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Liveblogging Absurdity (II)

I’m a little bit late to the debate tonight.  The sound quality of Fox’s live stream video is poor, so it’s difficult to hear what the candidates are saying.  I suspect that I won’t be missing anything important if I don’t catch every word.  Gilmore has said he favours sanctions on Iran (surprise, surprise), Romney says […]

I’m a little bit late to the debate tonight.  The sound quality of Fox’s live stream video is poor, so it’s difficult to hear what the candidates are saying.  I suspect that I won’t be missing anything important if I don’t catch every word. 

Gilmore has said he favours sanctions on Iran (surprise, surprise), Romney says that (yawn) Washington is broken, McCain is in deep denial about the causes of the ’06 defeat.  Quote from McCain: “We did not lose the election because of the war in Iraq.”  No, it was just too much spending!  Huckabee jumps on the tax-cutting bandwagon (again).  Brownback embarrasses himself with a shameless plug for ethanol.  (Note to Brownback camp: when asked about how to lower fuel costs, do not mention ethanol, which contributes to higher gas prices in the Midwest!)  Tommy Thompson bores us by reiterating how many vetoes he has had. 

Ron Paul rattles off the federal departments he would eliminate–hurrah!  “We can’t change anything until we change our philosophy about what government should do.”  Go, Ron!      

Gilmore reminds us that, yes, he also cut taxes.  He is the “consistent conservative,” and other people are not.  We get it.  Hunter hits his marks on trade with China and encouraging domestic manufacturing.  Tancredo reminds us that many of his colleagues are massive hypocrites about spending.  “Follow the Constitution,” Tancredo says.  That would make him only the second candidate, after Ron Paul, to mention the Constitution in any shape, way or form.   

Gilmore nails Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney.  Goodbye, 11th Commandment!  (Apparently, earlier in the debate Romney also repeated his idiotic “it’s about Sunni and Shia and a caliphate” routine.)  Giuliani runs and hides behind fearmongering about Hillary–but the questioner won’t let him off the hook.  Giuliani runs and hides behind George Will.  This is the bold, decisive leader that Republicans want?

McCain describes his bad policy positions as “leadership.”  He pretends that his immigration position has something to do with border security.  Huckabee defends himself more aggressively and confidently.  He makes Giuliani look pathetic by comparison.  Romney fends off the attack competently, but not decisively.  Brownback defends his amnesty position by calling on Reagan’s amnesty.  Tommy Thompson seems to take up for ESCR in existing lines, but also shows himself to be fairly informed.  Giuliani tries to play a libertarian card on abortion.  Huckabee gives a fairly effective rebuttal, but becomes repetitious with his examples of dedication to life. 

Romney repeats his conversion story.  Who buys this stuff?  Tancredo hits the other candidates for cynical conversions and weakness on immigration.  He remains too undisciplined and unfocused.  McCain lies that he doesn’t support amnesty.  Romney tries to move himself away from McCain on immigration, and scores a couple points.  He gets a final shot at McCain on both immigration and campaign finance reform (which is shameless, since he once upon a time supported McCain’s campaign finance bill and advocated for even more radical restrictions).  Giuliani goes for his immigrant ID card idea again.  Hunter reminds us of the border fence that “I built” in southern California, and reminds us of the extension of the fence he supported; he hits the administration on being lax in building the fence. 

Ron Paul invokes Robert Taft and non-interventionist foreign policy!  He defends the conservative, constitutionalist antiwar position.  He pins 9/11 on interventionist foreign policy!  Unfortunately, Giuliani wins the crowd with his attack on Paul.  He calls on Paul to withdraw his statement.  Naturally, Paul doesn’t withdraw. 

McCain gets a bizarre round of applause for his comments on the battle flag.  Huckabee handles his parole-of-murderer question as well as he possibly could have.  Tancredo pushes back on a global warming question.

FoxNews tries to impose a torture litmus test.  McCain gives a fairly decent answer in which he says, basically, “Don’t torture.”  Giuliani offers a euphemism for torture, while saying that he is against torture.  Romney actually gives a reasonably intelligent answer to this gotcha hypothetical, and then makes robust pro-Guantanamo remarks.  “Enhanced interrogation techniques”–Romney gets a prize for most euphemistic term for torture.  Brownback gestures strongly.  Gilmore reminds us of all his resume points–he has the experience.  Gilmore’s act gets old pretty quick.  Huckabee also gestures strongly.  Huckabee talks about sacrifice. 

Paul hits the others for using “Newspeak” on torture.  Then becomes slightly unfocused.  Tancredo invokes Jack Bauer (groan).  Asked about the lack of minority candidates, Gilmore begins reading off his resume again.  Romney sends a love note to the Department of Education and No Child Left Behind.  Hunter bangs the old China drum again (and makes some good points). 

Clearly, Giuliani did much better in his second outing, and he was able to manipulate the crowd with his 9/11 references better than before.  Romney was much less polished, McCain didn’t seem quite as old, Hunter continued to perform well.  Huckabee did reasonably well.  Gilmore, Tommy Thompson and Tancredo become more forgettable by the day.  Paul made all the right points and did relatively well considering his limited opportunities.  If we have to pick a “winner,” Hunter probably won.

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