I won't be able to live-blog tonight's debate, or tomorrow morning's. Feel free to post any of your reactions in the comments.
Tonight's debate starts at 9:00 Eastern. I assume you'll be able to watch it live online on the ABC News website. There's also a debate tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Tonight's Republican presidential debate
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2 comments:
I thought Romney had a good night. I'm mystified somewhat by his take on the Chinese currency question. I'd have to defer to Greg Mankiw's argument on this. The Chinese change the ratio of dollars to yuan by buying our Treasury instruments. Thus they make the dollar more dear, the yuan less so. Romney is thus demanding that the Chinese buy less of our debt which would make our debt service more expensive. I suppose he knows this but doesn't want to explain it in Ohio and will change his position given cover as Gingrich did for him on the immigration question. It's that sort of thing though that bothers me. I never know if he believes something or if he figures I'm too friggin invested in a stupid POV to be talked to.
The 9PM debate:
I think Romney did pretty well. His major concern seemed to be not saying too much about his social conservatism (the questioners were eager for him to speak on this so as to use it against him in the general election). The other candidates seemed more interested in attacking each other than Romney. Although I did see Newt and Santorum try to team up and say Romney sounded "timid" no matter what he said or how he said it.
Romney went on the offensive against someone (finally) and scored huge points against Huntsman, saying Huntsman has spent the last two years trying to implement Obama's policies in China. Huntsman responded in Mandarin.
Romney tried to keep the focus on Obama, Huntsman on nothing at all (brilliant move by Obama to pick Huntsman as a diplomat, he's a natural).
Everybody got bogged down with gay marriage. Santorum tried saying it was a states' rights issue, but at the same time that there needed to be a federal law overruling the opinion of the states. His most bizarre claim was that even mentioning "the middle class" was tantamount to class warfare. Santorum seemed obsessed with the idea that all our problems could be resolved by talking about them differently.
Perry seemed to be doing very well, until he tried to out-hawk everyone and demand we re-invade Iraq.
Newt tried to pander to veterans. But Ron Paul out-pandered him and scored some points. Newt spent the night making promises he couldn't keep and claiming to have easy answers to all our problems but giving little to no specifics. He also seemed to want to overthrow every government in the Middle East.
Ron Paul attacked everyone but Romney. He may not win, but he's going to make sure no one but Romney does either.
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