Campaign forced to insist candidate said “Ronald Reagan” not “Ronald Raven”.
He’ll go far this year.
I think the debate highlight was that Rick Perry forgot how many years he was Governor of Texas.
So it was Carly Fiorina who left her debate closing remarks on the hotel printer.
5:39 PM: This debate is an example of the structural problem Republicans have never leaving the Fox ecosystem. Questions along the lines of, what will you do when lying liberals say you’re heartless for slashing government programs.
6:06 PM: One of the attractions of watching a presidential debate is the knowledge that almost certainly one of the people on the stage will either be President or at least a major party nominee. The virtual certainly that no one on this stage will be either sort of drains the event of some of its juice.
6:12 PM: Everybody should sign up for Prime twice because half of our staff had to watch this debate. It’s probably taken a year off of each of our lives just through concentrated and lethal levels of boredom.
Okay, we’re here doing live coverage of the loser candidates who didn’t make the cut into the real debate.
5:07 PM: The painful subtext of every question, even from the Foxbot questioners, seems to be ‘You’re really unpopular and your campaign is a joke, why are you even running?’ Pretty hard to come back with a good answer on that.
5:09 PM: For the over 40 crowd, the debate stage here has a vague feeling of the 70s-era Love Boat. Vaguely entertaining, but mostly ‘Oh yeah, what ever happened to that guy.’ Yeah, I’m looking at you, George Pataki.
5:10 PM: Wow, question for Jim Gilmore is the most brutal yet. Basically “Jim Gilmore, why the F are you even running?” Not a bad question. Think I’m kidding? “You were the last person on stage to declare your candidacy. You ran for the White House once and lost. You ran for the senate one time and lost. You haven’t held public office in 13 years. Similar question, is it time for new blood?”
5:20 PM: If you’re not watching this debate you’re missing nothing. The crushing weight of the irrelevance of the candidates overwhelms every word.
5:24 PM: Main question of round two seems to be, “When are you going to crack down on American Muslims?”
5:35 PM: I’d had to reassure the TPM staffers covering this debate for us that from my years of experience, this debate is challenging for the sheer level of unremarkable banal stupidity. But we’re going to persevere.
5:38 PM: Foxbot host asks candidates how they will combat the epidemic of loaferism among Americans.
Bounty hunters on the trail of a fugitive wanted on drug charges raid the home of Phoenix Police Chief.
In 1965, future Senator and then Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued a seminal and notorious report on what he termed the pathologies of the black family, arguing that one solution was more service in the military for black men. A year later, the Johnson administration instituted “Project One Hundred Thousand.”
Not terribly surprising given what’s happened over the last two years. But still striking and a bit amazing. Russia and particularly Vladimir Putin are really, really unpopular in basically every region of the world.
If there was no Donald Trump, Democrats would desperately need to find a way to create him. Maybe they wouldn’t need to. Maybe Mike Huckabee or someone else would be picking up the Crazy slack. But it’s difficult to see how anyone could be managing it in quite the way Donald Trump is or with quite as much collateral damage. Tonight the candidates – or rather the top 10 out of the dozens who are running – will meet in Cleveland. And the debate will be dominated by a preening billionaire buffoon who has spent recent weeks marching around the country spouting off borderline racist comments, attacking the very real foibles and weaknesses of opposing candidates, calling on Congress to shut down the government over women’s health funding and so much more. Will he do well in a debate? Of course, he will! He’s a master of media and television.
Did Ted Cruz really cook bacon with a machine gun? No, he did not.