Live Thread: South Carolina GOP Presidential Debate on CNN 8 P.M. EST

Thursday, January 19, 2011 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

And then there were three and a half minds left campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

Link to CNN livestream page.

Hosted by CNN's John King at the North Charleston Coliseum.

[AFPhys]

Santorum must not have a clue about what has happened nationwide about the SOPA blackout and its effect. He is really on the wrong side of this.

[mmanager]

Santo sounds so desperate. He is going down at least five points after this childish display tonight. He is embarrassing to watch. Pathetic!

[moehoward]

"I think he just shot himself in the foot."

He just shot himself in the other foot.

[gswilder]

I agree. Newt’s comeback should have been about Obama releasing his “history”. Newt is better when attacking Obama than the other repubs

[onyx]

I'm still sick with a flu that gives me coughing spells, particularly at night, so mercifully, I've missed parts of this debate...lol.

I take it by reading through the comments, that it's been an attack on Newt night, led by the petulant Santorum?

I had hoped the discussion would deal in foreign policy, the debt ceiling, Keystone Pipeline, and issues of the day, but it's not a serious debate at all.

[cynwoody]

Wow. Paul just aligned himself with the dems and slammed republicans. He is a loon.

The loon who introduced SOPA has an R after his name.

[Fawn]

HERE YOU GO!!! NEWT IS THE MAN!

[Revolting cat!]

The more better (to quote the McCain daughter) debate of all. Everyone has time to respond, speak in paragraphs (oh, no, horror, paragraphs?!)

[altura]

the Fox debate was good. I felt uplifted after thinking that we had 3 acceptable candidates.

Maybe the thing of having 4 moderators on Fox helped things out.

King is still smarting over the early Newt rebuke.

Obama is probably grinning like a possum watching this.

Newt usually soars in debates.

And, yeah, I do miss Perry. And no, I don’t have a picture of him on my dresser.

[DoughtyOne]

So there was no reason for Newt to say he was sorry for what he had done. Good to know...

[af_vet_rr]

It was scary...Ron Pauls answer on global economics actually made sense.

Very scary. And Santorum had good points.

It was actually a decent question and got good responses. Apple has well over $50 billion stuck overseas because they won't bring it back to the US, because of the 35% corporate tax hit.

If Apple wanted to bring that money back into the US, and this affects all US tech companies - Dell, HP, etc., Apple alone would have to give over $15 billion of that $50 billion to the US government.

Over $15 billion is a helluva lot of jobs and investments.

Add up Apple, Dell, HP, Google, Microsoft, and all the other tech companies and you'd probably hit $100 billion that they would be losing in taxes to bring it over here.

[Poser]

It’s CNN. It’s the best one can expect. We do, however have candidates that think and speak clearly. All of them are talking like conservatives and one of them is whacking the moderator for stupid questions.

This is way better than John McCain, George Bush (either one) or Bob Dole. There was only one Ronald Reagan.

[womanvet]

You ask, “Why all the Santorum hate?” I don’t hate him. I was listening and watching — first I felt pity for him — I was pretty happy about his win in Iowa, but the more he talks I have come to see it is not pity, it is just disgust

[Kenny]

Rather like seeing it aimed at Romney.

Yes, and Obama. We're wasting opportunities to expose Obama's agenda.

[Christie at the beach]

o who is winning this?

Newt-with the HUGE amount of pressure he is under, no bad slips ..answering questions honest. He was right on in the opening. Standing O’s again.

[Ron C.]

"So far, Newt is doing well and winning the debate."

Yeah, but to be divisive CNN will say the Ricky won the debate!

[RedMDer]

click

[NKP_Vet]

Did I just hear Willard say he grew up poor and was left nothing by his father and had earned all his money?????

[imchris]

If Hillary decided to run for president in 2016, I hope Dana Perino will also run (as independent) so they could put Dana next to Hillary on the debate state. Haha.

[livius]

I agree, Santorum probably would endorse Romney if he drops out.

What a bizarre answer on SOPA. Basically, I guess he’s fine with it.