Can you spot the crazy one?*
Republican Debate 2011: Reagan Library hosts GOP Presidential Candidates
The Republican Candidates Debate at the Reagan Library happens tonight at 8pm. Eight Presidential candidates will square off in a debate co-moderated by John F. Harris of POLITICO and Brian Williams of NBC News.
Grab a drink and some popcorn and watch the vipers fang each other.
BTW – My first thought when I saw that picture was “Holy shit, Michele Bachmann is SHORT!”
(* Trick question – they’re all crazy, just some of them are crazier than others)
The Crawdad Hole 
I’m warning everyone now, I don’t expect to remain conscious for the whole debate.
I know that she is crazy and short to boot, but it still makes me happy to see a vagina-ed American on the stage.
Pill the Thrill just hit another homer
Instead of the Dems prebuttle, I’ve been pre drinking. I’m ready…. hic.
You’re not the only one – heh.
Really, it’s only on MSNBC ? Chris Matthews…on the Holy Reagan Grounds?
I’m in 😀
Rick Perry – Al Gore’s Texas cheerleader. Ron Paul is playing rough.
I kinda like Paul – he’s batshit crazy but he says what he thinks.
I don’t want him for president, but he certainly shakes up the status quo, and I like seeing that.
Ah, Chris Matthews is not allowed at the debate. He’s off to tweeting. How appropriate.
Tweety did the pre-show. Just said his favorite line re debates was what Bobby Kennedy said to his brother Jack before the Kennedy/Nixon debate: “Kick him in the balls.”
Did Bobby Kennedy really say that?
Probably – them Kennedys played to win
Probably. Matthews seems to be nostalgic for crass cheating.
They should fire up that jet and try to blow the candidates off stage – last one standing is the winner
Perry is up 1st –
I wish I had hair like that
He’d probably sell it to you.
I can’t afford what he would charge
I’m not gonna watch because I don’t care who wins this crap. Thanks for watching so I don’t become ill.
Me too! 🙂
Come on, Brian. Romney & Perry aren’t the only people on the stage.
Are you sure?
Rats…..turn off MSNBC….
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/drunkblogging-the-gop-presidential-debate/
“So much for the red meat — Huntsman just got thrown a big bag of wet tofu.”
Rick “man on dog sex” Santorum
Can’t stand Santorum.
Cain shoots and scores
“If 10% is good enough for God……”
Great line!
Huntsma . . . .zzzzzzzzz
But he can say it in Mandarin.
He’ll always have work as a host in a Chinese restaurant
I kinda like Huntsman – and have for awhile.
He is more boring than I thought he would be.
I like his boring demeanor
, though he is a glad handler..always useful in diplomacy.
Ron Paul – “Are you crazy or just insane?”
🙂
In some ways he’s the smartest guy there but he can be batshit crazy.
When Paul talks my eyes cross.
Hen pecked Newtie is up. Blah, blah, blah. He is the only one who understands everything by God.
I can’t listen to this sober. Gotta go get more liquor or do a Moose and head out to the orchard to find some fermented apples to go with the popcorn.
http://www.thelocal.se/36002/20110907/
I can’t drink and type at the same time
Neither can I. That is why I have not commented yet.
Gingrich press release as read by John Lithgow. 🙂
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/387033/may-19-2011/john-lithgow-performs-gingrich-press-release
Huntsman doesn’t understand the art of the soundbyte
he looks a little orange to me. tanning booth?
Huntsman would do better in the Democratic primaries
He could run as a moderate Dem to the left of Obama
and win!
He’s certainly a lot more CIVIL than Obama.
Heh!
Consensus: Individual healthcare mandate from top-down feds really sucks.
Yee-haw
I like Romney’s repeal of Obamacare for all 50 states. Is Massachusetts included?
Perry & Bachman agreed re Obamacare repeal.
Forget Perry, I wish I had hair like Bachmann
Get yourself a good rat tail back-comb.
I need to get some hair first
We have a sad, sad hair imbalance in this nation. 20% of the population has 60% of the hair. Forget spread the wealth – spread the hair! A follicle in every brush?
I already have too many follicles on my brush, not enough on my scalp. oops, was that TMI?
Hey,
We have had two back-to-back election seasons with women running for a nomination. Even that is historic.*
The real kind, not the hopenchangey kind.
Cheapest applause line of the night.
“We are all for beating Obama” – Newt Gingrich.
He is smart enough to know that all Americans hate msnbc.
Not all of them – just the smart ones
I do like that Newt’s willing to be the one to call the debate moderators out when they’re just playing mind games.
Wouldn’t vote for him, but I do like THAT>
He’s a smooth talker
Pretty blunt, if you ask me. Very refreshing after slickner-n-snot Barak Obama. 🙂
He’s a Sith Lord
LOL
Me too. I’d vote for anyone of these people over Bam-Bam 😉
Amen!!
All except Santorum and maybe Ron Paul meet my “better than a three-legged blind herpetic goat” standard.
Cain reliving his days as the force behind ending Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.
Is Santorum’s tie pink or salmon?
Which color is more gay?
lol
Just getting in from work. Who is winning??
Brian Williams.
Anyone watching Fox News
or
Sarah Palin
LOL. Thanks for the warning.
Sarah 😉
Ron Paul has giant old-man ears
Damm. Perry’s a lot better debater than I thought he would be. He’s good.
So was Obama. Lowered expectation.
Really? I thought Obama sucked in the debates.
Obama did suck at debates – remember; “Um, ah … what Hillary said!”
Look at that field. He’s warm and can stand alone. That puts him in contention to win.
Yada yada yada. I thought you weren’t watching.
muaahahaa!
What the hell? Debates have commercials now?
gotta remember tomorrow to get new passport pictures. have to renew it before it expires. you never know when you might have to take flight.
I plan on sneaking across the border before Mexico builds a fence.
This is the best debate evan…. or maybe it’s the beer.
Bitterweet Symphony? This is a pretty weak-ass Reagan tribute
MSNBC hosts barfing in the studio.
Perry has run out of smooth talking points
michellemalkin Things I learned tonight: It’s ok to criticize Obama for speaking to La Raza, but not Perry. Got it.
😛
Are Perry and Romney wearing matching ties?
Just matching lies.
I’m so drunk they all look alike right now.
It’s the old dress for success, per politicians/businessmen: blue for engaging, red for assertive.
Depends on the occasion, ya know?
Apparently, Santorum is tweeting during the debate.
I think Perry’s gonna come out on top by being pro inoculation.
And there really was an opt-out option, per parental choice.
It wasn’t an easy opt out and parents were going to have to find it out on their own. Even Perry’s own people now say it was a huge screw up.
Everybody I knew , knew about the opt-out. Not a big deal.
It never went into effect.
@dickmorristweet #reagandebate #tcot #2012 We are watching the suicide of a candidate
on Perry’s SS answers.
The king of professional suicide knows of what he speaks
You pay attention to toe-sucker Dick Morris?????
My liver says it’s break time. I’ll see y’all later.
Your liver is weak and sad.
😛
Thank you, Romney. Well said!
Ron Paul: Eliminate FEMA. Now there’s a campaign suicide.
The correct answer would be to eliminate DHS and put FEMA back as a Cabinet postion like before 9-11. IMHO, of course 🙂
Fair enough. But I don’t think we’re ever gonna eliminate DHS–neither party would support it.
Putting FEMA back as a cabinet position—absolutely!
They need to report directly to the President during a crisis, not a figurehead. Get rid of TSA, let the airlines handle security. Put the Air Marshalls back under the ATF/FBI, wherever the hell they were before DHS. We’ll be just as safe, believe me 🙂
Eliminating the Weather Service is a close second 😉
I don’t know. There are constant declarations of states of emergency now. New York had flooding and now they need millions to clean up. But they’re just getting the same money back that they paid into the government in taxes. Seems like a wash sometimes.
These Republicans are all wimps. Put armed guards on the border and shoot to kill. Immigration problem solved.
Sarcasm, right? LOL
Hey, do you want morality or do you want solutions?
You do make laugh. A lot. Thanks. 😉
“Make me laugh.” No more wine for me.
You’d think Perry would know that drones have been used on the border for training missions for a couple of years now.
At least Obama supporters are being put to good use.
He knows. He wants more than just a few, just so Obama can say he “sent drones.”
I always laugh at the ones who want a fence along the entire border. Ummm……a big chunk of that border is a fucking RIVER. You can’t put a fence in the middle of a river, and on one side or the other won’t work
Good grief why didn’t they just dig up Reagan and tape him to a podium.
I’m sure he could beat Obama.
yup Zombie Ron 2012!
Daffy Duck could beat Obama this time. True story.
Love the comment, but dead or alive, Reagan is much more liberal than most of these candidates. Heck — he might be more liberal than President Obama.
djmm
UH OH Tea Party questions…
Huntsman keeps talking about working on our core. Is he teh Pilates candidate?
Good question. What the hell’s he talking about?
I keep expecting him to start demonstrating a bridge pose and telling us how to breathe.
In Mandarin.
Blogstalker line of the night
Romney thinks Obama doesn’t love America enough.
Perry giving credit to Obama for bin Laden and Gitmo. Nice.
And pointing out to Obama’s base that Obama has continued all the Bush policies Obama campaigned against, including rendition and secret prisons.
Well done, Perry.
Perry ran out of gas.
Damn. Every once in a while, Newt throws a good one in there.
Yep.
No one (not even most Republicans) ever want Newt for president. But he’s a smart man, and has good insight from time to time when he’s not being a massive douche.
Giving him the presidency is like giving a monkey a blowtorch.
LMAO!!!
Newt can often contribute something insightful or useful when a group is doing discussion and analysis – as I said, he is a very smart man. But he would enjoy power waaaaaaay too much. Scary much. He needs to avoid power for the sake of his own soul and psyche. Not healthy for him. Keep him away from power and he’s okay.
Ooh. Politico brought up GE’s 0% tax rate.
Surprised me, too. Notice, though it wasn’t Brian Williams, of NBC/MSNBC/GE fame. Brian doesn’t have the balls to ask.
I gotta blog more of these debates. It’s been a riot.
I’m even sober. -ish
Let’s see how long I can stand Tweety and dweeby.
You got Rachel. Like Bob Somerby, I immediately changed the channel. Keep commenting for us, though.
Ugh. I already turned it off.
Thanks, everybody. I enjoyed the comments!
Rachel Maddow doing the post game show. That should go well 😉
Did anyone besides me notice that while they asked the candidates very pointed questions about each other, the policies of Bush, the policies of Reagan, etc, they asked not one question that encouraged them to criticize a policy of Obama’s?
Seriously. They wanted their opinion, and tried to generate cheap shots, against every president and every candidate except the one they will be running against.
You have a point but right now these candidates are not running against Obama. They are running against each other for the nomination.
Yeah. But in the Dem primary debates, there were plenty of questions about Bush and his policies, no? I’m not objecting to the format so much as to the usual double standard.
Not surprising at all. Double standards abound at MSNBO.
Night all…great comments. More tommorrw night and The Speech !?
I was so drunk, I couldn’t hardly see straight. As soon as the show switched to Rachel I sobered up. She’s the ultimate party pooper.
No matter how hard you try, the letters in Rachel Maddow cannot be rearranged to spell MILF.
Almost spells retch
Dame Chow Ra?
Le Mad Dhow Car?
Anagram maker for rachel maddow. 5071 possibilities, I love the internet sometimes. here’s four… 🙂
Crawdad Hem Lo
Crawdad El Ohm
Crawdad Elm Oh
Crawdad Elm Ho
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=rachel+maddow&t=1000&a=n
Of course he would never say this, but on the TX executions question, it would have been fun if Perry had said, “In contrast to the drone executions against American citizens being carried out by this president, every death row inmate in TX got a trial by a jury of his peers.”
WMCB, after watching Perry in this debate, do you think he’ll be the nominee?
Yeah, I think he will. Not because of his performance tonight, though. Mittens actually came off better than Perry here, but the base ain’t voting for Mittens. Perry is not stupid, but he needs better prep. He struck me as having been warned about coming across too “smartass”, which is his usual style, and so he was uncomfortable.
I’m always of the opinion that you are better off letting a candidate be themselves than not. Because even if their natural style has its downside, trying to change it just muddies the water and trips them up. Perry can be an ass, but I think his handlers would be better off letting him be that than trying to squelch him and putting him offstride.
Bachmann is done, and so are the rest. Unless Sarah gets in (and damn, I wish she would), then it’s a two man race.
Out of this field, Perry may well be the nominee. If he is I suspect the following will get tested.
That’s a piece of conventional wisdom that I think is correct.
If 2008 is any indication, there’s room for 3 candidates. IMO, it’s Romney, the guy who’s not Romney and the Tea Party candidate. Perry is where Bachmann was when she was as new as Perry. I think he has room to fall.
Perry is the anti-Romney in that he’s also a governor, but of a deep red state. Bachmann is trying to keep the Tea Party mantle, but Ron Paul is close behind her. To call it for Perry as the other guy is kind of premature. Then if Sarah Palin comes in, it all goes out the window.
Yeah, except that he did not say kill SS. That’s not what he said tonight. Of course, that’s how it will be spun, but that’s not what he said.
I’d be hesitant to say “never”. We are living in curious times. What he’s saying will actually garner votes from younger folks, because they know it’s the truth. The question will be can granny be scared into thinking he’s gonna take away her check next year (which he isn’t, but that’s what will be spun.)
Heh, He pre-spun it himself in his 10 month old book. You don’t start an adult conversation about SS by calling it unconstitutional, a ponzi scheme, and a monstrous lie. I really don’t have the patience to listen to anyone sell that as the start of a reasonable conversation.
I think that under normal circumstances, your statement is true, but I don’t believe that what Perry has said is deadly. I’m very much for fixing and keeping SS, and I’m a liberal. I’m more angry with the way Obama is about destroying SS, than by what Perry said. In fact I see where he’s coming from. I’d vote for Perry right now.
That’s a personal problem.
Go to bed, Ralph. You crossed the line, AGAIN.
So, who won?
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I believe Obama’s going to lose to someone…
if I had to pick one, it’d be Palin… I think I could live with her version of Republicanism.
Yup. The Republicans would shit their pants if she won the nomination and then the WH. But the Democrats’ heads would explode.
The pundits on the debate. My question: Why does anyone ask Sullivan what he thinks. To tie Perry to W is just nonsense coming from an obot.
Well, surprise, I’m in almost total disagreement than Andrew Sullivan — and unlike him, I’ve got no axe to grind. Here is my take (and NONE of this means I support ANY of these people):
Gingrich is actually the best “debater” — he’s quick on his feet & sounds confident in his answers. If he wasn’t “Newt” he would have “won” this debate as well as the last one.
Romney & Perry — both did ok. Neither shot themselves in the foot & I guess that’s all they needed to do, but neither was great, either. And most certainly, neither “kicked ass.”
Huntsman — looked like he was taking a nap up there. Seriously, *this* is the guy Sullivan thought “emerged” as an actual candidate? Emerged from his nap, maybe, but not as a candidate.
Bachmann — did better than ANYONE in the MSM (especially named Andrew Sullivan) will EVER admit, but not as good as Romney & Perry and, unlike them, just not shooting herself in the foot isn’t good enough.
Cain — I can’t help it,I like Cain as a person. He has as much business as anyone else (and more than, say, Paul or Santorum) to be up there. He did better than Huntsman (because at least he looked alive), but not as good as Romney, Perry & Gingrich.
Santorum — why is he still running? He was as like a deer in headlights.
Paul– I just can’t with him.
Oh, and PS — where the fuck was Thad McCotter?
And Buddy Roemer?
Ha! Buddy Roemer – former governor of LA — is running for POTUS? LOL
Roemer explained why he wasn’t allowed in the debate when he visited with Jon Stewart. He’s standing in the polls is too low. Which is kind of funny since Santorum was allowed.
I hate coming to in the back of an ambulance. Those paddles leave burn marks that last for weeks.
The worst part about watching debates is when the debate is over and the bloviating gas bags TELL YOU WHAT YOU JUST HEARD!
I solemnly promise I will not do a post-debate reaction post.
(Although I may do reaction post to somebody else’s post-debate reaction post.)
(try saying that five times really fast)
When I saw this story , I knew I had to link it here for bull moose and myiq2xu
http://www.newser.com/story/127964/drunken-elk-rescued-from-tree.html
drunken elk rescued from tree
unemployment needs to start in DC asap
Sounds like them.
My uncle was an Elk.
Didn’t watch, read twitter and facebook, watched some clips. 🙂 Everyone on the left and some on the right jumped on Perry. He did not say SS should be abolished. Think he knows what he’s doing and it’s his race to lose imo, both primary and general. Not saying I’m a suppoter. Big chunks of the electorate will not want to vote with the newsmedia next year. Think Perry and Sarah understand that and they are best at making an emotional connection with ordinary people.