Tonight’s South Carolina debate is at 9 PM. Here’s what to watch for. We will of course be here covering it live.
9:01 PM: And here we go. Any real way Romney can muff this at this point? I doubt. What’s different now is that I really wonder whether Gingrich, Perry, Santorum even have the oooomph left in them to make a real fight of it tonight.
9:04 PM: Mitt’s giving Newt that, “Dude, I’ve so smoked you look.” … Actually not a bad answer from Gingrich … The subtext is pretty clear here: Newt, what the F were you thinking?
9:07 PM: Pretty clear at this point that Fox has fallen into line on this one. Baier didn’t press Romney on the tax issue, which surprises me.
9:14 PM: Romney is amazingly cocky in this debate. Thing is though, why not? At this point there’s just no one up there who can really challenge him and in the national numbers the big move to Romney has started.
9:17 PM: I’m not sure I’ve seen something like this before. The whole subtext of the debate basically is challenging everybody to shut up and stop attacking Romney.
9:21 PM: Man, if only Santorum weren’t a hopeless candidate, this sort of good debating might actually make him a contender.
9:24 PM: This primary race is pretty much over — if we’re talking about any serious chance of Mitt Romney not being the nominee. But there are a lot Republicans watching that last exchange who had some real heartburn. When at all seriously challenged, Romney quickly loses his cool. That’s a problem if you’re in a race with serious opposition — which Romney really hasn’t been.
Running updates on every turn of tonight’s debate at TPMLiveWire.
9:37 PM: I’m curious to see how Romney does when actually challenged on the US auto industry.
9:43 PM: “Time will tell.” “Probably what I’ll do.” Those were Romney’s key lines on taxes. You’ll see a lot of follow ups trying to get him to nail that down to a real commitment.
9:51 PM: Ron Paul: MLK is with me on the drug war and the wars abroad. So even with the newsletters that’s still 2 out of three and that ain’t bad.
9:54 PM: Newt is raucous and shameless as usual. But this is the kind of performance that helped him rocket to the top of the polls.
Newt’s really on fire tonight. Really not sure that it’s going to matter much. But he’s back into that mode of serving up perfect red meat for the Republican primary electorate.
I think Rick Perry just said that Turkey is now being run by “Islamic terrorists”.
TPM’s Michael Lester truncated tonight’s (boisterous) GOP debate into 100 seconds for your viewing pleasure.
While you’re in video-watching mode, check out the crowd going absolutely wild as Newt laid into Juan Williams. Newt was throwing out red meat like Nero to the lions. It was quite something to behold.
It’s common knowledge that Republicans aren’t excited about their presidential candidates. But there’s now some evidence that lack of excitement may be sapping enthusiasm for the general election too.