Oct. 11 Republican Debate

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(I am not endorsing any of the candidates, but just reporting from a politically nuetral perspective, but based on body language and speaking skill)

My analysis:

Ron Paul - this debate did not hurt his campaign at all, imo. appeared relatively strong compared to his previous debate performances. he appeared curmudgeonly in his previous debate, but made a much better impression this time around.

Michele Bachmann - her campaign is in trouble. she does not have a specific plan, basically just rhetoric. she did not save herself from her plummeting polls. the worst is that her performance in this debate did not add anything new to what any of us know of her.

Rick Perry - his campaign is dying. in the last debate he got applause for saying anything, now he didnt get any applause. used phrases like "get the economy moving again" but didn't say anything of intellectual depth. without the applause, he appeared as a typical monotone boring politician.

Newt Gingrich - his campaign is dying. while sparking controversy against the left, he has not sparked enough disagreement with the opponent. he made the mistake of appearing too much as a wingman for the GOP rather than a standalone candidate, a spotter rather than a competitor. he sat on the sidelines on this debate, and didn't stand out, like he did before.

Rick Santorum - his campaign is dying. of course he was angry and verbally attacking people in all debates, he outdone himself here. a positive was that he took initiative in talking. his attacks on angers will generate applause and sting strong candidates, but they did not help his campaign or prove to anyone he can be president.

Herman Cain - his rising in the polls resulted in everyone attacking him. surprisingly, he did not make any gaffes, answered all of the criticisms well. he's keeping his throne as non-moderate GOP candidate for now.

Mitt Romney - i think he won the debate with an overall strong performance. presidential in manner, calm (unlike in the last 2 debates where perry was putting the pressure on him). avoided huge mistakes. with no new competitors coming in, it looks like romney is poised to win this one.

John Huntsman - while he made one of his strongest debate performances, unfortunately, i dont think his performance is going to change his 2% of GOP support.

Cain looked pretty bad imo. He's got exposed as a shill for the Federal Reserve and ended up defending TARP. His $9.99 pizza plan is a tax increase and he does nothing but repeat it every answer regardless of it's relevancy to the question. Either that or he says he's been misquoted. Him not being able to name the economists that support his plan and saying he's keeping his candidates for Federal Reserve chairman secret were killers. "Spoken like a true insider", lol indeed. Gotta imagine his numbers will start to drop soon.

Rick Perry - Really didn't say anything of note. I agree that his campaign is dead. All he does is mention that he's governor of Texas and that it's the 2nd largest largest state. He talked a lot about getting more domestic energy which I assume he means drilling, brought that up a few times regardless of it's relevancy to the question. The Gardasil and immigration stuff really killed him.

Michelle Bachmann - Wasn't that bad, mentioned she was a federal tax lawyer a bunch of times. Her line about that Herman Cain should "turn his 9-9-9 upside down, because the devil is in the details" was pretty good. Her campaign is also dead, this didn't change it much.

Newt Gingrich - Him talking about the FED is interesting I guess other than that he didn't really make any waves. Him and Paul seem to be talking a lot during the breaks and afterwards at these debates so that's interesting as well. I don't see his campaign really going anywhere.

Jon Huntsman - Really didn't say anything too notable but made some awkward jokes again.

Mitt Romney - Worse than usual performance for him. The hosts pretty much backed him into a corner and had him defending TARP and Bush/Paulson. He's really good a talking a lot but not really saying anything and deflecting attention from his negatives.

Rick Santorum - LOL. Him attacking people was pretty funny, the debate people seem to ignore him even more than they ignore Ron. "I wanna go to war with China" was his line of the night. Had some hecklers yell something at him near the end of the debate iirc. Debate was about the economy and he still was bringing up social issues and his pro-war stance.

Ron gave good answers as always but seemed a little timid the first half of the debate. Wish he would speak up more and not let the moderators ignore him. Second half of the debate he was great tho, really took it to Herman Cain. Everybody seems to defer to him when talking about the Federal Reserve now, he's won the debate on it. Good performance, thought he could of been more aggressive especially in the first half of the debate.

Have to imagine some people will be dropping out soon. Thought the round table debate was decent format but of course Cain and Romney got an endless stream of airtime.

people should be clear that rick santorum wasnt talking about a literal war with china. he was talking about a trade war of china.

Cain's 999 plan may be THE most idiotic thing to come out of these debates, and that's saying an awful lot. It will never hold up to any careful scrutiny, and whatever university granted this buffoon a math degree should be ashamed of itself.

Well here is my analysis.

Romney is screwed, Newt had him with his question directed towards Romney. The thing about capital gains tax cut and $200,000 a year, well as Newt pointed probably less than 1% have any investments to get capital gains. I think Newt was probably surprised that nobody else at the table picked up on the fact that Romney's camp was hanging by a thread.

Perry's campaign is done.

Cain's plan is rather good, and as far as devil in the details?!?! He is saying throw out the existing tax code and putting something in place that the American people can easily understand. Something that probably wouldn't even take a page to explain and compare it to the existing tax code. The only people I could see losing their jobs over this are the Tax Lawyers, many IRS agents, and some lobbyists. You all really need to look at what he plans to make sure congress doesn't start playing with people's taxes afterward.

Ron Paul was well Ron Paul, not sure how to explain the village idiot. About the only thing he is right on is the Fed needing audits.

Rick Santorum's strong suit isn't economics, however he nailed Perry, Huntsman, and Romney bigtime.

Jon Huntsman seemed to have an ax to grind with Rick Perry.

Newt Gingrich, well people seemed to be afraid to get into a serious exchange with him. Honestly he seemed the most Presidential while everyone else was bickering and there was something that happened recently that may put him in the top tier. He was actually the team player while everyone was trying to one-up each other.

Also I think people will like this:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... serve.html

hehehe

Since the debate, Romney's share on Intrade has increased while Cain's and Perry's have decreased, with no significant change to the others.

Newt Gingrich, that is to say Dr. Newt Gingrich, is the smartest of the bunch. But he is not electable.

ruveyn

Just how exactly is Gingrich unelectable?

Uh how about you look at the guy currently in the White House, Newt Gingrich is going to be very electable compared to Obama.

When Gingrich left congress we had a balanced budget.

When Clinton left office the USA had a balanced budget. There was one crucial difference between him and Obama: Clinton didn't negotiate with Republicans about Tax measures.

Man you really have a faulty memory of history, cause Clinton, unlike Obama, actually did negotiate with Republicans (after Dick Morris had to drag Clinton to the table). Clinton, unlike Obama, was not an ideologue.

In short, Clinton was a much better President than Obama, because he didn't have his head up his behind and could actually work with people that didn't agree with him.