The early Republican debate tonight

I'm not live-blogging this debate. I'll blog the main debate, starting at 8:10 pm. I just have one thing to say about the early debate:

The moderator notes that Rick Santorum is the only one of the four candidates on the stage of the early debate who supports increasing the federal minimum wage, and Santorum passionately defends his position on that issue, calling for more "income support" for "American workers."

Santorum reminds me of Liz Lemon's terrible boyfriend, Dennis Duffy (the beeper salesman). There's an episode of 30 Rock where he's asked what his politics are, and he answers, in his smarmy, sleazy tone: "Social conservative, fiscal liberal."

Let the negative campaigning begin!

The New York Times reports on former Senator Rick Santorum's attacks against some of the other (potential) Republican candidates:

Discussing [Mike] Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Mr. Santorum raised four policy issues that he said would prompt questions about Mr. Huckabee’s fealty to conservative principles. Mr. Santorum was even harsher when discussing [Rand] Paul of Kentucky and [Ted] Cruz of Texas, both first-term senators, dismissing them as “bomb throwers” with scant achievements. . . .

The criticisms . . . illustrate the two simultaneous campaigns already taking shape. While former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and perhaps [Mitt] Romney begin vying for commitments from center-right contributors, elected officials and activists, a parallel race is taking place among more conservative contenders including Mr. Santorum, Mr. Huckabee and the two senators.

Already, there is notably less restraint in the language used by the more conservative aspirants than in the public statements from the establishment-backed potential candidates.

“Do we really want someone with this little experience?” Mr. Santorum asked, referring to Mr. Paul, Mr. Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is also in his first term. “And the only experience they have basically — not Rubio, but Cruz and Paul because I don’t think Rubio is going to go — is bomb throwing? Do we really want somebody who’s a bomb thrower, with no track record of any accomplishments?”

Mr. Paul’s top strategist responded that the party should not take advice from a politician who was soundly defeated in 2006.

“Senator Santorum lost re-election in [Pennsylvania] by 18 points nearly a decade ago, and has spent the time since then trying to convince people to elect him to an even higher office than the one he was booted out of,” said Doug Stafford, senior adviser to Mr. Paul. “We will pass on responding to his alleged wisdom.”

"Santorum Writings Voice Strikingly Consistent Views"

That's the New York Times' headline. The Times writes:

Over the last decade, Mr. Santorum has been a prolific writer of op-ed articles, letters to the editor and guest columns in some of the country’s largest and most influential newspapers. All the while he displayed many of the traits that define him as a presidential candidate today: a deep and unwavering Catholic faith, a suspicion of secularism and a conviction that the country was on a path toward cultural ruin.

A review of his columns and letters going back 10 years reveals a striking consistency in his conservative political views and spiritual guiding principles.

I guess his wife, Karen Santorum, knows him well.

"A two-man race"

That's how both the New York Times and the Washington Post are emphatically describing the Republican primaries now that Rick Santorum has won Mississippi and Alabama. That phrase appears in the first paragraph of the NYT article. The headline for the WaPo article on the homepage (though it doesn't show up at the link) is:

GOP battle effectively a two-man race

Translation: the media is giving itself permission to finally stop talking about Newt Gingrich.

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.

Rick Santorum on rape and abortion

In a TV interview, Santorum defends his support of laws against abortion even in the case of rape. He says:

Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. . . . I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. . . . I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

I can think of something more horrible than a woman getting pregnant as a result of rape: a woman getting pregnant as a result of rape and then being forced by the government to give birth.

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.

Santorum surges into an extremely close top 3 in the Iowa caucuses.

Remember: You heard it here first!

I'm posting this at 10:20 p.m., before the winner has been announced. But it's clear that the top 3 will be Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Ron Paul (and right now they're in that order). This might be the "closest caucus ever":

The closest caucus historically came in 1996, when Bob Dole finished with 26 percent of the vote, Pat Buchanan 23 percent, and Lamar Alexander with 18 percent. The 8-point gap separating Mr. Dole and Mr. Alexander may wind up being much larger than the margin separating the top three candidates tonight.

How Mitt Romney could lose the nomination

Mickey Kaus explains:

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.

The Santorum surge

It might happen!

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 CNN's Las Vegas Republican presidential debate

I'll be live-blogging the debate starting soon. There will also be live-blogging on TalkingPointsMemo, National Review, and the New York Times.

Feel free to post any comments about the debate (or the election) in the comments.

[ADDED: Here's the transcript, and here's the video:]



7:58 - This seems to be online only: we see someone warming up the audience, encouraging them to applaud as wildly as possible. He introduces Anderson Cooper (who I walked by on the street the other day). Cooper tells the audience we're going to start with the National Anthem, which he'll sing very quietly because he has a terrible voice. Good, this will give me time to make a salad before the actual debate starts.

8:02 - The opening sequence has majestic music (to conjure up the West), and an announcer gives us a basic run-down of who has what at stake. After summing up Mitt Romney (holding steady in the top tier), Rick Perry ("trying to get back on track after a meteoric rise"), and Herman Cain (surging), the announcer says that Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul are still trying to break through, while Rick Santorum is described as trying to "beat the odds." Santorum fans (if they exist) had to cringe that he was placed in a lower tier than everyone else including Ron Paul.

8:07 - An aggressively masculine rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

8:08 - Fortunately, this is the second debate in a row with no bells to signal when a candidate's time is up.

8:09 - Everyone is giving an opening statement. Santorum includes a sweet message to his daughter, who had surgery today and is doing fine.

8:10 - In Cain's opening statement, he says he's "a businessman, which means I solve problems for a living." Romney goes next and awkwardly echoes Cain's intro.

8:10 - In his opening statement, Perry forcefully says he's "an authentic conservative, not a conservative of convenience." A heavy-handed swipe at Romney.

As always, I'm writing down quotes on the fly, so they may not be verbatim.

8:14 - Santorum: "Herman's well-meaning." But 84% of Americans will pay more in taxes under Cain's 9/9/9 plan.

8:16 - Cain denies that he's proposing a value added tax. Bachmann insists that he is proposing a VAT. (I recently blogged about this.) The VAT just tricks people into thinking businesses, instead of government, are making them pay more.

8:17 - Perry calls Cain "brother" twice in his answer on why the 9/9/9 plan won't work. [Here's the video, which also shows that he uses a different word for Romney:]



8:19 - Paul makes a crucial, surprisingly overlooked, point: any time you increase spending, you're effectively raising taxes (I would add: especially as long as we're in debt). The taxes will have to go up sooner or later. The fact that we don't experience the tax increases right away doesn't change this fact.

8:21 - So far it's almost all been about 9/9/9. There's a lively exchange between Cain and Romney. Cain says Romney and Perry are "mixing apples and oranges" by equating his proposed federal sales tax with the current state sales taxes. Romney retorts: "I'll have a bushel of apples and oranges, because I'll be paying both taxes."

8:24 - Bachmann says "every American should pay something" in taxes. Well that's good, because that's already true.

8:25 - Perry says he's finally released his economic plan. His plan is to extract our own energy, which would "create 1.2 million jobs." How long a period of time do you think he's referring to? A quarter? A year? Nope. 7 years.

8:29 - Santorum uses his favorite strategy of interrupting another candidate, and Romney responds very sharply, repeatedly saying: "Rick, you've had your chance — let me speak." That might be the most heated moment Romney has had in any of these debates. Santorum eventually announces that Romney's time is up before he's gotten a chance to say one sentence! The audience boos.

8:33 - Romney gets Gingrich to admit that Romney got the idea for his health-care plan's individual mandate from Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation.

8:42 - Perry says "Mitt loses all standing" on illegal immigration because Romney hired an illegal immigrant and knew about it for a year. Once Romney starts answering, Perry uses an uncannily similar strategy to Santorum's, jabbering over Romney for the whole time he's talking. Romney (who's right next to Perry) puts his hand on Perry's shoulder and leaves it there for a long time. Romney: "You have a problem with allowing someone to finish speaking. And I'd suggest that if you want to be President of the United States, you ought to let both people speak." Have Perry and Santorum privately agreed to the same line of attack against Romney — talking over him throughout his whole time — or did Perry spontaneously decide to emulate Santorum? Either way, Perry and Santorum are using a cowardly tactic and creating the impression that they're afraid of letting Americans hear the whole debate.

8:46 - Anderson Cooper asks Cain why he said he supported an electrified fence along the southern border, then said it was a joke, then said he stood by the statement and just didn't want to offend anyone! Cain starts out saying he's finally going to be serious, but he doesn't clarify whether he still supports an electrified fence.

8:52 - I just noticed this is the first debate without Jon Huntsman. [ADDED: He's boycotting Nevada. That'll do him a lot of good.]

8:52 - Perry brings back his attack against Romney for supposedly hiring illegal immigrants. The audience boos very loudly for a long time. Romney says: "We've been down that road sufficiently, and it sounds like the audience agrees with me." Once Romney says that, the audience immediately switches to cheering. That was Perry's big attempt to offset the charges that he himself is soft on illegal immigration, and the attempt failed miserably.

9:01 - I'm adding the "free speech" tag to this post, since the candidates seem to disagree on whether they should all get a chance to speak.

9:11 - Cain stands by his past statement about Occupy Wall Street: that if you're not rich, blame yourself. Ron Paul: "Cain is blaming the victims."

9:21 - Santorum makes a smart statement on the relevance of religion in a presidential race. The candidate's faith has to do with their values, and that's relevant for voters to consider. In contrast, whether the candidate is right or wrong about "the road to salvation" shouldn't be part of the political arena.

9:22 - Gingrich tries to outdo Santorum by saying that the idea that we were "created by a loving God" defines the boundaries of . . . what? (I'm having trouble paraphrasing him because I found this so incoherent.)

9:23 - Perry has been pausing a lot throughout the debate.

9:33 - Paul: "We have enough weapons to blow up the world 20, 25 times."

9:37 - Paul would "cut all foreign aid," which is "taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich people in poor countries." He emphasizes that this includes Israel.

9:41 - Gingrich, answering a question by Paul, says that the Iranian "arms for hostages" deal in the '80s was "a terrible mistake."

9:46 - Santorum says Romney in Massachusetts "ran as a liberal, to the left of Ted Kennedy." Romney laughs on cue.

9:48 - Romney: 40% of the jobs created in the last several years in Texas have gone to illegal immigrants. Perry says this is wrong, and adds: "You failed as the governor of Massachusetts." Romney responds that his unemployment rate in Massachusetts was lower than Perry's in Texas during the same time period.

9:49 - Romney: We need "someone who's created jobs, not just watched them being created by others."

9:50 - Cooper asks Cain a dumb question: Should either Romney or Perry be President? "No, I should be President!"

That's all. Now, here's the moment this debate will be remembered for:



Jonah Goldberg says:

I don’t think anyone left the debate more likable than they were when they went in, with the possible exception of Newt.

Maybe he was reading Jason (the Commenter)'s Twitter feed:

My scoring of the debates: Cain -1, Romney -2, Perry -5, Bachmann -1, Santorum -2, Newt (my new favorite)

Goldberg elaborates:

I thought Perry had his best performance so far, but it was awfully shaky at times and he struck me as unlikable at times. If this had been his first debate, he might still be the frontrunner, albeit with a lot of chatter about how he needs to get better.

Romney still won the debate but I think he finally got bloodied on RomneyCare in a way he hadn’t in the past. He also looked angry and flustered for the first time ever. It might humanize him for some people. Or it might make him look weak.

Cain wilted under the pressure, but didn’t fold. He needs to learn how to talk about 9-9-9 in a granular way without asserting ignorance, laziness or dishonesty on the part of its critics. He remains a mess on foreign policy.

Santorum was the winner on points in almost all of his exchanges but he simply cannot stop sounding whiney, angry or aggrieved. . . . [H]is tone is so unpresidential you want him to stop talking even when he’s winning.

Bachmann’s simply a diminished candidate who thinks saying Obama is a one-term president is an argument for her.

All in all, an exhausting debate.

Live-blogging the first Republican debate since the rise of Herman Cain

[Here's the complete transcript.]

I'll be live-blogging here, and there's also live-blogging at TalkingPointsMemo and National Review (in the second column of the homepage).

As always, I'll be typing any quotes on the fly without the benefit of a transcript. So they might not be verbatim accurate, but I'll try to keep them as close as possible.

8:00 - The candidates are sitting around a table, for the first time in this race.

8:01 - Also unlike any of the previous debates, this one will be only about the economy. Good.

8:04 - Rick Perry says he'll finally get around to releasing some specific plans.

8:05 - Mitt Romney emphasizes the importance of working with both parties, which he knows how to do based on his experience in a state dominated by the other party.

8:07 - Charlie Rose presses Perry for some specific proposals. He makes some general statements about energy independence, and says he isn't going to lay out his plan tonight. He says it's unfair for Romney to criticize him for not having a specific plan yet: Romney has had 6 years to run for president, while Perry's only been doing it for 8 weeks. [ADDED: How conservative is it of Perry to be complaining that Romney has an unfair advantage because he's worked longer and harder at this?]

8:09 - I like this format. It feels more serious and composed than the podium/standing debates. It's also more dramatic when a candidate looks at another candidate from across the table. So far, I'd say the format is good for Cain, Romney, and Michele Bachmann, and not so great for Perry.

8:12 - Newt Gingrich is very strident on what he considers the corruption of the Federal Reserve. The moderator prompts hearty laughter around the table by saying, "So, Congressman [Ron] Paul, where do you stand on this issue?"

8:15 - Rick Santorum says that in contrast with Cain's "9/9/9" plan, his plan will actually pass in time to respond to the ongoing economic crisis.

8:17 - Thankfully, this debate is free of those annoying bells to signal when the candidates' time is up.

8:19 - Gingrich says Sarah Palin was unfairly attacked for coining the phrase "death panels." He claims that federal government standards on prostate cancer are effectively going to kill men.

8:20 - Bachmann: "President Obama plans for Medicare to collapse, and everyone will be pushed into Obamacare."

8:22 - Huntsman on Cain's "9/9/9" plan: "It's a catchy phrase. I thought it was the price of a pizza when I first heard of it." Huntsman finally pulls off a zinger that works.

8:23 - Cain is on fire as he responds to Huntsman and Santorum: "9/9/9 will pass, and it is not the price of a pizza. And unlike your plans, it starts by throwing out the current tax code. . . . It will pass, because the American people want it to pass." Oh, so the American people want to make the rich richer and the poor poorer?

8:25 - The moderator and Romney spar over whether the moderator's question about a future economic collapse of Europe is a "hypothetical." The moderator says "it's not a hypothetical" because it's about "a very real threat." When did people stop understanding what the word "hypothetical" means?

8:28 - Romney quotes Milton Friedman: "If you took all the economists in America and laid them end to end, it would be a good thing." But Romney has more respect for economists than that.

8:31 - TalkingPointsMemo has a huge headline:

Gingrich Calls For Jailing Sen. Dodd And Rep. Frank

Actually, he only called for "looking at" jailing Senators Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. [Clarification: Gingrich did at first make a pretty clear statement that we should jail Dodd and Frank, though he said this after the word "if," so he has plausible deniability. Later, he softened his statement to say we should investigate Dodd and Frank.]

8:47 - Bachmann criticizes Cain's "9/9/9" plan for "creating a new revenue stream for Congress." If you turn it upside-down, "the Devil is in the details."

8:49 - Huntsman criticizes Romney for wanting to start a "trade war" with China.

8:51 - Perry seems to come out against the very idea of enacting any policies! He just wants to "get America working again." But how would he do that? The most concrete thing he says is that he'd pull back a lot of regulations and put us on a path to "energy independence." (Of course, every president and presidential candidate says we need "energy independence," and it never happens.)

8:54 - Santorum asks how many people in the audience want a national sales tax. Almost no one raises their hand, and Santorum tells Cain that shows how many votes he'll get. Santorum asks how many people think Congress will keep the sales tax at 9%, and no one appears to raise their hand. But Cain promised us in an earlier debate that there's no chance the taxes would ever go up!

8:58 - Up next: the candidates will ask each other questions.

9:06 - Bachmann uses her question to Perry to point out that he worked for Al Gore's first presidential campaign during the end of the Reagan administration.

9:09 - Cain asks Romney a question: Cain's 9/9/9 plan is "simple" and "neutral" (whatever that means). Is Romney's "59-point plan" simple and neutral, and can he list all 59 points? This is actually a softball question, since it gives Romney an opportunity to list the highlights of his plan. No one would expect him to list all 59 points in a debate, so the question about whether he can list them all is a red herring.

9:11 - Romney: "I'm not worried about rich people. They're doing just fine. The poor have a safety net." He's worried about the people in the middle, and that's why his tax plan is directed toward them. Good.

9:12 - Huntsman asks Romney a question. Is that the third question in a row that's gone to Romney?

9:15 - Paul asks Cain whether he stands by his past statements against auditing the Federal Reserve. Paul says Cain said people who want to audit the Federal Reserve are "ignorant." Cain adamantly says this is a misquote, that he didn't call anyone ignorant, and that Paul shouldn't believe everything he sees on the internet. Cain adds that his priority isn't auditing the Federal Reserve — it's "9/9/9"!

9:17 - Perry asks Romney a question about his health-care reform in Massachusetts. That seems like a waste of his question. Oh, the health-care issue may be bad for Romney, but Perry has to know that Romney is going to smoothly give his standard answer on health care. Perry cuts into Romney's answer, and Romney sharply says: "I'm still speaking!" Romney criticizes the high percentage of people without health insurance in Texas.

9:18 - The candidates are supposed to ask questions in alphabetical order, so Santorum declines when moderator Charlie Rose prompts him to ask a question. Santorum points out that Romney is before him in the alphabet. Romney: "You'd think someone from PBS would know that."

9:21 - Santorum points out that 4 of the candidates — Cain, Romney, Perry, and Huntsman — "naively" supported TARP. He asks Cain why voters should trust him to protect liberty given his inexperience. I believe this is the first time anyone in any of the debates has called out Cain's total lack of political experience.

9:32 - Cain is asked who his favorite Chairman of the Federal Reserve is, and he says Alan Greenspan. Ron Paul: "Spoken like a true insider! Alan Greenspan was a disaster!" Yet Paul says Greenspan agrees with him about the need to bring back the gold standard.

9:40 - Charlie Rose asks Gingrich if owning a home is no longer "the American dream." Gingrich predictably attacks this idea: some people would like America to "decay so that government could share in the misery."

9:45 - Santorum says the way to reduce poverty is to "encourage marriage," because the poverty rate among families led by a working "husband and wife" is only 5%, in contrast with the 30% poverty rate of families with just one working parent. If that's Santorum's approach, shouldn't he be interested in the poverty rate among families with two husbands, or two wives?

9:47 - Each of the candidates is asked how their personal experience would influence them as president. Cain: "I was po' before I was poor."

9:50 - Santorum says there's more upward economic mobility in Europe than in America. That seems like an odd tack for a conservative to take.

9:52 - The debate is over. Charlie Rose thanks the candidates for sitting with him at the table, and adds: "I believe in tables."

This debate reinforced Cain's newfound frontrunner status, in that the moderators and other candidates spent so much time attacking him. Whether his defenses were convincing on the merits is a matter of opinion, but as far as his presentation, he seemed unflappable, resolute, and passionate. Beyond that, I have a hard time seeing this debate changing much. Frankly, unless someone makes a huge gaffe or gives as bad a performance as Perry did last time, I doubt any of the upcoming primary debates from now until January will change much either. This cast of characters has gotten pretty familiar.

UPDATE (the next day): My mom, Ann Althouse, had a very different reaction to Cain than I did. In this post, she describes "[t]he point in the debate when my doubts about Herman Cain suddenly spiked." After a rigorous analysis of Cain's statements from last night's debate, she concludes:

Come on, people. This infatuation with Herman Cain is embarrassing. Wake up!

Live-blogging the Republican presidential primary debate on FoxNews, September 22

Feel free to post any comments on the debate, whether or not they're relevant to what I said.

You can see more live-blogging at Althouse (my mom's blog), TalkingPointsMemo, Politico, and National Review.

Any quotations in this post will be whatever I write down on the fly. I'll try to keep these reasonably accurate, but they might not be exactly word-for-word.

9:03 - Rick Perry seems weary, disoriented, and halting, just one minute into the debate.

9:04 - Perry, where's your specific jobs plan? Perry says he'll show it to us . . . eventually. In other words, he doesn't have a specific jobs plan.

9:05 - The moderator tells Romney his 59-point jobs plan is very specific, but perhaps too timid. Romney gets off to an awkward start, asking if the microphone is on. "In order to create jobs, it helps if you've had a job. And I have."

9:07 - Romney refuses to answer the question how he defines "rich." He wants everyone to be rich. Sounds like a great plan.

9:08 - Bachmann is re-asked a question from the last debate (which was originally asked by an audience member): How much of his money does he deserve to keep? Of course, Bachmann says you deserve to keep all of your money. It's the wrong question. It implies that there's some bureaucrat somewhere who just loves taking people's money because they think people don't deserve all their money; so we have to debate with that person about what the right percentage is.

9:12 - The debates this year have had more discussion of welfare than we've heard in presidential debates since before 2000. Everyone seemed to decide it was no longer a salient issue at some point. Notably, the welfare reform law of 1996 needs to be reauthorized on September 30.

9:15 - Herman Cain is asked if his "9/9/9 plan" of eliminating many taxes and creating three new flat taxes will just lead to tax increases in the future. Don't worry, says Cain: there's no chance of that! Well, that's a relief!

9:18 - Ron Paul is asked what he'll do to protect the 10th Amendment. He concisely says he'll veto any bill that violates the 10th Amendment. In an unprecedented move, the moderator complains that Paul hasn't used enough of his time.

9:21 - During a commercial break, a FoxNews anchor tells us they asked viewers to answer the question of what counts as rich. The most common answer (to rephrase it in negative terms) is that anyone who makes $999,999 or less is not rich. Wow.

9:27 - Romney to Perry: "You better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying" that Social Security is unconstitutional and so on. In other words, Perry has watered down his talking points about Social Security, and Romney isn't going to let him get away with it.

9:29 - Perry unilaterally shifts the debate to health care, retorting that Romney said in his book that his health care reform would be a good model for the country. I'm not clear on what Romney's point was in rebutting this.

9:30 - Does Romney believe that President Barack Obama is a socialist? Romney says: (1) The better title for him would be "Former President Barack Obama." (2) He's a big-spending liberal who's going down the path of Europe.

9:31 - Romney, apropos of nothing: "I didn't inhale." [Added: I didn't catch his setup, which made this make a bit more sense. My mom transcribes the full comment: "I spent 4 years as governor. I didn't inhale." She notes that Romney says this while glancing at Perry.]

9:34 - The candidates are asked which federal department they'd eliminate if they were forced to do so. Cain says the Environmental Protection Agency, but he emphasizes that this presupposes he'd be forced to eliminate one. Republicans seem to have softened from the old days, when they would boast of their willingness to "abolish" federal agencies.

9:36 - My mom points out that 3 of the 9 candidates are wearing yellow ties (of course, that's 3 of the 8 candidates who are wearing ties at all): Jon Huntsman, Cain, and Paul.

9:38 - Libertarian Gary Johnson (in his first debate of the race) says he'll abolish the Department of Education — and this was not in response to the question about which department he'd abolish if forced to.

9:40 - Paul repeats his "care" theme from past debates: "If you care about children, you'll want to get the federal government out of the business of educating them."

9:42 - Perry goes even more negative than he's gone before, sternly calling Romney "not conservative" on education. Perry is apparently saying this only because Romney has praised elements of Obama's education policy. Romney laughs this off: "Nice try!" He agrees with Obama's policy goal of making it easier to fire teachers. This was an odd move by Perry. I thought it was conventional wisdom that Obama has challenged the standard Democratic teacher's union orthodoxy.

9:46 - Josh Marshall said (half an hour into the debate):

I'm curious how it will play. But Romney's just running circles around Perry. He's a very different candidate than he was four years ago, let alone back in '94 when he ran against Ted Kennedy. Tight, on message.

9:50 - Romney attacks Perry for giving more money to illegal immigrants than citizens to go to the University of Texas. "It makes no sense." In fact, it makes so little sense that it's hard to believe that's even the real policy. [Added: I understand now: as this TNR article explains, Romney was referring to the fact that in-state UT students who happened to be illegal immigrants got the same discount on their tuition as other in-state students, so they paid $22,000 a year less than out-of-state students.]

9:52 - Question to Perry: How do you feel, being criticized by many of the candidates for being soft on illegal immigration? "I feel pretty normal." Perry adds that if you make arguments like the one Romney made about education for illegal immigrants, "I don't think you have a heart."

9:53 - Moderator Chris Wallace: "Senator Santorum, you don't need to butt in, because I'm about to ask you a question." Santorum sheepishly responds: "OK."

10:03 - Romney says Obama has gone wrong by publicly criticizing Israel. It's OK to disagree with an ally, but make the criticism privately.

10:04 - Romney: "It is unacceptable — and I use that word carefully — it is unacceptable for Iran to become a nuclear power."

10:10 - Gingrich says (reasonably, in my opinion) that he'd get rid of almost all direct government-to-government foreign aid since it leads to corruption.

10:11 - Johnson: It's "crazy" for us to be giving money to any countries when we have to borrow money to do it.

10:12 - Like Romney, Huntsman can't tell if his microphone is working even though we can hear him. FoxNews seems to have some problems with its debate infrastructure.

10:13 - Huntsman: "People are ready to bring our troops home from Afghanistan."

10:14 - Bachmann is asked about a comment she made saying "separation between church and state" is a "myth." In response, she says all "separation of church and state" means is that there isn't a United States-sponsored church. "We should have freedom for all people to express their belief in God."

10:16 - A self-proclaimed "gay soldier," serving in Iraq, asks if the candidates would allow him to serve. The audience loudly boos the soldier. Santorum responds that he doesn't want gays to have "special privileges." The moderator re-asks the question since Santorum didn't answer it. Santorum incoherently says he would reinstitute the old policy so that "sex would not be an issue." But it was precisely under the old policy ("Don't Ask, Don't Tell") that sex was an issue. It's the repeal of DADT that takes sexuality off the table as an issue. I thought conservatives were supposed to be attuned to the fact that government policies lead to unintended consequences.



[Added: GOProud is asking Santorum to apologize to the soldier, saying:]

It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.

10:19 - Paul doesn't support a law against the "day-after pill." He makes the important point that you don't always need law to make people behave well.

10:21 - Cain says he would be dead today if Obamacare had been the law back in 2006 when he was diagnosed with cancer. His reason is vague: Obamacare would have provided a "bureaucrat's timetable" for when he could get treatment.

10:27 - Bachmann attacks Perry for being influenced by a campaign contribution to support a law requiring that girls in Texas receive a vaccination for the sexually transmitted disease HPV, which can lead to cervical cancer. Perry dramatically responds: "I was lobbied on this issue. I was lobbied by a 31-year-old woman with cervical cancer."

10:31 - Romney says his health care reform was "different than Obamacare" because it was "market-based." It didn't create some new government health insurance. Does Romney not realize that the public option failed?

10:33 - The sniping between Romney and Perry has started to feel worn-out. Perry is incapable of getting through his litany of issues on which Romney has flip-flopped; he stumbles over his words so much he's incomprehensible ("You were for it before you were before it . . ."). [Added later: TalkingPointsMemo seizes on this as the moment when conservative pundits turned against Perry. TPM aptly says that Perry "attempted to deliver a knockout blow against Mitt Romney’s various changes of position — only to trip over all his words as he tried to keep track of them." Here's the video, with Perry's bumbling starting after 1:25:]



10:39 - Cain: "Ronald Reagan said we were a shining city on a hill. We've slid down the bottom of that hill." Overall tonight, the candidates have been mercifully restrained in mentioning Reagan.

10:41 - Paul: "Government destroys jobs; the market creates jobs."

10:44 - Johnson: "My next-door neighbor's 2 dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this administration."

10:47 - Who on the stage would you choose as a running mate? Johnson, of course, says Paul, the only other libertarian on the stage. Santorum would pick Gingrich. Gingrich: "I couldn't imagine hurting the rest of their feelings by picking one of them."

10:49 - Paul points out that he's the #3 candidate in the polls. He'll wait until he's one of the top 2 before picking his running mate.

10:49 - Perry: "If you could take Herman Cain and mate him up with Newt Gingrich, I think you'd have a really interesting candidate." Romney: "There are a couple images I'm going to have a really hard time getting out of my mind."

10:50 - Romney says he'd be happy with anyone on the stage as a running mate. He's asked how can he say that about Perry, whom he's attacked as unelectable. Romney doesn't take the bait to lob yet another attack on Perry. He simply says everyone on the stage has problems that would be obstacles for them in getting elected.

10:52 - Huntsman makes my mom's point about his and Cain's yellow ties, while saying he'd pick Cain as a running mate.

10:54 - Almost everyone picked Gingrich as a running mate. Reminds me of the 2008 Democratic primary debates, when Joe Biden was able to get a whole ad out of running together all the times the other candidates said during debates that they agreed with him. If you're getting lots of praise from everyone in the debates, it means you have no chance.

Post-debate

Dana Loesch says on Twitter (via Jonah Goldberg):

That Gary Johnson's line is most discussed tells you how badly some of the other candidates performed.

She's also, like Romney, thinking about the image of Perry wanting to have Cain "mate up" with Gingrich:

Brangelina ... Caingrich?

My mom gives Romney the "quote of the night" award, for saying this:

I'm going to stand by my positions. I'm proud of them. There are a lot of reasons not to elect me. There are a lot of reasons not to elect other people on this stage. But one reason to elect me is that I know what I stand for, I've written it down, words have meaning, and I have the experience to get this country going again.

(You can see Romney saying this at the end of the video I embedded between 10:33 and 10:39.)

Huntsman says the audience's booing of the gay soldier was "unfortunate." "We all salute the same flag."

Frank Luntz's focus group on FoxNews is saying Romney won the debate. TPM says the focus group is calling Romney

“Presidential,” “decisive,” and “elegant.” Perry, meanwhile, is being called “too much of a waffler” by one woman in the group. The crowd also seem angry about the moment when he turned on his immigration critics and accused them (and Bachmann in particular) of not having a heart.

A new Gallup poll shows that Romney has a distinct lead over Perry and Obama in a hypothetical general election.

So, can we stop calling Perry "the frontrunner" yet?