A schedule oddity has the GOP presidential contenders debating this evening from 9-11 ET for ABC /Yahoo/WMUR then turning around and debating again 10 hours later, at 9 a.m. ET Sunday for Meet The Press/Facebook.
Remember: No Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain this time around. We’ll be hearing a whole lot more from Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.
TPM will be here for all 3 1/2 hours of dead-on-their-feet debating.
Watching the Lions v. Saints playoff game tonight? Multitask with TPM.
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on Ron Paul: “The Republican Party has clearly made a decision to embrace extremism and that’s been clear from their political activity as well as their caucus and conference in the House and in the Senate. They’ve allowed the Tea Party extremists to take over, it’s the tail wagging the dog.”
As we get ready for tonight’s New Hampshire debate, let’s look at where the New Hampshire race seems to be as of this moment. Read More
The new PPP poll gives Mitt Romney a 30-23 lead over Newt Gingrich.
Here’s the latest TPM Poll Average of South Carolina: Read More
9:02 PM: A smiling Newt. Did everyone see that “I Got Nuthin’ to Lose, MoFo!” thought bubble over Newt’s head?
9:05 PM: While this debate is going on, there was some big news today in the weeds of the campaign financing game. Sheldon Adelson, an ultra-hawk casino mogul who has virtually limitless money, has given $5 million to a Newt-backing Super PAC for carpet-bombing in South Carolina.
I think Mitt’s going to have some problems with this jobs answer. Mitt Romney just insisted that his 100,000 jobs number includes both jobs gains and jobs losses. But in fact his own top advisor said only a few days ago that the 100,000 number came from the jobs created from three companies and did not include the losses.
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post finally pressed the Romney campaign on this. And Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom gave Kessler this …
Fehrnstrom says the 100,000 figure stems from the growth in jobs from three companies that Romney helped to start or grow while at Bain Capital: Staples (a gain of 89,000 jobs), The Sports Authority (15,000 jobs), and Domino’s (7,900 jobs).
This tally obviously does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved — and are based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain. (Indeed, Romney made his comments in response to a former employee of American Pad & Paper Co. who says he lost his job after Bain Capital took it private.)
So when pressed Romney spokesman said it’s the gains of three companies — not the losses.
And what did Romney himself just say in response to Stephanopoulos? Here’s the exchange …
Romney: In the business I had we invested in, over 100 different businesses, and net / net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and the ones where we added? those business have now added over 100,000 jobs. I have a record of learning how to create jobs.
Stephanopolous: There have been questions about that caluclation of the 100,000 jobs, so if you could explain a little more, I’ve read some analysts who look at it and say that you’re counting the jobs that were created, but the jobs that were taken away. Is that accurate?
Romney: No, it’s not accurate, it includes the net of both, I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that.
How can these two statements be reconciled? Ferhnstrom’s statement clearly contradicts Romney’s.
Late Update: TPM’s Benjy Sarlin caught up with Ferhnstrom at the ‘spin room’ after tonight’s debate. And Ferhnstrom backed up Romney’s explanation. To work around the apparent contradiction he said in so many words that even with the layoffs, the total amounted to more than 100,000 jobs. See the Late Update in this piece for Ferhnstrom’s full response.
Round one of tonight’s debate is a good example of why Mitt Romney is doing so well. Romney is set for a smashing win on Tuesday. And yet almost everything in round one was everybody else attacking each other. Mitt had almost nothing to do with it. And if you’re up by 20 points, that’s just fine.
9:40 PM: One of my colleagues, correctly, said Romney’s basically just coasting now. But I think he’s getting a bit too cute by half on this refusal to answer the contraception (i.e., Griswold) question.
9:47 PM: Watching this debate, it’s hard not to think that everyone’s basically given up and giving this to Romney.
9:50 PM: Shorter Newt: Can we get back to some friggin’ culture war stuff here?
9:52 PM: John Adams wrote the constitution? Really? I don’t think he was in the country in 1787. #fail. (Readers think Romney was referring to the Massachusetts Constitution, not the federal one.)
9:59 PM: Shorter Mitt: I’ve so got this thing.
10:09 PM: I have to agree with virtually everyone who says this debate is awful. But it’s not really the questions — or not entirely those. It’s the candidates. It seems bizarre because the only question looming over this campaign is Mitt Romney. And the debate has almost entirely ignored him. That’s a failure of the candidates.
10:32 PM: If I were an anti-Mitt Republican watching this debate, I’d be so depressed.
10:37 PM: Can I really ask our reporters to keep covering this thing if the candidates don’t even want to try? Eeeesh.