I learned my history from books).
beltane
@Violet: That wasn’t a real debate by any stretch of the imagination, as there was zero follow-up to her canned, word salad answers. Palin is clearly inferior to Michele Bachmann in this respect. Bachmann, at least, can express her insanity clearly, concisely, and in standard English. Palin is like one of those dolls where you pull a string and get a randomly generated phrase like “Uh oh, baby wet” or “I luv you”.
Bruce S
I have to say that the ones I truly detest are Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich and Santorum (for his relentless sanctimony, hypocrisy and egregious-even-among-those-sickos comments on denying raped women access to an abortion). Cain, Bachmann and Paul each have such a kind of childish earnestness that I could imagine they might be appealing to someone who was stunningly ignorant on the issues. Huntsman appears to have shown up for the wrong event. Bachmann handles herself with a surprising amount of poise and professionalism, especially in contrast to Palin. She has a kind of minimalist credibility in her approach that Palin lacks entirely. My guess is that she benefits from not being a pathological narcissist. Hey, that’s something! If she didn’t have shit for brains, I might like her. I’m pretty sure – hope – that I’d detest Sarah Palin even if she were on “my side.”
(I can’t believe I’m saying anything even remotely nice about this crazy Bachmann woman – maybe it’s because she’s making Joe’s morning coffee taste so bitter. Another guy I can’t stand because he’s just sane enough that, like Romney or Pawlenty, he should know better than most of the crap that comes out of his mouth. A douche-bag who also play$ one on my TeeVee.)
Anya
I didn’t watch it but I read Steve Benen’s posts and it sounds like it was lunacy but not surprising because like Benen said: “…in a Republican nominating contest, sanity is optional”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Robin G.: Look, they are all batshit. If one potential candidate’s batshittiness is not well known, one simply needs to give it time. If Perry comes in and starts being successful, the the rest of the flesh eating zombie pack will turn on him and all sorts of info about his nuttiness will come flooding out. These are vicious and crazy people, so the eventual victor will be very tired and bloody by the end of the primary process.
Chris
@Bruce S:
She’s also not nearly as lazy or thin-skinned as Palin was.
ken
Santorum and the gays:
1) There will be a war with a Republican Administration
2) The next country they will, not might, but will go to war with is Iran.
3) If they are torturing gays, then the GOP can turn to the Dem caucus and basically say “If you don’t support our going into Iran, then you support the slaughter of gays.”
Santorum know he lost on the gay issue, so when life throws you gay lemons, you slice it up and stick it in a cosmopolitan.
beltane
@Bruce S: I feel the same way as you about Bachmann vis-a-vis Palin. Bachmann actually speaks her mind; Palin just blurts out random wingnut phraseology in her quest to get her hands on every last penny of sweet teabagger cash.
Bruce S
If I were in Iowa I’d definitely write-in “PARRY.” Super-PACman Rick Parry is the only one of those GOP jokes that’s funny.
Culture of Truth
Yes, I was bit surprised by Bachmann poise, or at least ability to express her lunacy in complete sentences. Huntsmann on the other hand is not a great public speaker.
I’m not representative, but the loser seemed to be Pawlenty. What impression did he make, except unfavorable. They all had their moments, except for Romney, who makes Deep Blue look like Malcolm X.
Citizen_X
@gnomedad:
That would be, what, half a Friedman Unit?
Violet
@beltane:
I agree, but in this collection of misfits, I don’t know if her brand of word salad crazy would truly stand out. She just might get away with winking and the Patriotism-TaxesBad-Obamasux word salad axis.
chopper
i think i’m going to invest in alcohol companies. this next year is going to be awesome for the whiskey makers.
Maude
@PurpleGirl:
Rush learned history from Tom Clancy.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. We should regard Perry as an enemy to be vanquished, not as some invincible force we must cower in fear before. I hate it when we’re told to be “scared” of particular candidates; it is demoralizing and smacks of defeatism.
The only GOP candidate I was truly worried about happens not to be running, and that is Mike Huckabee.
aisce
@ robin g.
wrong.
wrong, wrong, wrong. there hasn’t been a president who’s been a bigger lock to win reelection at this point in his term than eisenhower. johnson doesn’t count because his “first term” was like 18 months long.
the president could lose ohio and indiana and florida and north carolina and new hampshire and nevada in 2012, and still win the electoral college. that’s how well he did in 2008. so check your pessimism at the door. as long as we’re not in a catastrophic depression, obama’s winning.
Poopyman
I’m pretty happy to have missed the debate. I feel the same way about Republican debates as I do about NASCAR: I don’t have the urge to watch folks go ’round and ’round until somebody crashes. Not to my taste.
dmsilev
@Cat Lady: I scanned Erick Erickovich’s place, and there didn’t seem to be any front-page coverage of the debate at all. On the other hand, there was a piece about how liberals must be terrified of Rick Perry because they were playing the race card, only they were doing it in a sneaky underhanded way that only a vigilant conservative Defender Of Truth ™ could see it.
Danny
Both of Benen’s posts today’s been brilliant. And I really think the sleeper story here is how even the Serious (r) candidates are getting on the record in support of positions that are waaay outside mainstream. Every single candidate said they’d walk away from a debt ceiling deal with a 1/10 revenue/cut breakdown. Every single one. They better pray to God that the economy is in the absolute shitter a year from now or whomever gets the nod is gonna be DOA.
Emma
@beltane: Thank you for preempting my primal scream. You said it much more politely that I could at this point.
lamh34
This is so OT, but wow. This story has go to be read. An Indiana congressman caught soliciting gay sex on Craigslist. It not the gayness that’s the story, it’s the bit about how the the senators family & friends actually tried contacting the boy from Craigslist and his sister trying to bribe them so they would keep quiet. All within like one day
http://www.indystar.com/article/20110812/LOCAL1804/108120333/Email-rendezvous-entangles-state-Rep-Phillip-Hinkle?odyssey=tab
Bulworth
Can’t believe I watched a lot of this.
It is hard to believe that an American political candidate for high office can go on stage in front of a nation-wide cable televised audience and admit that (1) Iran has a right to arm itself and that America helped create the Iran of today by overthrowing its democratically elected leader and (2) our Cuba policy is absurd, and not get struck by lightning.
It would be nice if a Democratic candidate for high office could admit these things as well, but…
beltane
@Violet: But Violet, what is Palin’s record on the issues? What did she do to liberate us from those evil energy efficient Sharia law lightbulbs?
Also, Palin likes being the star. Being one more clown in the clown car is not her style. If anything, she’d prefer to be selected as a running mate again rather than subject herself to an actual competition.
Bulworth
@Butch: Lightbulb freedom!
fubar
John
You deserve a medal for watching that crazy freek show. In fact, anyone who watched the R debate out of some sense of duty should be rewarded with a medal. Because you are doing a duty that I can not bring myself to do. Much akin to being a soldier on the frontlines for your country.
So, I propose that we come up with a name for this medal. I will start off with “dauntless award – 2nd class: for valor in the face of crazy”.
Any others?
Fulcanelli
Is this the Rick Perry is everybody’s afraid of?
That’s what I thought…
beltane
@lamh34: The state rep in question happened to be co-sponsor of Indiana’s “In God We Trust” licence plate bill. Why is this not a surprise?
Bruce S
#42 Bulworth – there was Kucinich. Guys like Kucinich and Paul would be LUCKY to get struck by lightening. Anything to “catch on fire” – but they’re just perennial protest candidates. The provide a service to the country in those debates, but it’s got nothing to do with the election.
PurpleGirl
@Maude: LOL. My time to edit had lapsed when I realized I should say something about the books I meant — I was a political science major (after leaving chemistry) and have always read a lot of history, sociology and other social science area books, in addition to history of science.
ericblair
@ken:
I don’t think it’s that complicated: the goopers just got caught in a poorly-thought-out enemy of my enemy situation. Their main problem is that their Big Furrin Enemy consists of a bunch of sexist, racist, homophobic, god-bothering, greedy, authoritarian assholes who are scared of the modern world and want to haul everyone back several centuries and don’t care if half of the rabble starves because of it. In other words, just like them.
General Stuck
Perry will swagger in, with some tough talk singed with testosterone driven Decider grade alpha dog bullshit, and that will be that. The details won’t matter much, and they will be happy to be rid of the wienes like Romney and that ratface shit for branes T Paw, that they suffered through on their teevee screens last night.
Though Perry will have to grunt a few extra times, and flash his hairy knuckles, to wash away a few of his craven acts of sanity in policy, like with the HPV vaccine mandate for young girls, and states rights for gay marriage. But that will be forgotten, as will the fact the dude comes from the same place GWB did.
The only other purest grade gooper comparable to Perry, is Bachmann, but the wingnuts aren’t about to nominate a woman. Perry’s cred with the wingnut jeevus vote is impeccable, and they will turn out for a primary, where they almost never do. Then we get to turn inside out this assholes life, all of it.
Violet
@beltane:
LOL.
From the “hard work” standpoint, I definitely agree she doesn’t want to run. But from the “being the center of attention” standpoint, her ego isn’t going to allow her to run for second place again.
If she does run, she won’t enter the race until a lot of the candidates have been weeded out. October, maybe? Maybe later? I think she wants to be recruited as a savior candidate. She gets “called” late in the race (like January or March or July) to come in the “save” the Republican party. She’s totally delusional, of course, but I think that’s what she’d like best. Maybe she even thinks she could get the call at a brokered convention.
cat48
Bulworth
Granted there was a lot to choose from, but the most disturbing part of the night for me was listening to Santorum identify Iran as the greatest existential threat to the
U.S.Israel in the Middle East.Bonus points for TPaw saying we should be “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Israel.
Paul in KY
@cat48: I hope (if he’s the nominee) that Pres. Obama runs some kind of ad featuring Perry ‘urban cowboying’ it up & also slamming his record to some kind of country music tune.
If you can get someone to laugh with derision at someone, they usually will not vote for them.
Rosalita
Didn’t watch it. Just the snippets on the morning news were enough to make my skin crawl.
Scrolling through John’s live tweets of the debate this morning was very entertaining, however.
Chris
@Violet:
If she does that, that’ll be when she goes out in a blaze, IMO. Even in the GOP I don’t think people will take well to her coming in that late in the game.
@cat48:
Isn’t that, like, every Republican since Reagan? People just ignore the SocSec/Medicare hate and just sort of count on Democrats and the few Republicans who still have their marbles to make sure it doesn’t happen, if they think about it at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: If he’s the nominee? You mean Perry, not Obama, right?
Anya
@Fulcanelli: It’s still too early for that level of creepiness.
Kane
I saw nothing in the debate that represented conservatism.
If anyone still questioned whether the GOP has been taken over by radical anti-government extremists, they got their answer last night.
Paul in KY
@lamh34: Thanks for that. Very enjoyable reading.
bob h
Could the Republicans end up reviving a twisted version of the old Boston-Austin axis (Kennedy-Johnson) in the form of Romney-Perry? Romney for Wall St., Perry for the unhousebroken?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course.
DS
Kudos to Jon Huntsman for standing on stage with these fucking bigots and actually defending gay rights (well, to some degree). I think most of his policies are incredibly wrong but at least he has the rocks to put aside his personal beliefs about the icky gays and support equality.
Xenos
@Bruce S:
Per Wikipedia, the straw poll ballots are run through an electronic voting machine. The format may not even allow write-in votes. So this could make for some fun confusion and mischief.
Bobby
John, I’m surprised you posted so early today considering how much you drank during last night’s debate. I couldn’t bear to watch but followed your tweets. It was the highlight of my evening. Thanks for taking one for the team!
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Just making sure. I am still waking up and, at first read, saw it the other way.
Bruce S
I’m thinking that folks ought to go back and check their predictions in Aug. of ’07 before they assume they’ve got deep insight into much of anything. On the GOP side, the frontrunners in polling were Giuliani and Thompson. I have no f-ing idea who could win this thing. I DO believe that Obama has a large advantage in the general – but I’d like to see him win on merits and message, and not as runner-up to “I’m disappointed by Obama, but I’m not voting for anyone’s who’s totally crazy, so I’m sitting this one out.” Looks right now like he’s relying on the GOP losing, rather than another Obama win. I hate to say this, but the John McCain of 2000 could probably beat Obama. Possibly even the George Bush of 2000. The economy is that bad and – to my shock and dismay – Obama doesn’t have an effective message or plausible strategy to move it or offer relief to those hurt the most other than the underwhelmingly incremental. That may be “realistic” but it’s not compelling and it’s a dangerous place to be as incumbent. Unless the opposition goes off the deep end, as they’ve been doing. Just sad to watch the country’s politics devolve to this.
Jewish Steel
Depressing? Alarming, sure. But whyfor the depression, Mr Cole? Is this like when a band that you were once into starts to suck?
The Party of Lincoln has been the Party of Nickelback for as long as you’ve been kicking, John.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jewish Steel: Was there a time when Nickelback didn’t suck?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry for sounding dicky in my response.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I do like a couple of their songs from ‘Silver Side Up’. I’m shallow like that ;-)
cat48
@Bruce S:
Did you see Obama’s speech yesterday? He’s just getting warmed up. Too soon to despair about him. August is always a horrible month for him & the Villagers pile on to make sure it happens every year.
Kane
The first response from the right-wing following the defeat of McCain/Palin was to argue that their team wasn’t conservative enough.
If Romney should win the nomination and lose to Obama, we will hear much of the same excuses, and we will surely see more republican purity tests in the next mid-term election and more extremists gaining access to Congress.
But if republicans can manage to nominate the most right-wing, tea-friendly, anti-government candidate, maybe a Bachmann or Perry or Palin, and they should lose to Obama, then maybe the remaining moderates of the GOP can make the argument that moving the party further to the right is not the answer.
cat48
I’d like to beat Perry (who’s never lost) defending the New Deal so the rethugs will leave it the Hell alone from now on.
kindness
So I think Palin stays out as she’s a grifter more than a leader and the money and reality show are really all she cares about.
That leaves Perry as the nominee. I think he’ll pick Bachmann for VP. What do you all think?
Bruce S
“The Party of Lincoln has been the Party of Nickelback for as long as you’ve been kicking, John.”
Although Reagan bears much of the responsibility for giving credibility to these crazies, in fact he couldn’t get nominated in the current GOP environment. They’ve gotten way crazier over the past ten years. The activism of the Tea Party has tipped the balance even further than anyone could have predicted even threee years ago, prior to the crash. We really are in a different political world – the nutty populist wing of the Right, which was mostly social conservative, has been energized by the fears stirred by economic collapse and the racial resentments against Obama. Remember when “neo-conservatives” were the greatest danger to the Republic in the GOP’s cabal? Now we’ve got two of the original neo-con “intelligentsia” with their hair on fire ranting about how nutty the GOP has become! The Right really has gone that far through the Looking Glass. Grover Norquist didn’t even get started until 5 years into Reagan’s presidency. Reagan wouldn’t have had a prayer on that platform last night – if only for his record of raising taxes and spending as governor of California. And his moderation on stuff like abortion. He wouldn’t even stand a chance on his record as President of backing off by about half on his original round of tax cuts or increasing the payroll tax for SS. Seems unthinkable, but its true.
Suffern ACE
@cat48: Democrats take August off to spend time with their families and friends. I wish someone at the high end summer house owning part of the party leadership would learn that no, we are not Europe, and stagger their vacations a little bit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: But August is when everybody is on the Vineyard….
Jewish Steel
@Omnes Omnibus: Here my metaphor breaks down.
Bruce S
“Did you see Obama’s speech yesterday? He’s just getting warmed up.”
Frankly, I don’t give a shit about speeches. I care about policy and then good speeches selling it. I don’t expect Gene Sperling et. al. to offer anything other than “warmed over.”
I’m not in despair. But I’m not into “hope” as a strategy. I know it’s verboten to think critically about the President in these threads, so don’t bother to pile on for my actually digging below the surface politics to what might constitute a coherent economic agenda. I’ve been an Obama supporter since January of ’07. I’ve also been able to see what’s coming (I predicted the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha months before it happened, because I happened to enjoy watching Wright’s sermons but knew how they could be abused against Obama.) Most of the discussions about Obama on these threads barely rise to the level of childish. Both sides. IMHO. Sorry.
Paul in KY
@Bruce S: Agree, they’d be painting him as some kind of Communist.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Hill Dweller:
Romney was asked if he would have vetoed the debt ceiling compromise bill if he was in Obama’s place.
He replied that he’s not eating Obama’s dog food! and then proceeded to avoid answering yes or no.
I’m thinking Romney has some dog issues.
cat48
@Suffern ACE:
The prez is campaigning (bus tour) next week. I don’t think he’ll go to the Vineyard until last wk in August.
Napoleon
@Suffern ACE:
Unfortunately being an elected federal office holder is one of those jobs where you are locked into the calender of your employer for when you can take time off, like school teachers or comidy writers on The Daily Show. Congress has forever taken August off because of the weather in DC. If you are president its better to go when they are gone instead of, say, May. Plus they guy has 2 younger kids who go to school. If he wants to spend vacation time with them it limits when he can go.
...now I try to be amused
I think Huntsman knows he has no hope of winning the 2012 nomination. (He might not even want to win it. Hell, he admires Obama.) He’s running now to position himself for 2016 in case the GOP reassesses away from the crazy.
Bulworth
Also, too, I loved reading Tunch’s dad on the Tweeter thing last night go into full blown rant mode at the appearance of Byron York on the debate panel. Awesome.
Suffern ACE
@Napoleon: The prez isn’t the problem. What are PR minions for but for distracting the press with bells and whistles when Congress is out of town?
RosiesDad
OTOH, reading your Twitter feed at 1 AM had me rolling on the floor, nearly pissing my pants. Thanks for watching so I didn’t have to.
JRon
@Just Some Fuckhead: I gave up on the whole thing, I just couldn’t take it. And Romney inspired me to start yet another blog last night, so I did that instead.
http://corporationsarepeople.tumblr.com/
“And they don’t eat dog food either.”
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Bachmann’s wild-eyed crazy, but at least seems to be a decent human being, has fostered a lot of kids, and who’d be a good neighbor. She should never have been let near public office, though.
Palin, on the other hand: I’d put my house on the market as soon as she moved anywhere nearby.
Citizen_X
@Bruce S:
Huh? You know and I know that Obama ain’t getting any policies past the Teatard congress. He might develop policy, (and he should come up with a job stimulus policy) and shop that around, but it’s doomed to be all talk until 2013.
Tractarian
@Bruce S:
I hear this a lot, but I really don’t buy it. To me, it’s obvious that if Reagan ran today, he would be doing exactly the same dance as Romney/Pawlenty/etc. That is, he’d run hard to the right to appease the vocal, energized, and primary-voting wing of the party.
And you’d better believe that would be enough to get the nomination in a contest like this.
Violet
@JRon:
What, no Soylent Green reference yet?
shortstop
Only caught a few minutes while running in and out, but I was deeply amused by Santorum’s belligerence and condescension. Nothing funnier than someone who was kicked out of the Senate by voters four years ago, has done zilch in the meantime and is bereft of any base whatsoever thinking he should be president…and displaying unbridled arrogance in the pursuit of that. Do these people have no one in their lives who will give it to them straight* about their actual situations?
*That was a little treat for you filthy-minded lowlifes.
Citizen_X
@General Stuck: None of these guys are simply rolling over just because Perry walks in. (Okay, except for Pawlenty.) They will go after him.
On the closet-case issue? Maybe. Bachmann, with Marcus by her side, is more vulnerable there. The Willingham execution? Nobody in the GOP, except maybe Paul, is going to give a shit about that. The HPV vaccination issue? Maybe.
But they are not going to ignore the $27 billion state deficit. They are going to go after Perry hard on that issue, and it’s going to get bloody. I don’t see the nomination being a shoe-in for anybody.
Paul in KY
@Tractarian: He might be emphasizing his conservative cred (know he would), but his record would be entirely too bipartisan (IMO).
That shows you how whacky they are.
General Stuck
@Citizen_X:
You could be right, and I could be wrong. It will be fun watching all this play out though, like some kind of Shakespeare from Hell.
hueyplong
I don’t think Palin is ever coming off the sidelines. At this point, she exists only as a cultural icon for far right wingers, sort of like Ted Nugent. Not one of the usual slimy suspects has signed on to work for so much as a shadow Palin campaign. Not one.
The only reason Palin did as well as she did last time is that she was the beneficiary of the right wing attack media and never its target. She never had to operate in a setting in which the GOP smear merchants had not yet closed ranks behind an official ticket. She will never enter this race because (1) she can’t take one day of the heat that would hit her from her own side, and (2) she wouldn’t be able to respond to the inevitable gaffes and deer-in-the-headlights moments of an intramural fight by claiming martyrdom at the hands of the Librul Media.
Palin was scarily close to the ability to do real damage, but that was in 2008. Her time has come and gone. The fact that her ego doesn’t let her admit it is solely her own problem now. In her new sphere of operations, the end will eventually come via a less than successful plastic surgery procedure, not a failed political campaign. If she’s deluded enough to try this year, I’d bet a lot of money that we’d be calling it a “Norma Desmond campaign.”
daveNYC
So the entire batch of candidates are so pants-on-head batshit crazy/stupid that the only way that Obama could lose is if the economy goes down the shitter.
Guess we know what the Republican congresscritters will be up to for the next year.
Napoleon
@Tractarian:
You are absolutely right, but that is not going to stop me from saying it, and you should too. It is a device to show how someone who was seen as so conservative in his day if he governed the same way today he could not win. Reagen is dead so he can not contridict you.
Joy
I started watching as the second hour began, streaming my local Fox station.
1)I noted that several questions were posed this way: That candidate says “Blah blah blah” and you “Bluh bluh bluh.” Will you explain why that candidate is wrong.
I think that form is designed to foster negative statements about others, rather than compelling a candidate to state her/his own position.
I heard Huntsman try to reframe this and say people are free to have their own opinions; saying why someone is wrong isn’t the point and it accomplishes nothing. Sadly the man was trapped in the format and the same old.
2) My local Fox news commentors made statements like this: I heard nothing fresh…. It was political suicide when he said that….
My thought is that if someone did say something fresh in the context of a Fox debate, it would automatically qualify as political suicide. The commentors deplored the sameness, yet they condemned any indication of what might be fresh. That’s a dead end.
I would like to see Tunch host a Fox debate!
matryoshka
@shortstop: Narcissists are surprisingly immune to reality checks.
gogol's wife
Boy, I am depressed and here’s why. I have resolved not to find out what Twitter is for the rest of my born days. But apparently John Cole is even more brilliant on Twitter than he is on his blog. So I just had to go read his Twitter thingies from last night. They are really hilarious. But I don’t want to have anything to do with Twitter. I still don’t understand what it is.
Bruce S
I’m talking about the Reagan who actually existed – granted that there was a different environment and one can project a different Reagan in a different era.
trollhattan
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
Darn right. At some point you’d have Halftrack and Duffle nesting under your back porch, not to mention the constant threat of meth lab explosions.
AndyG
@hueyplong: As someone who has suffered enough from Rick Perry’s insanity, nothing would make me happier for Palin to jump into the ring tomorrow and overshadow his attempt to overshadow the Ames straw poll.
Gus
I literally watched less than a minute of a Newt response before I couldn’t take any more. Something about loyalty oaths. Instead watched Lust for Life from my DVR.
Jager
@Maude:
@PurpleGirl:
Rush learned history from Tom Clancy.
In Clancey ‘s world the Seal who nailed Bin ladin would have been, at minimum, a Rear Admiral.
Elie
Well if nothing else, it gives us a little respite from the anti Obama crazy around HERE for the last two weeks. I’m sure though that we will be back at it before long.
The Republicans will nominate someone. That someone may not be one of these candidates OR Perry either. Does anyone think that Bloomberg would run? Sure, he would not be popular on the bible circuit, but he might appeal to what semi intelligent people still remain in the GOP. Short of that, its just Klown time. Yeah, some being less offensive than others, but overall, the same ol same ol. I truly have NO idea why Huntsman got into this race for this year. He seems somewhat normal but obviously is missing some sort of cognitive ability if he wants to even be seen on the same stage with the others… why on earth did he accept being Obama’s ambassador to China? I dunno, he just seems perplexing — like a guy spinning around trying to find what he really wants to do and just up and deciding, “Hey, what if I run for President?”
Elie
Reagan would not have had the broad appeal that he hadif he ran the game like the Republicans are running it now, hence would not have been elected. Remember, back then Presidents were occasionally expected to negotiate and compromise. He was of course great at the subtle racist dog whistle game, but the country would not have been ready for the full wingnut crazy we see today and he would have come across as insane.
shortstop
@trollhattan: Hilarious.
Triassic Sands
Oh, it’s not going to get better — not unless an asteroid the size of China collides with Earth before election day 2012.
Ron
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): That rant of his was awesome. I still wonder what happened to him. I still remember him as party of the crazy wing of the GOP. Did he get more sane? Did the GOP get even crazier? is it a combination?
Ron
And John, how’s that peak wingnut theory looking now?
fhtagn
Seems that the GOP primary these days is not so much a matter of Waiting for Godot as Waiting for God-awful.
Paul in KY
@Jager: I see you have read deeply of Mr. Clancy’s works. A spot-on comment!
karen marie
@aisce: I think Obama is a lock especially if we’re in a depression, and the chances of majorities in the House and Senate get better too, because it will be pretty clear by November 2012 that it was Congressional Republicans + Bush that brought the country to its knees.
Bubblegum Tate
@ken:
Some wingnuts haven’t caught on to that just yet.
quannlace
And here I thought you were talking about Gingrich. Didn’t he have some kind of melt-dowm when he was asked about the mass walk out of his staff?
Joseph Nobles
@gogol’s wife: Twitter is CB Radio that may actually take.
harlana
It’s gonna be great. Crazy republicans on the teevee 23/7 from now on , I’ve got lots of popcorn.
harlana
You know, if there are still any moderate republicans out there, you sure don’t see or hear from them. No respectable person from the republican party, if there are any left, comes out and challenges these crazies on anything. They’re weak, just handle the shame with silence since they are too cowardly to own this hideous thing they created, whether by deed or word or lack thereof.
geisha gurl
@General Stuck:
This sentence is a thing of beauty…
keestadoll
@Bulworth: wouldn’t it just?
JRon
@Violet: great idea!
Caz
It sounds like you didn’t even watch the debate. Either that or your powers of perception are just totally awful. Neither one would surprise me.
All of them made plenty of sense. There was more substance in that debate than in all of the speeches that Obama has given since becoming president.
I think the problem for you is that after watching the debate, you realize that Obama’s days are numbered, because any of these R’s could beat Obama, who now has to run on an utterly horrid record. So I guess we can expect you to continue to do your part to downplay and criticize the R candidates up until one is chosen, and then do the same with the nominee, all in an effort to keep your progressive overlord from losing his position, which even you must see is inevitable.
This country can’t take another four years of Obama’s policies and lack of leadership. We need a change, and this debate showed that all the R candidates are prepared to offer it. Only 15 months until we can start turning this ship around!
Jebediah
@Jewish Steel:
I was into Lincoln when they were still playing single-room log cabins.
John Myte
Cas,
It sounds like you didn’t even watch the debate. Either that or your powers of perception are just totally awful. Neither one would surprise me.
My powers of perception are awful also. I think most intellects powers of perception are awful. Obama’s days may be numbered, but so is the GOPs if they don’t embrace sanity again.