The bloodiest war in America’s history, on a per capita basis, took place in New England in 1675.
— Michael Tougias in King Philip’s War in New England (America’s First Major Indian War)
Things have turned a little ugly in the Republican primary reality show. Look at these recent headlines:
- Gingrich: Romney taxed the blind in Mass
- Anti-Mitt film attacks ‘corporate raiders,’ tells ‘a story of greed’
- Vendetta: Newt Gingrich has made it his personal mission to destroy Mitt Romney
- Santorum: GOP would suffer under Romney
- Ron Paul Attacks Santorum as Spendthrift in New Hampshire Swing
- Jon Huntsman blasts ‘stupid’ video by Ron Paul backers
What this means is that tonight’s New Hampshire GOP primary debate will be a veritable bloodbath. It’ll be streamed by ABC.
I’ll try to liveblog what I can. But feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment thread.
5:56: The pre-game show had devolved into a discussion of Rick Santorum fighting with an 18 year old girl. Santorum got some boos as he left the room, so obviously lost.
6:03: Santorum…”we need a leader, someone who can convey a positive image for the U.S.” “Someone who can paint a vision of what we are about”. He means Santorum?!?
6:05: Newt insinuates that Mitt’s ideological model is “the Wall Street model.”
6:09: Mitt takes credits for creating 100,000 jobs, “net—net”. But then must admit that he is talking about jobs that were created after he had nothing to do with it.
6:11: Mitt keeps suggesting that private sector is useful for creating jobs as President (or Governor). Let’s look at the stats (click for larger image)…
Hmmm…Clinton, Reagan, Johnson. Not big private-sector enterprise-builders.
6:20: At this point, the moderators are staying out of it and letting the candidates bludgeon and hack at each other.
6:21: The moderator tries to lure Huntsman and then Romney into a fight. They call for a ceasefire to turn the attack toward Obama.
6:25: Rick Perry gets a softball question about the military and babbles for a few sentences before his brain warms up.
6:26: Newt is no Chickenhawk! Because…his father served in the military.
6:27: The moderator asks Ron Paul if he would call Newt a Chickenhawk. “Yeah, I would.” He doesn’t.
6:29: Newt comes back and, essentially, calls Ron Paul a liar (“…long history of inaccurate statements”). Nice.
6:30: Ron Paul gets asked about his newsletters. If he had any balls, he’d walk out of the debate….
6:31: Paul asks, “how many times do you see a rich white person get the electric chair?” Perhaps Rick Perry could take that one?
6:34: During the break…the commentators are disappointed in the battle…not enough ganging up on Mitt.
6:37: Looking back at that chart…George W. Bush had lots of private sector experience. He destroyed lots of companies before trying to do the same to the U.S.
6:39: Mitt hearts Contraception. “It’s working just fine. Leave it alone.” Seems to not understand the Constitutional question being asked.
6:42: Ron Paul believes in a right of privacy guaranteed in the Constitution, which means that contraception is good.
6:43: Rick Santorum dodges the contraception question by talking about abortion. Whimp!
6:47: Santorum: Defining marriage is a federal issue, but adoption for same-sex couples is a state’s rights issue.
6:48: Mitt: Same sex relationships are fine…just don’t call it “marriage.” Because that somehow goes against thousands of years of human history.
6:53: Rick Perry claims that the Obama administration is engaged in a “war on religion.” What the fuck?!?
6:55: On withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, Huntsman gives a thoughtful, analytical answer. The Mittster spews some talking points.
6:57: Newt: “Afghanistan is a tiny piece of a gigantic mess.”
7:00: Santorum engages in a babblefest…something about the first important thing in the war in terror is to de-sanitize our documents to get rid of political correctness. You could say, we should Santorumize them instead.
7:02: Newt want to outlaw “American Presidents bowing before Saudi Kings.” There is some bold foreign policy vision for you!
7:03: Ron Paul is in full babble mode. Mentions, “ping pong”, “pirates”, “”blow-back.”
7:07: Babblery must be contageous…I couldn’t really follow that last bit by Santorum leading up to the break.
7:14: Mitt claims Obama wants to turn the U.S. into a social welfare state. Funny…I’ve never heard Obama say anything like this.
7:17: Huntsman: “We need to stimulate confidence in the creative class of this country.” Santorum doesn’t want everyone to have the opportunity to go to college
7:20: Mitt slips into illiteracy, “our Democrat friends.”
7:21: Ron Paul slips into dementia claiming that the “Republicans stand for less spending.” Not in my lifetime!
7:26: First Perry, now Romney gets into a prepared speech. Low content.
7:27: Newt makes a funny.
7:28: …but I’m not sure what his point was.
7:28: Rick Santorum doesn’t believe in a middle class. Don’t panic, folks…it’s only semantic. “Middle Income group” is, apparently, okay. Problem solved.
7:30: Mitt claims the Obama administration has opened up no new trade relationships for foreign countries. I believe the fact checkers will have some fun with that one.
7:32: Mitt hits Huntsman for “implementing the policies of this administration in China.” Huntsman talks about Mitt’s lack of understanding of the trade relationship with China.
7:40: The fluff round has begun…and, mercifully, ended after about one minute.
7:43: As always, the pundits think Mitt Romney wins by not getting too beat up.
Welcome to the Chickenhawk Clucking Match! … None of these guys (Romney, Santorum, Gingrich) served in the military.
Rick Santorum ain’t no Hal Moore.
No Ricky, you haven’t been the commander in chief of 20,000 troops.
Ricky’s against federal spending, he wants all that money sent Texas where he can spend it.
Mittens is just babbling.
Romney: Obama bad. Republicans good. Me even better. Oooga-oooga!!
Perry commanded troops deployed to “various theaters”? Really?
Did Perry just call Romney senator?
Yep, cutting the bloated Pentagon budget will take away granny’s freedom to go hungry because her Social Security and Medicare and food stamps are being sacrificed to buy more bombs.
“At least I went when they called me up”
Ron Paul. Fuck yeah.
Yay for Newt! He was an Army brat! Therefore he’s not a shirking, draft-dodging, chickenhawk!
Yay for Ron Paul! For saying people who got multiple deferments don’t have the right to send other people’s kids to war! (But I’m not gonna vote for Paul anyway.)
Newt Gingrich: I wasn’t eligible for the draft.
Roger Rabbit: I couldn’t be drafted, either, because I can’t pass a military physical — so I had to beg the Army to take me. They did, and I’m a Vietnam veteran. When I enlisted, they were drafting dads; because I volunteered to go to war, some dad got to stay home with his kids. I wonder if that dad was you, Newt?
“How many times have you seen a rich white person get the electric chair”
Ron Paul.
Romney: SCOTUS was wrong to find a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade.
Santorum: Damn straight! There ain’t no right of privacy in the Constitution!
Gingrich likes marriage so much he’s been married three times!
Newt thinks the “sacrament” of marriage is something that is part of civil law in a secular state.
A commenter on ABC’s website just pointed out that Iowa and New Hampshire are 2 of the 6 states that allow gay marriage. (I haven’t fact-checked that yet, so I don’t know if that’s accurate.)
Postscript: A quick internet search indicates that’s correct.
Mittens: there can be contractual relationship between to people. Which is what marriage is!
Newt’s lying. The Catholic church isn’t getting discriminated against. The church didn’t want to follow state law and so they didn’t get state contracts.
Perry plays the “war on religion” card. Excuse me while I barf.
Comment in ABC thread: “You can dictate what happens in my home, but you can’t dictate what happens in my bank?”
Wtf, is up with the whole war on religion meme?
@22
Awesome
This is really hard to follow on the radio. They all sound like annoying rich white dudes.
Is Santorum saying we should keep troops in Iraq because the people there want to practice their own religion in their own country? Turn ’em all into Catholics!
Perry: send troops back to Iraq! Never mind that the Iraq’s don’t want them there.
Perry would send troops back to Iraq to keep Iran from taking over Iraq. (Like they did in 1980-1988?)
Mittens: more chicken-hawk babbling.
I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.
Ricky: I was for the revolution before there was a revolution
Santorum is lying when he says Obama called the Iran election “legitimate.”
What President Obama actually said in a June 23, 2009 press conference was there are “significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.”
Several days ago, this website called website called bullshit on this meme:
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012.....facts-iran
http://thinkprogress.org/polit.....?mobile=nc
Carl, what radio station? I lost my feed a couple of times, and missed Rick Perry’s mega-gaffe.
@33,
KOMO 1000AM.
Thanks.
@33 I haven’t had any problem with the ABC livestream.
http://abcnews.go.com/politics
Romney says taxes are too high, and government is too big. What spending would he cut?
Romney says he wants to help the middle class. Here’s how he’ll do it:
“Mitt Romney’s proposed tax plan would slash federal revenue and deliver a substantial tax cut to the wealthiest Americans, according to a new analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.”
http://articles.latimes.com/20.....y-20120105
Perry wants to help the middle class by passing right-to-work laws. Does he intend to ask Congress for a national RTW law?
Romney’s inalienable rights: Life, liberty, and pursuit of business profits. (Paraphrased by Roger Rabbit.)
Mittens: Germany and the nordic countries social and economic models don’t work.
Let ‘Em Eat Cake Dep’t
A coin collector paid $1 million for a 1793 penny today.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....r-thoughts
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I decided to post this as an example of how Republican tax cuts for the rich put money back into the economy.
Romney takes a cheap shot at Huntsman for serving as Obama’s ambassador to China. And Huntsman dishes back with a verbal uppercut to Romney’s talking points.
Mittens: I’m on all 4 sides of the issues when it come to China.
Huntsman’s once again proven that he’s the only grownup in the room.
I’ve got stuff to do, so I’m out for the night.
All of ABC’s commentators say Romney won the debate tonight.
In debates and on the campaign trail, Republican Presidential candidates continue to make false or misleading statements which go unchallenged by the media (MSM).
Romney insists that Obama raised federal income taxes on businesses. The reality is that federal corporate tax revenue have dropped by 50% in the past three years even as the US GDP grew by 10%. http://thebottom99percent.com/.....and-taxes/
Perry claims “Government spending is out of control” and that we need to reduce the number of federal workers and departments. The reality is that the federal government has 297,000 fewer employees than under Ronald Reagan and now serves 25% more Americans. As the population continues to grow the government is shrinking. http://thebottom99percent.com/.....-spending/
Republicans always stick to a tight script of talking points that are misleading, or worse plain out lies.
Fight the status quo – Get the facts for yourself. Check out our full DebateWatch coverage here – http://thebottom99percent.com/.....p-debates/
Daryl,
Did you really spend all that time typing out a blow by blow. You fucking retard. You should spend as much time at your phony baloney state teaching (lol) job.
By the way, you sucked as a teacher.