Posted on 10/18/2011 4:37:49 PM PDT by kristinn
Broadcast on: CNN
Broadcast time: 8pm EDT/5pm PDT
The Candidates:
Michele Bachmann
Bachmann is serving her 3rd full term in the U.S. House. Founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, worked as a tax attorney, and was a foster mother for 23 teenagers. She is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Herman Cain
Cain is the former chief executive of Godfather's Pizza and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He lost the Georgia Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 2004. He was recently the host of Atlanta-based radio show.
Newt Gingrich
Gingrich served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He represented Georgia's 6th congressional district as a Republican member from 1979 to 1999. He has a PhD in modern European history.
Ron Paul
Paul is serving his 11th full term in the U.S. House. He’s an ob-gyn and was Libertarian nominee for president in 1988. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president in 2008
Rick Perry
Perry is the three term governor of Texas, from 2000 to current. He is a retired Air Force captain for former farmer. He has a degree in animal science.
Mitt Romney
Romney was governor of Massachusetts (2003 to 2007) and former CEO of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican 2008 nomination for president. He has an MBA (Harvard) and JD (Harvard Law).
Rick Santorum
Santorum served two terms in the U.S. House and two terms in the U.S. Senate. He became the Senate's third-ranking Republican in 2001. He was defeated for reelection in 2006.
Gingrich did the best by far.
The exchanges between Perry & Romney were just juvenile and reflected poorly on them both. This is the first debate I’ve watched, and I’m a little shocked that this is supposedly Perry’s best showing.
Santorum did a good job of drawing blood from Romney. Had some good answers.
Cain held his own and flubbed 1 or 2 answers.
Bachmann tried to rise from the fray by going after Obama instead of others, but I think she ended up receding in the background.
My feelings on this debate. First I must admit I have leaned towards Mitt because I think he has the best chance of beating Obama. Sorry. We do need those Independent voters(unfortunately).I didn’t like the way he responded to Perry. Perry did not help himself either. Newt has now pulled to a close second on my list. I liked Santorum and Michelle had some good answers tonight. I don’t know what to think of Cain. He is very likeable but reminds of how I felt about Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson the last election. He has said a few things he has had to walk back. The 9-9-9 plan would really hurt me with the loss of the mortgage deduction. Even if it turned out revenue neutral it would further kill homeownership and values.
CAIN (B+) - Overall Cain handled himself extremely well under fire. His finest moment was when he stated that the OWS crowd should occupy the Obama White House instead of Wall Street. I feel he stumbled during the answer about trading prisoners for hostages but I feel he amended for that in the spin room after the debate. Still making rookie mistakes but seems to be learning fast. He'll have to if he's going to win this nomination. For now, Cain should take satisfaction that he came out of this evening's debate mostly unscathed.
ROMNEY (D-) - Overall Romney came across awful during this debate. While he scored some points on Perry, he came across as immature and childish. His strongest moment was when he attacked Perry on immigration by stating that Texas had a 60% growth in illegal immigration because Perry was handing out $100,000 in-state tuition credits to them. His weak moments are too numerous to mention and he had that creepily annoying stare and smile throughout.
PERRY (C-) - Despite scoring a C-, this was Perry's best debate so far. Evidently he sampled some of the Venetian java before taking the stage (that casino coffee is strong). Like Romney however, Perry came across as childish, it almost seems like he and Romney were going to start talking about how their father was going to beat up the other's father. Perry's strongest moment was when he talked about de-funding the United Nations. His weakest moments was when he went after Romney for hiring illegal aliens to mow his grass when in fact, Romney contracted the work out and was not aware that the contractor had hired illegal aliens (and fired them when he found out). Perry also got lots of boos from the audience - never a good thing, even though it was a Romney crowd.
GINGRICH (A) - Yet another solid performance by Newt Gingrich who is clearly the statesman of this slate of candidates. Hopefully he will continue to stay in the race as he helps to keep the other candidates focused on beating Obama rather than beat up on themselves.
BACHMANN (A+) - Bachmann was clearly the star of the night. She sported a new look that made me think of the Love Boat for some reason (I now have a craving for a Mai Tai) but in the debate, she was on her game with not a single weak moment.
SANTORUM (C) - Santorum made some good points during the debate but was a big turnoff with his snottiness and self-indulgent narratives on how he was the only candidate in the room that beat a Democrat back in 1994, yada, yada, yada.
PAUL (C-) - Another typical performance by Ron Paul. Agree with 90% of what he says but the other 10% makes me want to run from the room.
HUNTSMAN (A+) - This was Jon Huntsman's best performance yet! He didn't appear on stage but apparently he was out in the casino confusing the hell out of the blackjack dealers. Last I heard, he was at the craps table posting bets on the "Pass" line.
Concur!
Each debate should be on a single issue. There is no way to vet a candidate on any given issue with a 30-60 second comment..
BINGO
So who won tonight?
I give props to Santorum because he finally went after Mitt and brought up the fact Mitt’s advisors met with Obama’s.
Cain held his ground on 9-9-9, but it’s obvious he won’t attack Romney. I’m sorry, but the whole “apples-oranges” confrontration with Romney looked staged. It really did.
Newt finally took a swipe at Romney when Romney tried to pin the idea of mandates on him. Yet, nobody fired back anything about mandates being wrong.
A couple of times, Bachmann was jumping in to want to say something I thought was going to be an attack on Romney. Instead, she kept repeating the same lines over and over. The message is good, but she’s still not getting to the substantive part. And she still won’t take a shot at Romney.
Perry should have read your FR post a few days ago for more ideas on what issues to go after Romney. Of ALL the things to go after, the issue he brought up was already tried by the McCain campaign in 2008 as a counter when Romney accused McCain of amnesty. His people had to know Romney would be prepped for it. Why not challenge him on climate change? Abortion in Romneycare? The Advisors to Romneycare? I’m sorry, but Perry sucks as a debater.
Romney can’t take advantage of the weak attacks by Perry, because Romney comes across as an a-hole. You could just tell Perry wanted to take him behind the woodshed and administer an old-fashioned “Code Red”. Romney’s smirk and his low-blow counters didn’t do him any favors. Santorum got the best hit on him, but I wish the other candidates would have jumped in. And WTF was the audience make-up of this debate? It seemed like 70% was pro-Romney, WTH?
Ron Paul was Ron Paul. NEXT
Looks like on FOX, Sarah was giving some hidden acceptances to Gingrich, saying he would “clobber” Obama. But which Newt would that be showing up? The Newt from 1994 or the one with Nancy Pelosi? She also seemed reserved to the idea that “he with the most money wins”. This was a little troubling to hear this coming from her.
I suspect that the conservative tier of Republican candidates will not be your cup of tea, given your
admiration for the only RINO in the field. This will not be your happiest website for the Romney leaning, nor his happy platform of bland, nor his noticable avoidance of any conservative speak in his delivery. This guy is not the guy for Free Republic and simply never will be. In fact if he should manage the nomination you will be among the amazed who it is among conservatives and how many will write in another name. It is time for a protest against holding conservatives hostage to RINO control of a Republic. We are about done with that. Romeny support is as thin as a razor.
Romney is doing his usual great job in this debate as in all of them.
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Flaggy you were a cheerleader for Romney in 2008 and you learnt nothing then it seems...
This is a CONSERVATIVE site...
Romney is not a conservative...
For a liberal Democrat, Im sure Romney did a great job tonight...
and Yes Romney is spineless...
starting with the fact that he was a TWO time cowardly draft dodger during Vietnam...
and he wont own up to his 40 years of pushing abortions
and his RomneyCare which led to ObamaCare...
and his gun grabbing..
and his global warming...
and his OWS supporter role...
etc...
Tell me does Willie Mitty have any courageous genes ???
>> “A VAT tax taxes at every level including the end product. Herman’s tax is applied only to the end product so does not contain hidden taxes.” <<
.
I just showed you one of the ways that it does contain hidden taxes; can’t you read?
It contains hiddentaxes on the labor and materials of every service or professional contractor you hire.
Some things never change and, "support your coreligionist, no matter what" is one of them for some.
>TRENDING ON TWITTER:
#Libya is in Africa, after Bachmann said of Obama, “He put us in Libya. Now he’s put us in Africa.”<
Groan (but you have to admit, that’s pretty doggone funny).
Her and Botoxed Wayne Newton...nice.
... Yet I’m still waiting for a statement that “hated Mormons” instead of more vacant claims...
narrow local interests? hmmmm
Good post!
Give the job to the Seabees. With enough men and material they'll get the job done.
I agree. I thought it very unstatesmanlike for both men to argue like schoolgirls. It was a waste of time and got them nowhere. Though I did like seeing Mitt get slapped around. For a moment he looked like he was going to cry.
I suspect Flaglady’s support of Mitt is mostly related to his religion, they are both LDS.
CNN.
“So why should he give the guy a forum?”
He wouldn’t, because Perry can’t debate. Man, he’s terrible at it. It’s embarrassing.
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