Republican debate: Don’t be stupid

Whatever else you can say about tonight’s Republican debate, Neil Patrick Harris did a terrific job of hosting.




Asked about Pawlenty’s claim he could get 5% economic growth, Santorum says he won’t comment on “4% or 5%”, showing the proper Republican dismissiveness of “numbers.”

T-Paw: if China, Brazil can have 5% growth, so can we!

Ron Paul: Why not 15%!


T-Paw refuses to apologize for coining “ObamneyCare™.” But he was really embarrassed at being asked to repeat to Romney’s face the stuff he’s been saying about him behind his back.

T-Paw calls Obama a “declinist.”

Gingrich: if government can set rules for health care, it can set rules for everything in your life, like setting a lifetime cap on wives.

Bachmann says she wants to announce here tonight that Obama will be a One. Term. President.


“De-tax”? Is that a word, Ron Paul?

T-Paw is not for being a chump (something about free trade).

Bachmann: the EPA should really be renamed the Job Killing Organization of America (JKOA).


Gingrich: “right-to-work” states are telling the other states, “Don’t be stupid.”

Bachmann says she fought TARP behind closed doors. Possibly the doors of her padded cell.

Who will support the manned space program? T-Paw kind of. Gingrich wants a decentralized space program, and cut out the bureaucracy. Because we built the Trans-Continental Railroad without a National Department of Railroads.


Mittens: we shouldn’t be asking what parts of the federal government to cut, we should be asking what parts to keep. Isn’t that basically the same question?

Cain says something about throwing our grandchildren in wheelchairs off a bridge. Really, unless he’s talking about setting a national no-anchovy-toppings policy, I don’t really care what Herman Cain has to say.

And he wants us to be just like Pinochet’s Chile, or something.

Santorum: you approach decisions using faith and reason, and if your faith is pure and your reason is right, you’ll come to the same place. Although if that place is your dining room and there’s a fetus on the table, there’s a strong possibility something has gone badly wrong with your faith, your reason, or both.


Cain: when I said I wouldn’t appoint Muslims to my cabinet, I meant the ones trying to kill us. By putting anchovies on our pizzas.

Gingrich says he wouldn’t appoint people not willing to be loyal to the United States. “We did this in dealing with the Nazis, and we did this in dealing with the Communists, and it was controversial both times”. Always nice to have a shout-out to Joseph McCarthy, although I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about with the Nazis.

Governor Romney, spicy wings or mild? Spicy (but ask him again tomorrow, and he’ll say mild). Really, John King asked that question.


Who supports a federal Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? T-Paw, Mittens, Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann do, the rest would leave it to the states. Paul says government should be out of the business of giving marriage licenses, it should be up to the church. Atheists, you’re shit out of luck.

Overturn Obama’s repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Pawlenty would leave it up to the service chiefs. Paul: rights don’t come in groups, we shouldn’t have gay rights. Romney fails to answer. Gingrich would listen to the commanders, whose lives are at risk. Bachmann: overturn after listening to the chiefs. Santorum: repeal the repeal.

Whenever some random New Hampshirehoovian asks a question on the big screen, Bachmann responds while looking at the screen and not at the camera, not having learned anything from her State of the Union response.


If there’s one thing Bachmann really wants you to take away from this debate, judging by the number of times she’s brought it up, it’s that she’s fostered 23 children.

Should a 5-year-old illegal immigrant be turned away from a hospital emergency room? Ron Paul says something about no mandates on hospitals, which I take to mean yes. But the Catholic Church should be allowed to take care of him.

T-Paw, Coke or Pepsi? Coke.

Romney: every one of these candidates would be a better president than Obama. Obama doesn’t have a foreign policy.


No one willing to say which of the other candidates they’d choose as their running mate. Ron Paul doesn’t even know what their views on the Federal Reserve are.

Gingrich: “we don’t have even today the intelligence to know what we’re doing.” Okay, he’s talking about Libya here, but it does seem to sum things up nicely.