Live-blogging the "town hall" presidential debate

[Here's the transcript.]

I'll be live-blogging the 2nd presidential debate here. Keep reloading for more updates.

For more live-blogging, check out Althouse (my mom), TalkingPointsMemo, and the Economist's Democracy in America.

As always, any quotes will be written down on the fly, so they might not be verbatim but I'll try to make them reasonably accurate.

9:04 - A college student asks Mitt Romney how he's going to be assured of having a job after graduating. Mitt Romney says we need to continue giving Pell grants. "I know what it takes to create good jobs again. . . . I'm going to make sure you get a job."

9:05 - President Obama seems very upbeat: "Your future is bright!" He segues into paraphrasing Romney as saying: "We're going to let Detroit go bankrupt." He also strains to connect education to "investing in solar energy."

9:09 - Romney: "We have fewer people working today than when President Obama took office." Romney says that the unemployment rate is the same, but it would be much higher — over 10% — if the work force were as big as it was 4 years ago. He also retorts to Obama: "You say I wanted to let Detroit go bankrupt; you did let Detroit go bankrupt!"

9:11 - Obama: "Governor Romney doesn't have a 5-point plan. He has a 1-point plan: to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules. . . . That's exactly the philosophy that's been in place for the past decade." It seems like a questionable strategy to impute the whole time he's been in office to his challenger's philosophy.

9:14 - Obama promises a questioner: "You're not going to pay as much for gas." Both of the candidates seem to be under the impression that the president is the Commander of the Economy.

9:17 - Obama says when Romney was governor, "you stood in front of a coal plant and said: 'This plant kills. We're shutting it down.'"

9:18 - While continuing the debate on coal, the two of them both walk slowly toward each other while accusing the other of lying about coal statistics. Romney to Obama: "You'll get your chance soon; I'm still speaking." [Here's the video:]



9:22 - Candy Crowley starts to move on to a new topic, and Romney, as usual, starts to debate the debating rules with her. She insists on going to a new topic, but Romney talks about the old topic (energy) anyway. Obama: "Candy, it's OK, I'm used to being interrupted."

9:25 - Romney is asked about his tax plan. He emphasizes: "The top 5% of taxpayers will continue to pay 60% of income tax the government collects. So that will stay the same." He also repeats what Paul Ryan said last week: that Obama's spending increases will lead to higher taxes on the middle class. Of course, Obama says the opposite: that he's going to cut taxes for the middle class. We've heard all this before, and neither candidate's "plan" is very convincing. (See the 9:47 update in my live-blog of the vice-presidential debate, where I said Ryan had a "brilliant tactic.")

9:30 - Obama says that Romney said during the primaries that he'd give a "tax cut" — not a "tax rate cut" — for everyone, including the rich. Does Obama really think it's going to be effective for his critique of Romney on taxes to hinge on that semantic distinction?

9:31 - Romney blatantly panders to women by referring to the increase in "women living in poverty" during the Obama administration. Has there not been an increase in men living in poverty, or do men living in poverty just not matter as much?

9:36 - Obama points out that Romney was "a very successful investor," and would never have accepted a plan as "sketchy" as Romney's proposal of tax cuts and military-spending increases. Romney flips this around by suggesting that you should trust him because he's been so successful in business and government. Romney's retort to Obama: "How about $4 trillion in deficits? That's math that doesn't add up. . . . He said he would cut the deficit in half; instead he's doubled it."

9:37 - Obama is asked what he's going to do about women earning less on average than men. "That's a great question." Why should we trust Obama's explanation of any statistics, if he isn't willing to point out the statistical fallacy with inferring discrimination from raw averages which don't consider any of the legitimate factors that cause people to be paid differently based on the different choices they make?

9:41 - Romney says we need to have "flexible schedules" to help women. How is it the job of the president to decide what job schedules people have?

9:45 - A member of the audience asks Romney what the biggest differences are between him and George W. Bush. "Trade — I'll crack down on China. President Bush didn't." "I'm going to get us to a balanced budget; President Bush didn't." He says "President Obama was right" to say that deficits were outrageous under Bush; of course, Obama increased them even more. "President Bush had a very different path, for a very different time."

9:50 - Obama goes for the jugular, pointing out that Romney is investing in China while promising to crack down on China. "Governor, you're the last person who's going to get tough on China."

9:51 - Obama says Romney is different from Bush: "George Bush didn't propose turning Medicare into a voucher. George Bush supported comprehensive immigration reform; he didn't suggest self-deportation. George Bush didn't stop funding Planned Parenthood."

9:53 - Obama lists his accomplishments in a much snappier way than he did in the first debate: he ended the war in Iraq, he's fought terrorism, something about health care, etc. He then lists several of Romney's promises, repeating that he's vowed to defund Planned Parenthood.

9:55 - Romney walks toward someone whose question has just been answered by Obama, speaking to him directly: "I think you know better. I think you know that the economy for the last 4 years hasn't been as good as the president just described. . . . He keeps saying: look, I've created 5 million jobs. That's after losing 5 million jobs!" Ah, Romney nows says there are more "people in poverty." So, men do count after all! Romney is very fluent with his statistics: "Median incomes are down $4,300 per family."

9:59 - An immigration question. Romney: "America is a nation of immigrants. . . . We welcome legal immigrants into this country." Anyone with a degree in science or math should "get a green card stapled to their diploma." He'd punish employers for hiring "those who came here illegally." He uses that phrase — "those who came here illegally" — over and over. He's clearly been advised that some people are offended by the word "illegal" being used as an adjective applied to a whole person.

10:01 - Obama starts out by echoing Romney's answer: "We are a nation of immigrants. But we're also a nation of laws." Like Romney, he says we need to encourage highly skilled people to immigrate.

10:04 - The moderator, Crowley, asks Romney to "speak to self-deportation." Romney: "No!" But a minute later, he does explain his views on "self-deportation." Romney likes to pick fights with the moderators.

10:06 - Romney brings back the issue of China, repeatedly asking Obama: "Have you looked at your pension lately?" Obama: "No, mine isn't as big as yours, so it doesn't take as long to look at." Romney: "Look at your pension — you also have Chinese investments." Crowley asks Romney "if I could have you sit down." [Here's the video:]



10:11 - Obama on the killings in Benghazi, Libya: "We'll find out who did this, and we will hunt them down. When folks mess with Americans, we go after them. . . . These are my folks, and I'm the one who's got to greet those coffins when they come home."

10:12 - Romney on Benghazi: "This was not a demonstration — it was a terrorist attack. It took a long time for that to be told to the American people."

10:13 - Romney goes on autopilot, listing his talking points about Obama's foreign policy: "The president's policies throughout the Middle East began with an apology tour," Obama is "leading from behind," his foreign policy is "unraveling."

10:15 - Obama gives a forceful rebuke to Romney's description of his response to the Benghazi attacks:  "That's not what we do." He says that he called it a "terrorist attack" immediately afterwards, in his Rose Garden address. Romney says it actually took him 14 days before he used that language. Crowley intercedes, saying that Obama is right that he immediately used the word "terrorist," but Romney is right about his larger point that it took the administration 2 weeks to stop characterizing it as a spontaneous reaction to a video. [Added: A transcript on Fox News quotes Obama in the Rose Garden address, the day after the attacks:]

The United States condemns, in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. . . .

We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None.

The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts. . . .

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.

What do you think? Did he refer to the killings as terrorism? If you take his words literally, he was talking about what no acts of terror will ever do, without specifying whether terrorism had just occurred. At most, there's an implication that the Benghazi killings were terrorist attacks that would not shake our resolve and so on. But that's too debatable for the moderator to be weighing in on who got it right.

[Update: A hypothetical.]

[Added: Here's the video of the whole section on Libya:]



10:26 - They're asked what their plan is to reverse the trend of jobs being outsourced to foreign countries. Romney brings back the line he used at the beginning of the first debate, saying that Obama has used "trickle-down government." American businesses can't compete with countries that have more lax regulation. He threatens to impose "tariffs" on China.

10:35 - Romney shouts at Obama: "Government does not create jobs! Government does not create jobs!" That's not what he said in his first answer in the debate!

10:35 - Romney uses a line he often repeated during the primaries, but which he didn't say in the last debate: "I spent my life in the private sector, not government." A few minutes later, he makes a list of promises and says: "I served as governor and showed that I can get this done."

10:38 - Obama rattles off platitudes: "Everybody should have a fair shot, and everybody should do their fair share, and everybody should play by the same rules."

10:38 - Finally, Obama brings up the fact that Romney said that 47% of the country refuses to take personal responsibility for themselves. "When my grandfather fought in World War II and came back and got a G.I. Bill that enabled him to go to college, that wasn't a handout." And with that, Obama has the last word in the debate. It seems quite unfair that Romney wasn't given a chance to respond to Obama's attack.

At the very least, Obama "won" the debate by cutting off the narrative that had been going on since the last debate about his lack of vitality.

Live-blogging the vice-presidential debate of 2012

[Added: Here's the transcript.]

I'll be live-blogging the only vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan here, starting at 9:00 Eastern tonight.

Keep reloading this post for more updates.

You can watch the debate online on C-SPAN.org or YouTube.

As always, I'll be doing writing down quotes on the fly without the aid of a transcript or pause/rewind button, so they won't necessarily be verbatim but I'll try to keep them as close to accurate  possible.

Feel free to comment on the debate in the comments.

9:03 - They're sitting down. That might produce a calmer vibe than in the last debate.

9:04 - Biden promises "to find and bring to justice the men" who killed Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

9:05 - Biden says that Obama on day 1 made it a top priority to get Osama bin Laden, whereas Romney said during his previous campaign that he "wouldn't move Heaven and Earth" to kill bin Laden. "It was about more than taking a murderer off the battlefield. It was about restoring America's heart, and sending a message to terrorists."

9:06 - Ryan says that "if we're hit by terrorists, we'll call it what it is." Instead, the Obama administration "blamed the YouTube video" for the killing of Stevens. Ryan thanks veterans, turning to Biden and extending the thanks to his son Beau.

9:08 - While Ryan keeps giving his long answer about the attacks, Biden rudely mutters over him: "Do I get to say anything?" Once it's Biden's turn, he says, "With all due respect, that's malarkey. Because none of what he said was accurate."

9:11 - Biden says that Romney's decision to hold a press conference about the Libya attacks was "not presidential leadership." Is Romney not allowed to say anything about a foreign-policy crisis during his campaign just because he's a challenger? That doesn't seem fair.

9:14 - Ryan says a Romney administration, in contrast with the Obama administration, "will have credibility" on sanctions against Iran. Biden: "Incredible! . . . These are the most crippling sanctions in history, period. Period."

9:15 - Biden rhetorically asks if Ryan wants to start a war with Iran. Ryan interjects: "We want to prevent war!" Biden asks what more Romney/Ryan would want Obama to do on Iran, "unless they want us to go to war."

9:19 - Ryan's main debate tactic on Iran seems to be repeating the word "credibility."

9:20 - The moderator, Martha Raddatz, says Biden is "making it sound like [Iran doesn't] want a nuclear weapon." Biden says no, but "facts matter," and they're still far from being able to make a weapon.

9:22 - Ryan is stumbling over his words a lot, e.g. saying "desperation" when he means "daylight."

9:22 - Ryan warns of Iran getting a nuclear weapon, which would set off "a nuclear arms race in the Middle East."

9:23 - Biden on Iran: "We've made it clear . . . This president doesn't bluff."

9:24 - Biden paraphrases Romney: "47% of the American people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives." He mentions that Romney himself pays relatively low taxes, and points out that Romney's "47%" includes veterans and elderly people on Social Security.

9:25 - Biden says Romney/Ryan are "holding middle-class tax cuts hostage" in order to cut taxes for the very wealthiest Americans. He's clearly putting into practice what many people felt President Obama should have done last week.

9:27 - Ryan repeats Romney's defense of tax cuts for the rich, which is that those taxes apply to small businesses, which create jobs. Why couldn't they amend the tax code with enough precision to give a break to those small businesses, without cutting everyone's personal income taxes?

9:30 - The debate has been pretty somber. Biden brings up the car accident that killed his first wife and daughter.

9:31 - Ryan focuses on something I don't remember hearing about at all in the previous debate: the fact that there was single-party Democratic control of Congress and the White House for the first half of Obama's term. "They had the opportunity to do whatever they wanted. Look where they are right now." He points out how much higher unemployment is than the administration projections.

9:34 - Ryan gives a passionate, personal defense of "entitlements" — Medicare and Social Security — describing how they helped his mother and grandmother to be successful. He and his mom collected Social Security benefits after his dad died, and this allowed her to go to college and start a business.

9:37 - Biden says Ryan supported the Bush administration's plan to privatize Social Security. "Imagine where all those seniors would be now if their money were in the market."

9:38 - Ryan: "They got cut with their hands in the cookie jar, turning Medicare into a piggy bank for Obamacare."

9:39 - Ryan: "I know you're under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground, but I think people would be better served if we didn't keep interrupting each other." True. [Added: here's the video:]



9:42 - Ryan says Biden has "nothing to run on," so he's painting his opponent as "something to run from." Ryan says Biden is wrong to call their Medicare plan a "voucher" system.

9:47 - Ryan: "There aren't enough rich people and small businesses to pay for all their [Obama/Biden's] spending. So when they say it's time for the wealthy to pay their 'fair share' — watch out, middle class, they're coming for you!" [Added later: this was a brilliant tactic of inverting Obama's argument from the first debate that the math of Romney's tax plan doesn't add up, and the middle class will end up getting stuck with the bill.]

9:50 - The moderator asks why Romney/Ryan aren't giving the specifics of their tax plan. After Ryan answers, the moderator sums up: "Still no specifics."

9:51 - Raddatz should be more aggressive about stopping Biden from constantly interrupting Ryan.

9:53 -There's an extremely busy back-and-forth between Biden and Ryan over what kinds of taxes and tax deductions Romney would cut.

9:55 - Ryan accuses Obama of trying to cut the Navy to its smallest size since World War I.

9:59 - Biden says Romney's position on withdrawing from Afghanistan is: "It depends." "It does not 'depend' for us."

10:01 - Ryan on Afghanistan: "What we're seeing when we turn on our TV screens is the unraveling of the Obama foreign policy."

10:04 - Biden on Afghanistan: "The only way to make 'em step up is to say: 'Fellas, we're leavin'. Step up.'"

10:05 - Ramesh Ponnuru asks: "Are normal people still watching this?" He also made a good point back in the section on taxes:

The Democrats could have permanently extended the middle class tax cuts in 2009-10 if they really wanted to.

10:12 - I'm not following the discussion of Syria, and I wonder if it's really going to affect anyone's vote.

10:14 - Ryan is asked about his criteria for military intervention in any country. "Only when it is in our national-security interest."

10:15 - Ryan, asked about abortion, says: "I don't see how a person can separate their public life from their private life — or from their faith. . . . I believe that life begins at conception. . . . The policy of a Romney administration will be to oppose abortion, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother." [I originally didn't catch whether or not he included the mother's "health" as an exception. Based on the transcript, he didn't.]

10:17 - Ryan says Democrats used to say abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," in Bill Clinton's famous words. "Now, they support it without restriction, and with taxpayer funding."

10:18 - Biden says he's personally opposed to abortion based on his Catholicism, but "I refuse to impose that on equally devout Christians, Muslims, and Jews."

10:25 - Ryan says Obama won't show us a "credible plan" to prevent the debt crisis. (Again, he emphasizes credibility.) What we get from the administration is "speeches, not leadership." He's trying to hoist Obama on his own petard (they won't show us their plan).

10:27 - More disorienting crosstalk from Ryan and Biden. Raddatz: "Let me calm this down." She asks what each of them could bring to the country that no one else could. Ryan smartly rejects the premise that no one else could bring what he would.

10:30 - Biden, in his closing statement: "You probably sense my frustration with their attitude toward the American people. My friend [Ryan] says 30% of the American people are 'takers.'" He repeats Romney's 47% line. "They're talking about my mother and father."

10:30 - Ryan thanks the moderator, the college hosting the debate, and "you, Joe. It's been an honor." Unless I missed it, I think Biden thanked only the moderator and the college, not Ryan.

10:32 - "Mitt Romney and I want to earn your support." He pauses and says the word "earn" very emphatically, as if to say: Obama and Biden didn't earn it.

10:40 - The debate is over. I was so wrong in my prediction that the debate would be relatively calm because they're sitting down. Here are two live-blog updates from my mom, Ann Althouse (an hour earlier than here):

8:51: The stress level is rising. Biden is so angry. Why is he yelling? Ryan needs nerves of steel not to lose his cool. I'm impressed that Ryan, when he gets his turn, is able to speak in an even, natural voice. It's hard to concentrate on the policy itself, because the emotional static is so strong.

9:11: Biden has been yelling at Martha Raddatz for the last 15 minutes (as the subject is war). It's so inappropriate!

Based on Jonah Goldberg's Twitter feed, where he's been retweeting other people including other National Review editors, it seems like conservatives weren't very happy with Ryan's performance. Jeffrey Goldberg says:

Biden right now is talking to people, Ryan is talking to members of the House budget committee.

Jonah Goldberg also says:

If Biden was advised to be angry at everything he doesn't find hysterical, he's executing perfectly.

So, Biden was too rude and aggressive, while Obama, by his own admission, was too polite and not aggressive enough last week. Maybe after Obama's campaign puts him through debate "study hall," he'll finally get it just right.

The first debate of the 2012 general election

I'll be live-blogging it here tonight.

As always, any quotes I write down will be done without a transcript or pause/rewind button. So they might not be verbatim, but I'll try to be accurate.

For more live-blogging, check out Althouse (my mom), TalkingPointsMemo, and Democracy in America.

[Added later: Here's the transcript, and here's video of the whole debate:]



9:06 - President Obama criticizes the "top-down policies that got us into this mess." Is Obama trying to pitch himself as the candidate of bottom-up policies? That's hard to believe.

9:07 - Mitt Romney brushes off Obama's charges that he's going to take a top-down approach or "cut taxes for the rich."

9:08 - Romney says that Obama believes in something that doesn't work: "trickle-down government."

9:09 - Moderator Jim Lehrer asks Obama to expand on the idea of trickle-down government, and Obama responds by explaining his education policy of "race to the top." The debate has been very vertical so far.

9:10 - Obama makes the unpopular admission that the government needs to both reduce spending and increase revenues in order to control the deficit.

9:11 - Romney to Obama: "I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine."

9:12 - Romney describes the economic slump as an "economy tax" on the middle class.

9:14 - Romney makes the implausible promise to make "no tax cut that adds to the deficit."

9:16 - Obama says that even if you cut all deductions that benefit the wealthy, it wouldn't make up for the shortfall in revenue that would result from Romney's tax cuts for them. Is Obama assuming that all these enormous changes in the tax code would have no effect on behavior?

9:22 - Romney's explanation for how his math adds up is that he would cut taxes for small businesses, which would create jobs.

9:23 - Obama says that Romney is making "the same sales pitch [on taxes] that was made in 2001 and 2003." Obama equates his own approach with Bill Clinton's. So, "we've got some data on which approach is likely to create jobs for middle-class Americans."

9:24 - Romney goes on at unnecessary length about the debating rules: "He got the first answer, so I have the last word on this topic," etc.

9:26 - Romney: "The amount of debt we're adding, at a trillion dollars a year, is simply not moral."

9:27 - Romney promises that he'd go through all government programs, figure out which ones don't work, and stop funding them. This sounds uncannily similar to a promise Obama made in one of the 2008 general-election debates. (See my live-blog from October 7, 2008 — coincidentally, it's in the update from the exact same time, 9:27.)

9:31 - Obama attacks Romney for raising his hand in a primary debate when the Republican candidates were asked if they'd turn down an offer of a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts and tax increases.

(I stopped live-blogging here for about 20 minutes because the ABC News and YouTube feeds were too choppy. The C-SPAN feed works much better.)

9:52 - Romney says that Dodd-Frank is "the biggest kiss given to New York banks I've ever seen." He criticizes the "unintended consequences" of financial regulation, but says that some financial regulation is essential.

9:53 - Obama seems at a loss for words for an uncomfortably long time before he goes into his explanation of the causes of the financial crash.

9:54 - Obama: If you think the problem is that we had too much regulation of Wall Street, then Romney is your candidate. Romney rejects this: "It's not that Dodd-Frank was always wrong with too much regulation. Sometimes it doesn't give clear regulation."

9:56 - Romney is asked why he wants to repeal Obama's health-care law. He cites the Congressional Budget Office saying that Obamacare will make health insurance cost $2,500 more per person. Also, "it puts in place an unelected board that will tell people, ultimately, what kinds of treatments they can have." He wants you to think "death panels" without him having to say it.

9:59 - Obama says that Obamacare will definitely let you keep your health insurance. (This calls for a fact-check!) It will just mean that health-insurance companies "can't jerk you around." He admits that "Governor Romney did a good thing" by enacting Romneycare.

10:02 - Romney says that Romneycare is different from Obamacare because the latter will cause people to lose their health insurance. He also reels off a dizzying array of other distinctions, which I doubt many viewers will be following.

10:03 - Obama mocks Romney's references to the "unelected board." Obama characterizes this as making "smart choices" and using "best practices"; the alternative is "to let businesses decide how long they can afford to keep paying premiums until they just give up."

10:05 - Obama says Romney is right that health-care premiums have been going up for the past 2 years — but they've been going up more slowly than in the past 50 years.

10:06 - What would Romney enact in place of Obamacare? He won't describe the whole thing, because the description would be too long. But his plan would include a rule against barring people with pre-existing conditions. And he'd let young people stay on their parents' plans, though he adds that this could happen purely through the free market.

10:10 - Obama says that Romney "says he's going to replace Obamacare" (yes, he did call it "Obamacare"), but he won't say what he's going to replace it with. "Is the reason he's keeping his policies secret, because they're too good?"

10:11 - Romney responds that he's holding back from giving more specifics because he's doing what Ronald Reagan did: laying out "principles" such as creating incentives for economic growth, broadening the tax base, and cutting taxes. Oddly, he adds a compliment to Obama for sharing some of Reagan's economic principles.

10:14 - Obama: "The genius of America is free enterprise." However, there are "things we do better together." He then segues back to his education policy: "Government can help. It can't do it all."

10:16 - Romney responds to Obama: "I reject the idea that I don't believe in great teachers or more teachers. Every state can make that decision on its own."

10:16 - Romney quotes various phrases from the Declaration of Independence, including "the pursuit of happiness." He seems to say that this means that the government has a responsibility to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves.

10:18 - Romney says that federal funding should "follow the child" — that is, let the child and their parents decide where to go to school.

10:20 - Obama says that Romney hasn't been clear about his education proposals, but he would cut the education budget by 20%.

10:22 - Romney to Obama: "As president, you're entitled to your own house and your own airplane, but not your own facts. I'm not going to cut education funding."

10:24 - Lehrer says they're short on time for the remaining issues, but he's not going to claim he's done a good job of moderating. Obama: "Jim, you've done a great job!" Lehrer: "Oh, well, no . . ."

10:26 - Romney lists various things he's going to do on "day 1" as president. Obama points out that Romney is going to have "a busy first day," since he's also promised to repeal Obamacare on day 1.

10:30 - Obama: "Four years ago, I said I wasn't a perfect man and I wouldn't be a perfect president, and that's a promise Governor Romney probably thinks I've kept."

That's all. Check in here again for the vice-presidential debate next week.

UPDATE: About an hour into the debate, Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo, who of course is favorable to Obama, said:

My read so far is that if you go by energy and tossing out lots of data points, then Romney is running circles around the president. Obama has only on a few occasions really pressed a point hard. Whether that means he’s ‘winning’ I don’t know. But energy level, Romney all the way. But I think there are a lot of traps that Obama’s put out there for Romney. Romney really pressed his insistence that he just isn’t going to do what he says his plan is going to do. I think those statements – and the statement about vouchers – might be unpacked badly for him over the next few days.

The 7 bloggers at the Economist's blog Democracy in America seem to be unanimous in saying that Romney won. "W.W." (Will Wilkinson) says:

Romney won decisively. Obama clearly approached the debate with a mainly defensive strategy, hoping to come away without having done anything to rock his very comfortable boat. But the boat did rock. Obama was flummoxed by Romney's superior preparation, intensity, and execution, and tonight's truly dismal performance from the president has put the sustainability of his lead in question, if not actually in peril.

Another blogger at the Economist, "T.N.," says:

Obama seemed to sleepwalk through much of the debate - and the fact that so many potential attack lines were not exploited suggests that . . . this might be a deliberate tactic - to bore his way to victory over the next month.

Andrew Sullivan says:

Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama's meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.

Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn't there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.

The person with authority on that stage was Romney - offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It's beyond depressing. But it's true.

There are two more debates left. I have experienced many times the feeling that Obama just isn't in it, that he's on the ropes and not fighting back, and then he pulls it out. He got a little better over time tonight. But he pulled every punch. Maybe the next two will undo some of the damage. But I have to say I think it was extensive.

Live-blogging the last Republican presidential debate before Super Tuesday

This is the last debate for almost a month, and it's the first debate since Santorum started taking the lead in national polls. So the pressure is on.

I'll be live-blogging here. Keep reloading for more updates.

For more live-blogging, check out TalkingPointsMemo or National Review.

You can watch the debate live online at CNN's homepage.

As always, any quotes in this post are written down on the fly, without a transcript or a pause/rewind button. They may not be verbatim, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate.

8:07 - The candidates are all sitting down, unlike all the other debates on the major cable news networks.

8:08 - Mitt Romney cuts short his own introduction: "As George Costanza would say, when they're applauding, stop." [UPDATE: Jason (the commenter) points out that Romney was referring to this episode of Seinfeld:

At the coffee shop, George laments to Jerry about losing respect at a project meeting led by Mr. Kruger after following a good suggestion with a bad joke. . . . At the next Kruger meeting, George takes Jerry's suggestion and actually leaves the room after a well-received joke.]

8:18 - Ron Paul is asked why he has released an ad calling Rick Santorum "a fake." His answer: "Because he's a fake." Santorum, who's sitting right next to Paul, holds out his arms and says: "I'm real!"

8:22 - Romney is asked why said he was a "severely conservative governor." He massages his unfortunate word choice: "severe — strict." Then he segues into fiscal conservatism.

8:29 - Rick Santorum spends a long time defending earmarks, which seems like a questionable strategy in the Republican primaries. Romney responds dismissively: "I didn't follow all that."

8:33 - The discussion of earmarks is very chaotic, with lots of crosstalk and booing of Romney and Santorum. There doesn't seem to be any dramatic difference of opinion among any of the candidates. None of them seem to be taking the John McCain approach of opposing the whole process of earmarks on principle.

8:42 - Paul takes issue with people who say the bailout of General Motors worked: "That's like saying someone who robbed a bank was successful! You still broke the law to do it."

8:46 - All the candidates are asked whether they "believe in birth control." The audience boos loudly. In a bizarre non sequitur, Gingrich says that no one in the media in 2008 asked Barack Obama why he supported "infanticide."

8:50 - Santorum is asked what he meant by talking about "the dangers of contraception" on the campaign trail. He claims that "the New York Times was talking about the same thing" recently in a review of Charles Murray's book on the white underclass. He doesn't explain what that has to do with contraception. He adds: "Just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean that I want a government program to fix it." That's disingenuous. Right after explaining why he thinks contraception is "not okay," Santorum added that "these are important public policy issues." What else did he mean by those words if not that he would like to see some kind of public policy change to deal with the problem of contraception?

9:02 - Romney tries out a desperate new argument against Santorum: he supported Senator Arlen Specter, who's from Santorum's state of Pennsylvania and cast a deciding vote in favor of Obamacare. So instead of criticizing Romney for providing a model for Obamacare, Santorum should "look in the mirror."

9:21 - All the candidates are asked to define themselves in just one word. Paul: "Consistent." Santorum: "Courage." Romney: "Resolute." Gingrich: "Cheerful."

9:52 - The candidates are asked what the biggest misconception about each of them is. Paul: "That I can't win." He mentions a poll where he does the best in a match-up against President Obama. Gingrich: They don't understand how much work it took for him to achieve welfare reform and a balanced budget (under President Clinton). Romney: That his record or positions on specific issues are more important than his overall leadership qualities. Santorum dodges the question, but says he's shown that he "can do a lot with a little": he doesn't have much money but he's still winning.

That's all for tonight, and that might be all until the general election.

Live-blogging the last Republican presidential debate before the Florida primary

I'll be live-blogging here. Keep reloading this post (or the homepage) for updates.

You can see my previous live-blogs by clicking on the "live-blog" tag.

For more live-blogging of tonight's debate, I recommend checking out TalkingPointsMemo, National Review, or Althouse (my mom).

As always, I'll write down any quotes in real time, so they might not be verbatim but I'll try to get them as close as possible.

8:07 - A harmonically rich arrangement of the national anthem.

8:08 - Rick Santorum introduces his 93-year-old mother. We see her standing up as the crowd applauds her. Then Santorum says: "I'd better stop there."

8:10 - Santorum is asked what he thinks of Mitt Romney's statement in the last debate that government should nudge illegal immigrants into choosing to "self-deport." Santorum strongly agrees.

8:13 - Newt Gingrich's rebuttal: "I don't think grandmothers and grandfathers will 'self-deport.'"

8:15 - Romney: "I don't think anybody is interested in running around the country and rounding up 11 million Americans — excuse me, illegal immigrants . . ."

8:16 - This is the first time I can remember seeing an exception to what I thought seemed to be a rule:

Is there some rule that every debate needs to bring up immigration, but only near the end? There seems to be some consensus that immigration is so important that it always needs to be debated, but it's unimportant enough to wait till the audience has stopped paying attention.

8:17 - Gingrich points out that if we tried to deport illegal immigrants, they'd "end up in a church, which would give them sanctuary." "We're not gonna walk in there and grab a grandmother out and then kick 'em [sic] out."

8:18 - Gingrich says Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate in the race. Romney responds very forcefully, taking umbrage at the "highly charged epithet." "I'm not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My mother was born in Wales." Gingrich coyly says he'd like to hear what term Romney would like to have applied to himself.

Jonah Goldberg's take on that exchange:

That was Mitt's best counterattack in 10 debates.

8:21 - Romney to Gingrich: "Our problem is not 11 million grandmothers."

8:23 - Romney oddly says: "I think English should be the official language of the United States, as it is." No it isn't.

8:25 - Ana Marie Cox says on Twitter:

Newt: "No one should get trapped in a linguistic situation." Too late for poor Rick Perry...

8:31 - Gingrich: "The contracts I signed with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said I would do 'no consulting.'" And we know that everyone always does what it says in contracts.

8:31 - Romney's response to Gingrich's attack on him for investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: "My investments for the past 10 years have not been made by me. They're in a blind trust." Romney gives more details on how these investments are made, and then asks Gingrich if it sounds familiar. An awkward pause, and then Romney points out to Gingrich: "You also have investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac!"

8:37 - Santorum pleads for an end to the personal attacks on Gingrich and Romney: "Can we set aside that Newt Gingrich was a member of Congress and used the skills he gained there to advise companies, and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy because he worked hard?"

8:42 - Moderator Wolf Blitzer asks Gingrich about comments he's made criticizing Romney for investing in the Cayman Islands and Swiss banks. Gingrich echoes Santorum, saying we should just talk about "governing the country." Blitzer points out that Gingrich made those attacks just a few days ago. Gingrich glibly says he's not going to talk about it tonight, even though he's "perfectly happy to say that in an interview on a TV show." (Yes, those are Gingrich's words about himself!) Romney: "Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make accusations somewhere else that they're not willing to make here?" Romney again explains how his investments were made (by an independent trustee, so that Romney wouldn't have any conflicts of interest). Then he launches into a powerful defense of the fact that he's earned his money, invested that money, and realized big returns on his investments. I've been tired of the personal attacks on Romney for a while, so I find him very appealing here.

8:49 - Wolf Blitzer points out that if Ron Paul were elected, he'd be the oldest president ever when inaugurated. Blitzer asks if he'll release his medical records. Paul: "Obviously, because it's about 1 page, if even that long. I'm willing to challenge anyone up here to a 25-mile bike ride in the heat of Texas." He jokingly adds: "You know, there are laws against age discrimination, so if you push this too much, you'd better be careful!" Gingrich chimes in: "He's in great shape."

8:53 - Gingrich is asked how he can be in favor of colonizing the moon and dramatically lowering taxes. Of course, he doesn't explain it. "I'd like to see an American on the moon before the Chinese get there." Why?

8:55 - Santorum smartly calls out Gingrich for his fiscal irresponsibility in calling for lavish new funding of the space program.

8:55 - Paul: "I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we should send some politicians up there sometimes."

8:57 - Gingrich implausibly claims that under his leadership, the space program would suddenly become 90% privatized.

8:58 - Romney says that if he were still working in business and someone made a proposal like Gingrich's space program, he'd say: "You're fired." I'm glad to see that Romney hasn't been cowed by the absurd attacks on him for saying he likes being able to fire people who aren't doing good work.

9:00 - Paul calls out Gingrich for claiming to have balanced the budget, saying the debt skyrocketed by a trillion dollars when Gingrich was Speaker. Gingrich seems to have no disagreement with this!

9:05 - Romney highlights the negative unintended consequences of the tax deductions for employers' health care plans: most Americans get health insurance through their employer, so they stop getting health insurance if they lose their job or even decide to change jobs. I completely agree with Romney that this is a huge problem.

9:09 - Santorum attacks Romney and Gingrich for supporting a mandate to buy health insurance. Gingrich claims that he didn't support a mandate at the federal level. Really?

9:11 - Romney makes his usual move of explaining why Romneycare was a good idea, without being clear on how any of his points are different from Obamacare. Santorum points this out: "What he just said is factually incorrect. Your mandate is no different from Barack Obama's mandate."

9:23 - Wolf Blitzer asks every candidate why his wife would make the best First Lady. Paul says his wife, Carol Paul, wrote a cookbook. Romney describes Ann Romney's battles with multiple sclerosis and cancer. Gingrich rejects the premise that Callista Gingrich would necessarily be the best First Lady, since the other candidates' wives are all fantastic; however, Callista would bring "an artistic flavor." Santorum says his wife, Karen Santorum, was a neonatal intensive care nurse for 9 years. She became interested in the ethical issues raised in that job, so she got a law degree, but she left the legal field to become a mother of 7. She wrote a book on their experience losing a child, and she also wrote a Christianity-based book on manners. [Correction: Santorum didn't explicitly say that the manners book was based on Christianity, though it might have been. Santorum just said it teaches manners "through stories," which is "how Christ taught us."]

9:30 - Romney admits: "I became more conservative when I was governor."

9:34 - Paul is asked what he'd say if President of Cuba Raul Castro called him. "I'd ask what he was calling about!"

9:36 - Nate Silver (on Twitter) makes a good point:

A basic debate skill is looking for opportunities to go on offense when you're losing. Newt seems to lack it, or doesn't know he's losing.

9:40 - Romney and Gingrich give the expected answers on Israel: they'll always side with Israel, and Palestinians need to recognize Israel's right to exist.

9:43 - Here's an issue I didn't expect to come up: should Puerto Rico become a state? Santorum says Puerto Rico should get a plebiscite to voice their opinion on the issue, but Santorum himself takes no position. Wolf Blitzer simplistically says: "I'll take that as a maybe!"

9:47 - The candidates are asked about the role of religion in government. Gingrich talks about what it means to be "truly faithful." Does he really want to pitch himself as the expert in being faithful? Then he launches into his usual hyperbole about how the news media and the courts are "waging a war" against Christianity.

9:49 - Santorum says all constitutional rights come from God, not the state. They can't come from the state, or else "everything can be taken away." "The role of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away." I don't buy this mysticism about legal rights.

9:58 - As the debate is wrapping up, National Review's Rich Lowry says:

newt has lost the debate and prob the primary

Live-blogging the first Republican presidential debate since Gingrich's first win

I'll be live-blogging here, starting at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. Keep reloading this post (or the homepage) for updates.

Throughout the debates, Mitt Romney has stayed remarkably positive most of the time. Yet he just started cranking up the negativity against Newt Gingrich — warning of an "October surprise" and calling him "highly erratic." You can bet that the moderators will try to goad Romney into repeating those same attacks when he's standing next to Gingrich.

You can see my previous live-blogs by clicking on the "live-blog" tag.

For more live-blogging of tonight's debate, I recommend checking out TalkingPointsMemo, National Review, or Althouse (my mom).

As always, I'll write down any quotes in real time, so they might not be verbatim but I'll try to get them as close as possible.

9:08 - Romney points out that Gingrich "did resign in disgrace" after 88% of House Republicans voted to reprimand him. "His approval rating was down to 18%. . . . We suffered historic losses."

9:10 - Gingrich's response: "He may have been a good financier, he's a terrible historian." He says the only thing he did wrong was that one of his lawyers wrote one mistaken letter.

9:11 - Gingrich brings up a new attack on Romney, saying that Republicans lost governorships while he was head of the National Governors Association and lost Republicans in the Massachusetts legislature while he was governor. Brian Williams strangely doesn't give Romney an opportunity to respond. I thought the rules say if a candidate's name is mentioned, that candidate always gets to respond.

9:17 - Brian Williams asks Gingrich a ridiculous question: whether he'll shift in his views on foreign policy in order to get Ron Paul's endorsement. Williams seems like he isn't even trying to do a good job of moderating the debate.

9:19 - Romney is asked about what people will see in his tax returns. Romney brushes aside the question, briefly saying there will be no surprises and he's followed the law. "I don't think you want someone as president who pays more taxes than he's required to." But — "I'm proud of the fact that I pay a lot of taxes." Then he pivots: "What I'm really worried about is the taxes of the American people." He'd eliminate taxes on "interest, dividends, and capital gains" for everyone who makes less than $200,000 a year.

9:22 - Gingrich proposes a "Mitt Romney flat tax" — a 15% income tax on everyone. Romney asks if the capital gains tax would be 15%. Gingrich says no, he'd eliminate the capital gains tax for everyone. Romney: "Well, under that plan, I'd have paid no taxes in the last two years." [ADDED: Here's the video.]



9:25 - Brian Williams hasn't done his homework for this debate: he asks Santorum a question about why he has attacked Romney over Bain Capital, and Santorum has to say he hasn't made any of those attacks. Romney agrees.

9:29 - Romney goes after Gingrich on his work for Freddie Mac: "They don't pay historians $25,000 a month for 6 years. That's about $1.6 million. They didn't hire you as a historian. They hired you as a consultant. . . . And you were hired by the chief lobbyist of Freddie Mac. . . . You could have spoken out aggressively. You could have said, 'This is wrong, this needs to stop.' But instead you were being paid by them."

9:35 - My mom says Gingrich "looks tired and badly made up."

9:44 - Brian Williams asks, "What do you do if you find out that Fidel Castro has died?" Romney: "First of all, you'll thank Heavens if Fidel Castro has met his maker." Gingrich says Castro won't "meet his maker" but will go to "another place." So Gingrich seems to think "meet his maker" means "go to Heaven." I thought it just meant "die."

10:04 - The candidates are asked why it's OK for them to run ads in Spanish, yet they want English to be the national language, which would mean the ballots would be only in English. Gingrich says he's happy to cater to any ethnicity in his campaign, but the country should be unified with an official language. Ron Paul says he's in favor of English as the official national language, but the federal government shouldn't stop states from doing whatever they want in other languages.

10:07 - Rich Lowry asks:

why would anyone not professionally obligated still be watching this debate?

10:12 - The moderator points out that Romney gets a lot of donations from sugar companies, and asks what his view is on sugar subsidies. Romney: "My view is we ought to get rid of subsidies and let markets work properly."

10:19 - Santorum is asked why he supported congressional intervention after a judge ruled that Terri Schiavo had been in a vegetative state for years. (Apparently they're bringing this up because it happened in Florida, and Florida is the next primary.) Santorum says he didn't support congressional intervention; he supported intervention by a federal court. So why did he support federal judicial intervention? He says Schiavo's parents happened to be from Pennsylvania, and they talked to Santorum and convinced him that the decision should be reconsidered by a different judge. But how was this Senator Santorum's decision to make?

10:25 - Question: "Why didn't the Bush tax cuts work?" Gingrich says they did work, because after the attacks of September 11, the economy would have gotten even worse if it hadn't been for those tax cuts. So why doesn't he say President Obama's policies have "worked" because if not for them, after the crash of 2008, the economy would have gotten even worse?

10:34 - Brian Williams inexplicably asks Santorum a second question about Romney's record at Bain Capital, after Santorum already made it clear that he hasn't made any of those attacks in his whole campaign! Of course, Santorum refuses to answer the question and uses his time to say whatever he wants. Again, Brian Williams is apparently not even trying tonight.

10:38 - Romney brags that Ted Kennedy "had to take a mortgage out on his house" in order to beat Romney in the 1994 race for the Senate. This is a very mean-spirited attack on someone who recently died, and I wish Romney would drop it. It accentuates the image of Romney as a Machiavellian tycoon.

That's all. That was a lackluster debate all around. I've seen almost every debate in these primaries, and Brian Williams may be the worst moderator I've seen.

Live-blogging the first Republican presidential debate since Rick Perry dropped out

The last debate until the possibly crucial South Carolina primary. We're now down to just four candidates: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul.

I'll be live-blogging here. Keep reloading this post (or the homepage) for more updates.

For more live-blogging, check out TalkingPointsMemo, National Review, and Althouse (my mom).

8:06 - Santorum gives the first introduction. He thanks Iowa for his victory there, which was just announced today.

8:08 - In Paul's introduction, he points out that he was an OB/GYN for 30 years and is the only veteran on the stage.

8:09 - The first question is to Gingrich, about the interview with his second wife, released today, in which she said he asked her if she would like to be in an open marriage. "I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate with a topic like that." This gets a standing ovation. "To take an ex-wife, and make her an issue two days before a primary, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine." Moderator John King notes that the story came from "another network" (ABC). Gingrich shouts at him: "You chose to start the debate with it! Don't try to blame it on somebody else!" Remember, Gingrich was asked in an earlier debate about marital fidelity, and he forcefully said it is a legitimate issue in a presidential race.

[ADDED: TalkingPointsMemo reports on that whole exchange and gives us the video:]



(As always, I'm writing down these quotes as I hear them, without a transcript or a rewind or pause button, so they might not be verbatim.)

8:14 - Romney is asked about Gingrich's ex-wife. "John, let's get on to the real issues, is all I've got to say." The left-leaning Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic says on Twitter:

So 10 minutes into the debate, I am agreeing with Gingrich and Romney. Gotta stay off the cold medication.

8:17 - Gingrich goes back to his usual adverb salad, calling for us to "fundamentally, radically overhaul" the Army Corps of Engineers.

8:20 - After Gingrich attacks Romney over Bain Capital, Romney says he expects "the left" to attack "capitalism," but "I find it kind of strange, on this stage, to have to explain how private equity and venture capital work and how they're successful and how they create jobs. . . . There's nothing wrong with profit, by the way. . . . It is capitalism and freedom that make America strong."

8:22 - Santorum positions himself to Romney's left: "I believe in capitalism too. Not necessarily high finance, but capitalism that works for the working men and women of this country."

8:36 - Santorum calls Romney's health care reform "a government-run system that was the basis for Obamacare" and "an abject disaster." He acts out how President Obama would predictably criticize Romney in a debate: Obama would say he got his plan from Romney. Romney denies that Romneycare is "government-run." He says Obamacare is worse because it cut Medicare and was 2,000 pages long. Santorum: "You do not draw a distinction that is going to be effective for us [Republicans in the general election]."

8:42 - Santorum to Gingrich on health care: "You supported the primary, core basis of what Obama has put in place." Gingrich brushes off the idea that he'd have trouble in a debate against Obama. Gingrich would tell him: "I was wrong and I figured it out. You were wrong and you didn't." Santorum: "It's not going to be the most attractive thing to say: 'I was wrong for 10 or 12 years.'"

8:51 - John King asks Santorum about Gingrich's recent comment that Santorum should drop out because he "doesn't have any of the knowledge about how to do something of this scale." Santorum has a great response: "Grandiosity has never been a problem with Newt Gingrich. . . . Newt's a great guy and he's my friend, but at times, you just have that worrisome moment that something's going to pop!"

8:53 - Gingrich responds that he spent years working on "a grandiose project known as creating a Republican majority in the House. . . . You're right, I think grandiose thoughts." Santorum has a powerful rebuttal, pointing out that there was "a coup against him" after just 4 years of his tenure as Speaker of the House.

8:55 - We see Romney, with a slight grimace, watching the back-and-forth between Santorum and Gingrich, which has been going on for a very long time. Romney is probably happy to see those two beating each other up. Romney finally gets to speak, and he calls the interchange (in which Gingrich described his congressional experience going back to the 1970s) "a perfect example of why we should send to Washington someone who hasn't been to Washington."

8:58 - Romney takes a gratuitous swipe at Gingrich, saying he read President Reagan's diary, and Romney noticed that Gingrich is mentioned exactly once — just to say Gingrich proposed a bad idea and Reagan dismissed it. Romney oddly adds that Reagan also mentioned Romney's dad (George Romney, who was Governor of Michigan), exactly once.

9:04 - Santorum is asked when he'll release his tax returns. He gives a folksy answer: "I do my own taxes, and they're on my home computer, and I'm not home. So until I get home, nobody can release my taxes. When I get home, I'll release 'em."

9:05 - Romney: "I didn't inherit money from my parents. What I have, I earned."

9:06 - Romney says — and I agree — that "dividing America between 99[%] and 1[%] is dangerous. We are one nation."

9:10 - My mom writes:

I say: "Santorum's on fire." Then: "He is flamboyant."

That's a reference to a comment Santorum made that he's not "flamboyant," implicitly contrasting himself with Gingrich. I agree that Santorum is having a great debate.

9:11 - Gingrich is asked about SOPA. He's against it. "I favor freedom. If a company finds that it has been infringed upon, it has the right to sue." But the federal government shouldn't try to preemptively enforce intellectual property law by taking heavy-handed action against websites that happen to host infringing content.

9:13 - Romney agrees with Gingrich on SOPA: "The law as written is far too intrusive, far too expansive. It would have a depressing effect on one of the fastest growing industries, the internet. . . . I'm standing for freedom."

9:15 - Santorum is also against SOPA, but he doesn't think "anything goes on the internet." Of course, none of the candidates took that position, nor would any reasonable person.

9:21 - The candidates are asked what they would do differently in this campaign if they could do it over. Gingrich wishes he hadn't spent the first 3 months talking to consultants about "how to be a normal candidate," so he could have gotten straight to regaling us with his brilliant ideas.

9:22 - Romney: "I'd have worked to get 25 more votes in Iowa, that's for sure."

9:23 - Santorum: "I wouldn't change a thing. For me to be standing here in the final 4 is about as amazing a thing as I can conceive of happening."

9:28 - Romney says the illegal immigration issue is "not tough." Then why haven't we solved it yet?

9:33 - Santorum tries to make a point (which isn't clear to me) about how Romney has flip-flopped on immigration. Romney responds: "I agree with you. I'm sorry you don't recognize my agreement."

9:37 - Gingrich: "Romney has said he had an experience in a lab and became pro-life. And I accept that." But Gingrich adds that Romneycare isn't pro-life.

9:38 - Romney: "I'm not questioned on character and integrity very often." I like Romney, but it's hard to listen to that with a straight face.

9:42 - Finally, they can unambiguously refer to "Rick."

9:43 - Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum talk about abortion, and then John King says he's going to move on to another issue. The audience collectively roars: "Ron Paul!" King gives in and spontaneously asks Paul about abortion before moving on to the next question.

9:53 - In a dramatic turnaround from how he started out the debate, Gingrich begins his closing remarks by thanking CNN.

The debate is over. Rich Lowry says on Twitter:

if newt wins SC, he'll have juan williams and john king to thank

But Mickey Kaus (also on Twitter) is skeptical:

Not sure Newt has won debate, even if his clip dominates news. Voters seem to pay attention to actual debates this year, not just news recap

Kaus also gives this sharp analysis:

If debate helps Romney it's mainly because Santorum did well, no? Puts anti-Romneyites back in self-defeating split array.

Live-blogging the Republican presidential debate

Keep reloading this post (or the homepage) for more updates.

Since Jon Huntsman just dropped out, this debate's lineup will be the smallest of the 2012 race so far: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Ron Paul.

For more live-blogging, try TalkingPointsMemo or National Review.

[UPDATE: The FoxNews video player didn't work for me, so I missed the first half hour of the debate. I finally found a working link here.]

9:36 - Gingrich on the difference between President Obama and the Republican candidates: "We actually think work is good. Saying to someone 'I'll help you if you're willing to help yourself' is good." He calls Obama the "food stamp" president.

9:42 - Paul is challenged on his proposal to dramatically cut military spending. "We're supposed to be conservative: spend less money!"

9:43 - Romney is asked whether he'll release his tax records. He says he's "not opposed" to doing it, but he'll wait till around April because that's what George W. Bush and John McCain did. He's already showing "a lot of exposure" about other things.

9:46 - Romney is asked a second question in a row. This one is about immigration, and he gives his standard answer: everyone needs to follow the law, illegal immigrants need to get to the back of the line, etc. I don't know why they keep asking about immigration in these debates — is there anything left for the candidates to say that they haven't already said in 10 other debates?

9:47 - Santorum cites a study by the Brookings Institution that gives a way to be virtually sure you won't be poor (since only 2% of the people who do these 3 things are poor): (1) get a job; (2) graduate from high school; and (3) get married before you have kids. Easier said than done!

9:53 - Moderator Juan Williams is very loudly booed for asking several questions of Gingrich about whether his comments have been insensitive to blacks — for instance, calling Obama the "food stamp" president (as he did earlier in the debate). Gingrich says that more people have gone on food stamps during the Obama administration than in any other administration. "I know among the politically correct that you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable."

10:04 - The moderators don't seem to be enforcing time limits. Paul speaks for a very long time about how we shouldn't have killed Osama bin Laden the way we did.

10:07 - In response to Paul's comments on bin Laden, Gingrich says: "Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear idea about America's enemies: kill them."

10:07 - Paul: "Maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy: don't do to other nations what we wouldn't want done to us." This gets loudly booed.

10:08 - Romney: "The right thing for bin Laden was the bullet in the head that he received."

(As always, I'm writing down all these quotes live. They might be slightly off, though I'm trying to write them down verbatim.)

10:13 - Perry is asked whether Turkey should be a member of NATO. Perry says we should "have a conversation" about it. He adds that Turkey and all other countries should "go to zero" as far as foreign aid, and then we should "have a conversation" about foreign aid.

10:18 - Romney: "People who join al Qaeda are not entitled to the rights of due process under our legal code." He's confident the government won't abuse its power to indefinitely detain Americans who are suspected of terrorism. Daniel Foster at National Review says (on Twitter):

Romney essentially said he wants a nation of men, not laws, when it comes to indefinite detention.

Similarly, Katrina Trinko (also of National Review) says:

It's like Paul isn't confident the president's character and judgment won't always be exemplary.

10:33 - Romney: "Anyone middle-income should be able to save their money tax-free." I'd like to see how he would implement that principle in a way that wouldn't create a perverse disincentive against making a high income.

10:38 - The moderators seem to have trouble filling up the whole debate with actual content: for the second time in this debate, Romney is asked about his record on gun control. Romney is then asked whether he has been hunting since 2007, when he was ridiculed for saying he hunted "varmints." He says he has, but he admits he isn't much of a hunter.

10:46 - Romney calls the Gingrich Super PAC's ad about Romney's record with Bain Capital "the biggest hoax since Bigfoot." "We all would like to have Super PACs disappear, to tell you the truth." He says the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform has led to an absurd situation where ads are run on behalf of candidates who are legally prohibited from having anything to do with the creation or editing of those ads.

That's all.

Live-blogging the last Republican presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses

I'll be live-blogging here once the debate starts at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. Keep reloading for more updates.

For more live-blogging, I recommend checking TalkingPointsMemo, National Review, and Althouse (my mom).

9:03 - The moderator tells Newt Gingrich: "You're now physically at the center of the stage, which means you're at the top of the polls." That's the first time I've heard them admit that this is how they choose where to place the candidates.

9:04 - Gingrich is asked about electability. He says he'll win against President Obama in "seven three-hour debates." Huh?

9:06 - Ron Paul gets the second question! That must be a first. He's asked if he'll support whoever ends up being the Republican nominee. "Probably anybody up here could beat Obama." I didn't hear him answer the question.

9:07 - Rick Santorum is asked why he's doing so badly when he's spent more time in Iowa than any of the other candidates. "I'm counting on the people of Iowa to catch fire for me." He says he presents a "clear contrast" with the others because he's been a consistent conservative. If that's so clear, yet he's going nowhere, doesn't that imply that hardcore conservatism isn't the voters' top priority?

9:09 - Mitt Romney is asked why he would be better than Gingrich at "making the case" for Republican policies when debating President Obama. This is essentially inviting Romney to attack Gingrich. Romney doesn't take the bait; he strings together a bunch of his talking points that we've heard in past debates, which are all about his positive qualities, not shortcomings with Gingrich.

9:11 - Michele Bachmann: "I spent 50 years as a real person." Has she been a robot for the past 5 years?

9:12 - Moderator to Rick Perry: "You've admitted yourself that you're not a great debater. . . . You'll be going up against Barack Obama, an accomplished debater." Perry: "I'm kinda gettin' so I like these debates. I'm looking forward to debating President Obama, and I'll get there early, and we will get it on." He's much more lively than he's been in some of the past debates. [UPDATE: Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo says:]

Apparently Gov. Perry saved all the energy from the first 57 debates and packed it all into that one answer.

9:14 - Jon Huntsman: "I am the consistent conservative in this race. . . . We are getting screwed as Americans."

As always, I'm writing these quotes down as I hear them (without the use of a transcript or a rewind button), so they might not be verbatim.

9:18 - Romney seems to be self-consciously shifting to the general election, talking about how he repeatedly "found common ground" with the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature in Massachusetts. Gingrich takes a similar tack, invoking "bipartisanship" and talking about the times he "worked things out with Bill Clinton."

9:22 - The moderator says that after the commercial break, they'll talk about something that hasn't been talked about in any of the past debates.

9:27 - Romney is asked about the fact that his business laid a lot of people off. Romney handles this deftly. He says we're getting a preview of the general election, when Obama will ask him the same thing. "I'll tell him, 'How did you handle General Motors when you were running it? You closed down factories. You closed down dealerships.' He'll say: 'We had to do that to save the business.' 'Same with us, Mr. President.'"

9:31 - Paul savagely goes after Gingrich for his lobbying, saying he's been involved in "government-sponsored enterprises" that are dangerously close to "fascism." Gingrich defends government-sponsored enterprises since they do a lot of wonderful things. Bachmann says she's surprised Gingrich is still defending Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Gingrich says Bachmann made "wild allegations" by saying he lobbied for Fannie and Freddie. Bachmann: "You don't need to be within the technical definition of 'lobbyist' to be peddling influence to Washington." [UPDATE: The New Republic's Noam Scheiber thinks Gingrich's defense was so weak it shows he doesn't really want to win:]

[A]nyone who actually wanted to be president and had made $1.6 million lobbying for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have come up with a better defense of it by this point than Gingrich's two-pronged "government-sponsored entities do lots of good things" and "I was a national figure doing just fine so I couldn't have been a lobbyist" line of attack. Clearly it's more important to Gingrich to insist on his righteousness than to come up with a defense that might sound semi-plausible, even if it had the collateral impact of conceding he did something slightly dodgy. I'm fairly certain that last night's excruciating (for Gingrich supporters) Fannie/Freddie exchange officially doomed him as a candidate. Well, that's not entirely true. I think his candidacy was already doomed, but this made the doomed-ness really hard to deny.

9:39 - Paul says he "never voted for an earmark," but he will accept the earmarks he gets. "When you fill out your taxes, you take the deductions." He says he would be a completely different president from everyone else: he wouldn't try to be powerful.

9:43 - Perry says we should have a "part-time" Congress so that members of Congress would work at other jobs and "live within the laws they pass." Moderator: "They worked 151 days last year. How much more would constitute part time?" Perry says 140 days every other year!

9:47 - Romney is asked what sector of the economy will be the most dominant in the next 10 years. Romney says he has no idea; the market will decide that. He criticizes Obama for trying to pick and choose winners in the economy, especially the energy sector. [CLARIFICATION: I shouldn't have said that Romney said he has no idea. He said there's no need for government officials to figure out the answer to that question, but that if he has to make a prediction, he expects the dominant sectors to be manufacturing, high tech, and energy.]

9:49 - Gingrich calls for an "uprising" to "rebalance the judiciary." He criticizes "law schools" for making courts feel "empowered" to write the law.

9:51 - The topic that hasn't been talked about in any past debate is the judiciary. This is a dull topic; it just prompts everyone to say judges should be restrained and must follow the Constitution.

9:53 - Paul correctly says it would be an "affront to the separation of powers" to follow Gingrich's preposterous proposal to abolish courts that issue rulings that offend him.

9:55 - Romney points out that we already have a check on the courts: if they incorrectly interpret a statute, Congress can amend the statute to clarify what it's supposed to mean. That's an important point, but it's also a way to avoid talking about Gingrich's proposal to stamp out supposedly bad judicial rulings on constitutional interpretation. Romney has a clear strategy tonight: never attack.

9:56 - All the candidates are asked to name their favorite Supreme Court Justices. Santorum: Thomas. Perry: Alito, Roberts, and Thomas. Romney: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Scalia. Gingrich: same as Romney. Paul won't answer, because "they're all good and they're all bad." Bachmann: Scalia. Huntsman: Roberts and Alito.

10:04 - The moderator asks Paul about the fact that he would be running "to the left of President Obama" on Iran. Paul says our current policy encourages countries to acquire nuclear weapons. "What did we do with Libya? We talked them out of having nuclear weapons. And then we killed 'em!" He praises Obama for apparently backing off from sanctions on Iran.

10:07 - Santorum on Iran: "They've been at war with us since 1979." He calls Iran a "radical theocracy" and says they're founded on "martyrdom." "Their objective is to create a calamity. . . . We need to make sure that they do not have a nuclear weapon."

10:11 - Bachmann: "I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one we just heard from Ron Paul."

10:18 - Hunstman goes way overtime in a rambling answer on foreign policy. Moderator: "OK, 2 dings in that one."

10:21 - Gingrich: "I'm very concerned about not appearing to be zany."

10:33 - Perry: "If I'm President, and I find out that the Justice Department has a program like 'The Fast and the Furious,' and my Attorney General says he didn't know about it, I will have him resign immediately." Santorum agrees.

10:38 - Gingrich sticks with his past comments that he'd give some kind of amnesty to an illegal immigrant who's been here for 25 years and has ties to the community, but puts more emphasis on cracking down on "sanctuary cities" and dropping federal lawsuits against states for excessive immigration enforcement.

10:43 - Romney is asked why he flip-flopped on gay rights, and Romney denies the charge. He says he's always been against discrimination based on sexual orientation . . . and opposed to same-sex marriage.

10:47 - Bachmann attacks Gingrich for missing an "opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood."

10:50 - Gingrich defends himself for supporting Republicans who have supposedly favored partial-birth abortion: "I don't see how you're going to run the country if you're going to go around figuring out who to purge." Too bad he doesn't understand that point when it comes to the courts.

10:52 - Romney: "President Obama has unveiled himself as someone who's not the right person to lead the country." Interesting word choice.

Live-blogging tonight's Republican presidential debate on foreign policy

[Here's the transcript.]

Keep reloading this page for updates!

8:11 - Wolf Blitzer gives an example of an introduction, saying: "I'm Wolf Blitzer, and yes, that is my real name." Mitt Romney says that "Mitt" is also his real first name. Not according to Wikipedia! [UPDATE: TalkingPointsMemo, which makes a lot of money by posting attack ads against Romney, is running this headline:]

Mitt Romney Flip Flops On His Own Name

8:15 - For the first time, Newt Gingrich goes first. He says he wouldn't "change" the Patriot Act, but would "look at strengthening it."

8:17 - Ron Paul mentions Timothy McVeigh as an example of a terrorist who was dealt with in the criminal justice system. Gingrich says, as if this were a knock-down argument against Ron Paul, "But Timothy McVeigh succeeded!" Is Gingrich suggesting that McVeigh shouldn't have been criminally prosecuted?

8:20 - Jon Huntsman says that Tom Ridge was a "great Secretary of Homeland Security." I don't remember many people saying this at the time.

8:22 - Rick Perry says he would criminalize TSA pat-downs and privatize the TSA.

8:23 - Rick Santorum agrees with Perry. "We should be trying to find bombers, not bombs."

(As always, I'm writing down these quotes on the fly, not using a transcript, so they might not be verbatim.)

8:24 - The moderator asks Santorum what kind of profiling he'd support. Santorum says you should look for "Muslims," as well as "younger males." Ron Paul says: "What about Timothy McVeigh?" That sounds like an example of the kinds of people Santorum wanted to focus on! He was a young man.

8:27 - Herman Cain calls Wolf Blitzer "Blitz." A little later he makes fun of himself for the slip, saying he meant "Wolf." Wolf Blitzer says: "Thank you, Cain!"

8:31 - Michele Bachmann hones her answer from the last foreign-policy debate about why she supports continuing to give aid to Pakistan. She points out that we need to maintain our relationship with Pakistan because they give us intelligence information about terrorism. Perry disagrees, without explaining what he thinks is wrong with Bachmann's reasoning. After Perry says he wouldn't give any financial aid to Pakistan, Bachmann's says that's "highly naive."

8:36 - Romney supports spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan for years to come. "We need to bring them into the 21st century — or the 20th century, for that matter." Huntsman "strongly disagree[s]." There's a very long back-and-forth between Romney and Huntsman, which might be a first in all the debates. Romney emphasizes listening to the generals, whereas Huntsman says you still need to make your own decision as commander-in-chief.

8:41 - Gingrich: "We were told that killing bin Laden in Pakistan brought our relations with Pakistan to a new low. Well, it should have!"

8:48 - There's a bizarrely long lull while they wait for someone in the audience to ask a question.

8:50 - Paul: "Why does Israel need our help? They need us to get out of the way."

8:51 - Paul reveals Israel's open secret, saying they have "200, 300 nuclear missiles."

8:53 - Perry says he would "sanction the Iranian central bank." Doesn't "sanction" as a verb have the opposite meaning from "sanction" as a noun?

8:56 - In response to a question by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Santorum strongly supports humanitarian assistance to Africa in fighting AIDS. He rebukes the candidates who oppose foreign aid (Perry, Gingrich, and Paul).

9:05 - Blitzer asks Gingrich if he would bomb Iran. He says only as a last resort, and only to change the regime.

9:06 - Huntsman is asked if he would support cuts to the defense budget. He says we can't have any "sacred cows" in reducing the debt. "Everything's gotta be on the table. The Defense Department has gotta be on the table." If we can't find any cuts there, "we're not looking hard enough."

9:21 - Adam Sorensen of Time Magazine points out that Cain is "still giving the 'I'll wing it' answer on every question."

9:27 - Paul: "The federal war on drugs has been a failure." Blitzer asks if this means we should legalize all drugs. Paul says he would at least legalize medical marijuana. He adds that prescription drugs are more dangerous than illegal drugs. "And believe me, the kids can still get the drugs."

9:31 - Is there some rule that every debate needs to bring up immigration, but only near the end? There seems to be some consensus that immigration is so important that it always needs to be debated, but it's unimportant enough to wait till the audience has stopped paying attention.

9:34 - Gingrich seems to be doing about half of the talking in this debate. Paul seems to be speaking more than Romney or Perry.

9:41 - Blitzer says we'll have "much more" after a commercial. The debate has been going on for over an hour and a half — I don't know if I can take "much more."

9:54 - Wolf Blitzer asks all the candidates to quickly answer a question about what national-security issue no one is talking about that they wish would be talked about. Santorum says South America. Paul says Afghanistan. Perry says China. Romney agrees with Santorum: South America. Cain: cyber-attacks. Gingrich agrees with Cain and adds: electromagnetic pulse attacks. Bachmann: Iraq. Huntsman: the United States economy.

Now that the debate is mercifully over after 2 whole hours, a couple non-live points:

Perry said that Hezbollah and Hamas have infiltrated Mexico to try to enter the United States:



Josh Marshall at TPM thinks the most important event of the night was Gingrich's comments on immigration. Marshall says:

Newt’s edging into the GOP danger zone here on immigration. He really did say he’d provide a path to legality, though not citizenship, to a substantial number of the current undocumented population. Bachmann called him on it. And he denied he said it. But Bachmann, I think, was right. He did say it.

Now, [that's] an immensely logical thing for Newt to say — that you’re not going to be uprooting and separating families who’ve been here for a quarter century.

But this is toxic in GOP primary politics. It helped sink Rick Perry.

The New York Times seems to agree that that's the big story. The NYT is currently reporting on its homepage:

Newt Gingrich suggests some illegal aliens should be allowed to stay in the United States.

Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review says on Twitter:

Someone should tell Gingrich that some of those immigrants will build mosques.

My mom, Ann Althouse, gives the transcript of the interchange between Gingrich and Bachmann on immigration, and concludes:

That one-on-one really highlighted Gingrich's superior intelligence and sophistication. Clearly, Gingrich has the ability to reach out to many Americans who feel empathy toward the people who are in the county illegally and to take a middle position that balances a large set of interests. I like that, but obviously the red-meat fans have something to complain about. He put some vegetables on their dish.

Live-blogging the Republican presidential debate on foreign policy

Keep reloading this post (or the homepage) for updates. You can also find live-blogging on TalkingPointsMemo.

CBS News starts out with a long clip show of some of the most intense lines from previous debates, including the spats between Mitt Romney and the Ricks (Perry/Santorum) about whether Romney would be allowed to finish speaking. So they're shamelessly admitting what everyone knows: that the networks thrive on getting the candidates to attack each other.

8:05 - The first question goes to Herman Cain: what would you do to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? This debate is going to be all foreign policy, in contrast with all the previous debates, which have been mostly about domestic policy. Cain is probably under the most pressure in this debate, since there are so many questions about whether he has any foreign policy competence. Cain is sounding very polished and confident. [UPDATE: As you'll see in some of the commentary I've quoted near the end of this post, my remarks here were not prescient. Overall, Cain's performance in debating foreign policy tonight seems to have been rated very poorly.]

8:06 - Romney says that Iran is President Obama's "greatest failing" in foreign policy.

8:07 - A moderator calls time on Romney in the middle of his sentence, and Romney forcefully says that he still has time left because he sees the yellow light. The moderator says: "I stand corrected." [ADDED: Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo says:]

Mitt stands down [moderator] Scott Pelley as a meta-signal that he can stand down Iran.

8:09 - Newt Gingrich: "There are many ways to be smart on Iran, and relatively few ways to be dumb, and this administration skipped all the ways to be smart." Gingrich makes a point to praise Cain's and Romney's answers on Iran.

8:15 - Santorum, in his answer on Iran policy, pointedly contrasts his own record with President Bush, saying that Bush wasn't willing to spend the money to implement Santorum's policy. Most of the debates have rarely mentioned Bush, but clearly Santorum believes that criticizing Bush is a way to win over Republican voters.

8:18 - Jon Huntsman: "I don't want to be nation-building in Afghanistan, when this nation so desperately needs to be built." He deemphasizes foreign policy as a whole, saying the main issues are the economy and education.

8:24 - Perry says he'll start out by giving "zero" foreign aid to all countries. "Then we can have a conversation" about whether to give any foreign aid to anyone. He strongly opposes foreign aid to Pakistan.

8:25 - I'm pretty sure Romney, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich all got multiple questions before Michele Bachmann got one.

8:26 - Bachmann: "President Obama has been willing to stand with Occupy Wall Street, but he will not stand with Israel. Israel looks at President Obama and they do not see a friend."

8:27 - Gingrich passionately agrees with Perry's answer on foreign aid. He accuses Pakistan of hiding Osama bin Laden.

8:28 - Santorum disagrees with much of what the others have said about Pakistan: "Pakistan must be a friend. . . . We need to continue the aid relationship. The aid is all spent in the United States; it's not sent over there."

8:34 - A moderator asks Gingrich: "Would you care to address Gov. Romney's ability to think outside the box and challenge national-security perspectives?" Gingrich: "No." The moderator points out that he did just that in a recent radio interview. Gingrich: "That's because I was on a radio show. We're having a debate to see who should run against President Obama."

As always, I'm writing down these quotes on the fly and probably won't catch all of them verbatim.

8:39 - Moderator to Perry: "As you said in the last debate, you advocate the elimination of the Department of Energy—" Perry: "Glad you remembered it!" Moderator: "I've had some to think about it." Perry: "Me too!" This, of course, gets a huge laugh. The moderator asks him how we're going to deal with nuclear weapons if we abolish the Department of Energy. Perry doesn't answer the question.

8:41 - Cain: "I do not agree with torture. Period." But he'll defer to the military's definition of torture. The moderator follows up to ask what he thinks about waterboarding. Cain: "I think it is an enhanced interrogation technique." He would bring back waterboarding.

8:42 - Bachmann also supports waterboarding. She says Obama seems to want (?) to lose the war on terror. Bachmann has clearly decided she needs to be as vociferously anti-Obama as possible.

8:42 - Ron Paul: "Torture is illegal . . . by our laws and international laws. Waterboarding is torture. It's illegal under our law and international law. It's also immoral. And it's also very impractical. There's no evidence that you get reliable evidence." [ADDED: Here's the video:]



8:45 - Romney agrees with Obama's policy of killing American citizens who are fighting with anti-American terrorists. The audience boos. Moderator to audience: "We will not have booing."

8:47 - Gingrich makes a powerful statement that the correct action in war is "to kill people who are trying to kill you," not about giving those people due process rights. He emphasizes that this is consistent with "the rule of law," because war is separate from the criminal justice system. His answer draws some vague heckling from the audience. [ADDED: Here's the video:]



8:50 - TPM posts a somewhat comical freeze-frame of Romney at the debate, supposedly watching Perry.

8:52 - After Romney gives his answer to a question on China, Huntsman makes an extremely wonky correction to Romney: "I don't think you can take China to the WTO on currency-related issues." Subtext: Romney is a former governor with no foreign-policy expertise; Huntsman was also a governor, but he's seasoned in foreign policy.

8:56 - Perry is asked whether his policy of bringing all foreign aid down to zero applies to Israel. Perry says yes. "In fact, we oughta do that with some of those agencies that I was trying to think the name of." (Yes, he did say "think the name of.")

9:03 - Josh Marshall writes:

I think we have to face the reality that with Rick Perry remaining lucid and not forgetting where he is, the entertainment value of these debates really goes off a cliff.

9:05 - Paul is asked whether we should invade Syria and try to overthrow the Assad dictatorship. Unsurprisingly, he says no. Moderator: "But what about the 3,500 people dead [in Syria]?" Paul points out that the Soviet Union and China killed "hundreds of millions of people," and we didn't see fit to invade them.

9:08 - Senator Lindsey Graham, who's in the audience, asks a softball question about whether the candidates would maintain Obama's policies about "enhanced interrogation techniques" and trying some of the inmates at Guantanamo Bay in civilian court. Can the candidates say anything other than that they'd reverse Obama's policies? That's exactly what Cain says.

9:13 - Bachmann makes a highly incendiary charge against Ron Paul: that he was against authorizing the military to kill bin Laden. Paul says he supported "going after bin Laden," and was only "upset that it took 10 years."

9:14 - Josh Marshall points out something about CBS News that I had also noticed: the online streaming debate after the one-hour mark has been "almost unwatchable." [ADDED: Here's someone on Twitter who also calls it "unwatchable." Nate Silver of the New York Times gave up on watching after the first hour.] It keeps stopping and starting — and you don't get to hear the part that was going on while it stopped, so you miss out on big chunks of the debate and only get to hear partial sentences. Marshall says that National Journal's feed is better, but I'm not able to play that feed at all. I'm using a MacBook Pro with almost no other applications running, and I'm sure Marshall, one of the most successful bloggers in the world, has a decent internet setup.

9:15 - Romney says we should return Medicaid to the states, which would save $100 billion a year. (I thought this was the foreign-policy debate.)

9:20 - Bachmann says we need to eliminate every program President Lyndon B. Johnson gave us as "the Great Society." "If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. They save for their own retirement." Of course, Social Security is us saving for our retirement. It's just a way to pool everyone's money for some of those savings.

9:26 - Huntsman: "I've negotiated with Pakistanis, both in government and in business." This might be Huntsman's strongest debate. I'm not hearing him give his usual delicate circumlocutions.

The debate is over. As the camera pans away, I notice that Gingrich was positioned closer to the center than Perry, indicating that Gingrich is rising and Perry is slipping. (I'm pretty sure the lesser candidates like Huntsman and Santorum have always been at or near the end, and Romney is always in the middle.)

Josh Marshall, a committed Democrat, praises Santorum's performance. Half an hour into the debate, he wrote:

I don't agree with much that Rick Santorum believes in foreign policy, though his answer on Pakistan was pretty reasonable. Yet it's clear that he's one of the few guys up there who thought about any of these issues before he realized that he'd have to answer questions about them in a foreign policy debate.

At the end, Marshall added:

Santorum is far and away the most lucid and knowledgable person on foreign policy.

The prominent conservative blogger Erick Erickson pans Cain on Twitter:

It is safe to say Herman Cain is the biggest loser tonight. What a damn shame. Just wow.

Similarly, Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic says:

Herman Cain seems much less confident, charismatic tonight. Equally uninformed as before.

Cain did often seem like a deer in the headlights (though it was hard to tell because of CBS News's spluttering feed). Someone on Twitter named Sean Agnew seems to agree:

I don't want Cain answering the 3am call. #sorry

Stephen Hayes, who works for The Weekly Standard and Fox News, responds to an answer by Cain that I either wasn't paying attention to or couldn't hear in full because CBS News doesn't know how to do a live online feed:

Really? President Cain would have supported both Hosni Mubarak in Egypt? And Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen? Sheesh.

Ben Smith at Politico says on Twitter:

Perry guy who sent a despairing 'sad' email after last debate now writes: "happy days here again! breaking out the bourbon!"

On Twitter, "Jason (the Commenter)" (who also regularly comments here) puts 4 of the candidates on a spectrum:

Hates torture to loves torture: Paul, Huntsman, Cain, Bachmann.

In the comments, Jason makes a very important point, which I had missed:

The biggest fail of the evening was Cain, who said that nine countries have nuclear weapons. You can only get that number if you include Israel, and they are adamant about neither confirming or denying that rumor. He threw them under the bus.

Another thing I didn't notice: many people on Twitter are saying Perry coined a new word tonight: "forewithal." Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker says:

Perry comeback? On the one hand, he made a great joke. On the other he called into question alliance with Israel and said forewithal.