SC GOP Executive Director Matt Moore just told our Evan McMorris-Santoro: “The SCGOP had no input on how questions were developed or to whom they were addressed. Congresswoman Bachmann seemed to receive a fair number questions, and had ample opportunities to answer.”
And the SCGOP was the official debate cosponsor.
The Bachmann campaign has just sent out a press blast that will surely get everybody in an uproar. CBS’s just hired political director, John Dickerson, wrote an email — apparently to CBS colleagues — noting that Bachmann probably wouldn’t get many questions tonight since she’s basically tanked in the polls. That’s not terribly surprising — also-ran candidates typically get less mic time in a multi-candidate debate. Except Dickerson inadvertently CC’d Bachmann’s communications director. Big mistake. The Bachmann campaign has now released the email to the press. More shortly.
Late Update: Bachmann Headline: CBS guy just focusing on our flat-lining in the polls.
Latter Update: For some context, the TPM Poll Average puts Bachmann currently at 3.2% support nationwide among Republicans. So she’s creeping up on Gary Johnson territory. And well into Santorum-ville.
A lot less excitement came out of this debate than many of the recent ones. It’s a bit hard for me to say what of great consequence came out of it. With one exception: Rick Perry avoided any major stumble or embarrassment (yep, a pretty low bar but that’s where we are) and even managed, oddly enough, to get the rest of the candidate’s following him on the foreign aid/start at zero idea. Read More
Yet another discomfiting moment in which Rick Santorum is far and away the most lucid and knowledgable person on foreign policy.
Bachmann notes that in China they don’t have foodstamps.
8:58 PM: I think we have to face the reality that with Rick Perry remaining lucid and not forgetting where he is, the entertainment value of these debates really goes off a cliff.
9:03 PM: Curious what others are seeing. But the online-only portion of this debate (online only in most of the country) is almost unwatchable. I would have thought CBS would have been more up to the challenge. For what it’s worth, I’m getting a somewhat better feed on National Journal than at CBS. Big fail for CBS. Our reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro is down on the ground in South Carolina. So if CBS can’t manage the webcast technology, he’ll give us the gist when this is over.
9:14 PM: Pretty predictable exchange over constitutionality of targeted assassinations of US citizens abroad — and Michele Bachmann didn’t realize there was an issue tied to US citizenship.
For rapid, running updates from the debate, go right to TPMLivewire.
8:23 PM: It’s so funny how everyone up on that stage — and everybody watching — is waiting in pained silence, waiting for Perry to forget where he is. There was this moment when the camera focused on Mitt and he had this look of pity combined with latent joy and just ‘I can’t watch this.’ And yet, Perry did it. It’s like everyone wants to run up and give him a high-five. Or maybe that’s just me.
8:26 PM: Bachmann: “World wide nuclear war against Israel.” Not sure why it would need to be world wide. Seems like a pretty regional thing regardless.
8:27 PM: I think Newt just directly accused the Pakistani government of hiding bin Laden.
8:28 PM: I don’t agree with much that Rick Santorum believes in foreign policy, though his answer on Pakistan was pretty reasonable. Yet it’s clear that he’s one of the few guys up there who thought about any of these issues before he realized that he’d have to answer questions about them in a foreign policy debate.
7:59 PM: South Carolina politics is a richly interesting combination of fierce injunctions to biblical fundamentalism and coverage of which elected official is copulating with what other big wig or potentate in the back seat of what car. And then there’s which politician is gay. There’s also the episodic embrace of treason and efforts to break up the union. Together, it’s a lot.
8:05 PM: Feel like the pressures of multiple simultaneous sex scandals has gotten Herman Cain to expand his policy agenda beyond 999. Also, he seems to have ruled out military action.
8:07 PM: Meta-win. Mitt stands down Scott Pelley as a meta-signal that he can stand down Iran.
8:10 PM: Newt is insisting that Obama should be doing all the things he’s already doing against Iran — covert disruption, offing scientists, working in concert with Israel, etc.
8:12 PM: He did it! Perry gets through a completely coherent, non-stuttering answer. I can hear his consultants cheering up here in New York … Actually Eric Kleefeld points out that Perry only really crashes in the second half.
8:18 PM: Quite apart from his policy prescription, Jon Huntsman just sounds so much more rational and forward-looking, serious about thinking about the country’s real challenges in the coming decades than anyone else up there.
We’re gearing up for tonight’s GOP foreign policy debate, sponsored by CBSNews and National Journal. This will be a particular interesting encounter since foreign policy has played a surprisingly smal role in this year’s GOP primary fight. Unlike on domestic policy where they all have slightly different flavors of the same policies, on foreign policy they have some genuinely differing positions. And in some cases candidates have no foreign policy at all.
Join us in 10.