Perry - really fumbled at the end when trying to answer the question about climate change. Came off sounding moronic on the point. Santorum would have handled it better. He had some bizarre homage to Obama which he followed up by slamming him. It made no sense. People will see through the lies about his state success. Everyone knows Texas is the highest polluting state. The ironic thing is Perry decries government involvement but the only reason he got the ozone and CO2 levels down as he did is because the federal clean air act requires it, oops. The social security ponzi scheme nonsense will kill him against Obama.
Gingrich -- he had a bizarre non-answer early on and then launched into a tirade against the media and he should have been disqualified immediately. He came off sounding like a petulant child who missed Fox News and the softball questions he is accustomed to. The purpose of the debate Newt is to differentiate between the GOP candidates not have everyone sing Kumbaya about how evil Obama is. His answer was non-responsive, inane and rude. And he paid for it. I don't think the moderators came back to him for 40 minutes.
Bachmann - through no fault of her own. She was largely ignored by the moderators. Her answers though were not as good, not as sharp. I think the machine turned on her last night. She had one question asked three times of her and she still refused to answer; not good.
Break Even:
Huntsman - I thought he had his best debate but it just won't be enough. His answers were a little too vanilla. He will be ignored until he drops.
Santorum - largely ignored also, but did ok when asked. Made some good points but again, he will be ignored until he drops.
It was interesting that the first debate not on Fox did not cover any social issues such as gay marriage and abortion. The sad thing is that for all the questions on the economy and jobs, no one asked why they think cutting tax rates for the rich will create jobs when it never has in our history. THAT would have been a great question. The truly sad thing though was the obvious discomfort the candidates had with being asked normal questions. Questions based upon things they said. Questions about things they did or did not do. Coming out from behind the Fox bunker really seemed to rattle some of them, although Gingrich was the one that was the most obvious.
The other truly sad fact is the total disdain and disrespect shown toward our President. Can you imagine in 1984 if one of the Democrat candidates inferred that Reagan was an "abject liar?" "He's a nice enough fellow but he doesn't have a clue." "He's in over his head." The GOP likes to claim that they respect the office of President more than the Democrat side but you couldn't tell last night. You can say you disagree with someone's policies or even their results but the comments were directed to him as a person. That's a line that once crossed is hard to come back from. Again, it is sad.
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