The Elite Eight

This blog has been on an unintentional summer hiatus the past some weeks, thanks to a combination of great weather, longer work hours and several friends' weddings on the other side of the country. A lot has happened politically in the meantime, much of it worth ignoring, but there is a semi-recent piece of news about the 2008 presidential election that I really should cover. And no, I don't mean that one.

Back on August 9th, we here in Washington state found out the list of candidates who passed certification and will appear on our ballot. It's no secret I don't like Romney, and I definitely don't like Obama either. Lucky for me, there are six other tickets on the ballot. Since most outlets are only going cover two, maybe three of these candidates, I present for your informational pleasure the eight candidates for President of the United States:

---

Ross C. (Rocky) Anderson, Justice Party
VP: Luis J. Rodriguez
Do they have the ballot access to win? Yes, just barely, with 26 states and exactly 270 EVs, counting write-in states.
Links: Justice Party's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Rocky Anderson's official site, Facebook, Twitter
General impression: Left of Obama, but mostly within mainstream liberalism.
Party slogan: "Economic, environmental and social justice for all."

---

Virgil Goode, Constitution Party
VP: James N. Clymer
Do they have the ballot access to win? Unclear, although possible; aiming for 40 states.
Links: Constitution Party's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Virgil Goode's official site, Facebook, Twitter
General impression: Mostly paleoconservative, but likes entitlements.
Campaign slogan: "Save America, citizenship matters." 

---

James Harris, Socialist Workers Party
VP: Alyson Kennedy
Do they have the ballot access to win? Unlikely; aiming for just 8 states plus write-ins.
Links: The best I can find is The Militant, a weekly newspaper closely associated with the Socialist Workers Party. Neither the party nor the campaign seem to have an online presence outside The Militant.
General impression: Socialist focusing on union and race issues.
Quote: “The capitalist crisis, attacks by bosses, and workers’ resistance are worldwide phenomena. Everywhere they are driven to attack us..." --James Harris, Aug. 11, 2012

---

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party
VP: James P. Gray
Do they have the ballot access to win? Yes; on the ballot in 38 states so far, totalling 394 EVs.
Links: Libertarian Party's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Gary Johnson's official site, Facebook, Twitter 
General impression: A solid libertarian, the best-known third-partier.
Party slogan: "Minimum government, maximum freedom."

---

Peta Lindsay, Party for Socialism and Liberation
VP: Yari Osorio
Do they have the ballot access to win? Not even close, at just 60 EVs. But even if they did win, neither Lindsay nor Osorio is eligible to be President. Lindsay is only 28, too young under the Constitution, while Osorio immigrated to the US as a child and is not a natural born citizen.
Links: Party for Socialism and Liberation's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Peta Lindsay's official site, Facebook, Twitter 
General impression: Hardcore socialist focusing on economic issues.
Campaign slogan: "Seize the banks - Jobs, health care and housing for all - Fight for socialism."

---

Barack Obama, Democratic Party
VP: Joe Biden
Do they have the ballot access to win? Of course.
Links: Democratic Party's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Barack Obama's official site, Facebook, Twitter 
General impression: The status quo.
Campaign slogan: "Forward."

---

Mitt Romney, Republican Party
VP: Paul Ryan
Do they have the ballot access to win? Of course.
Links: Republican Party's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Mitt Romney's official site, Facebook, Twitter 
General impression: A Democrat's vision of a stereotypical Republican.
Campaign slogan: "America's Comeback Team."

---

Jill Stein, Green Party
VP: Cheri Honkalai
Do they have the ballot access to win? Yes; on the ballot in 35 states so far, totalling 442 EVs.
Links: Green Party's official site, Facebook, Twitter
Jill Stein's official site, Facebook, Twitter 
General impression: Left of Anderson, but right of the socialists.
Campaign slogan: "A Green New Deal for America."

---

Gary Johnson on the Issues

Last Sunday, I wrapped up my series of posts on Mitt Romney's positions in the debates. Now it's time to look at Gary Johnson, who initially ran as a Republican but has now secured the nomination for the Libertarian Party. Since Johnson was only in two debates, the first and the sixth, there's simply not as much material as there was for Romney, who was in 19 debates. While Romney got five entries, Johnson only gets this one.

National Security
In the first debate, he said he would withdraw from Afghanistan "tomorrow," was against the war in Iraq from the beginning, and was also opposed to intervention in Libya (Syria was not yet an issue at the time). He is solidly against war, saying in the 6th debate, "The biggest threat to our national security is the fact that we're bankrupt." As part of his promise to balance the budget, he supports a 43% cut to military spending.

Immigration and Trade
He said in the first debate that there was "very little, if any benefit" to securing the border, and that freer immigration would create "tens of millions of jobs." On trade, he said, "I'm a free market guy... I don't favor tariffs of any kind, whatsoever." In the two debates, he was only able to address trade with one country, Cuba, which he supports, because he believes that trade encourages friendship. 

Taxes and Spending
He supports the Fair Tax, a national sales tax that would replace the corporate and personal income taxes. On spending, he would balance the budget in his first year in office. Since he says current spending outpaces revenue by 43%, that's how much he wants to cut from all federal spending, including 43% each from the military, Medicare and Medicaid. To get it done, he would turn Medicare and Medicaid into block grants, veto any bill where expenditures exceeded revenue, completely eliminate the Department of Education and subject federal programs to cost-benefit analyses, then get rid of the ones that don't measure up.

The Economy
To get the economy growing again, he would restructure the tax code and greatly reduce federal spending as described above. He also sees freer immigration as a way to encourage "tens of millions" of new jobs. He would eliminate the federal minimum wage, and stop extending unemployment benefits.

Social Issues
He declined to describe himself as "pro-life," and said in the first debate that he supports abortion "up until viability." (While viability lacks a precise definition, that would allow abortions at least into the fifth month of pregnancy, and possibly later.) However, he opposes public funds for abortion, and favors parental notification and counseling. On drugs, he admits to having smoked marijuana, and supports legalization along with regulation and taxation of marijuana. While gay marriage didn't come up in the debates, on Twitter he often sells himself as the only candidate supporting "marriage equality" (at least, prior to Obama's recent conversion). 

Ron Paul
When directly asked in the sixth debate what made him a better choice for libertarian Republicans than Ron Paul, Johnson said, "I'm not going to presume to make that assumption." When asked who his running mate would be if it had to be someone at the sixth debate, he said Ron Paul. On Twitter, many of his public tweets are also directed towards Ron Paul. While I haven't seen anything explicitly laying this out, I suspect he looks at Paul's age and wants to be the next Ron Paul once Paul himself leaves public life. It will be very interesting to see how much support Johnson gets from Paulites once Paul eventually quits the race.

Mitt Romney on Other Issues

This is the fifth and last in a series of entries revisiting Mitt Romney's policies as stated in the debates. Upcoming entries will address Gary Johnson's and Barack Obama's policies. The first in this series covered foreign policy; the second covered economic policy. The third covered social issues, and the fourth covered health care. This entry wraps up the series by covering a few things that didn't fit into any other areas-- in particular, space, flip-flopping and a few general quotes.

Space:

In the 18th debate, Romney said space exploration "should certainly be a priority," and criticized Obama for destroying jobs on the space coast. He later mentioned science, commercial and military benefits from space exploration, but the outsized emphasis he placed on jobs made clear that he sees NASA as a jobs program for Floridians.

In the 19th debate, he said he did not have a plan for space, but would develop one after he got into office. He opposed Gingrich's plan for a moon base, and said he liked manned spaceflight. 

Flip-flopping:

Throughout the debates, there were many times Romney was accused of changing his positions or actually did change his positions. These range from the inconsequential that can be written off as having misspoke, to the minor that can be reconciled with a bit of effort, to the major that are nearly impossible to reconcile with any consistent underlying belief. While I pointed out the inconsequential flips within the original debate analyses, I will not list them here. I have tried to find ways to reconcile different positions, and I am only including in this list positions that cannot be reconciled or where the reconciliations imply something Romney might object to if stated directly.

Reconcilable Inconsistencies:

In the 6th debate, he said, "[Romneycare] is a state plan for a state. It is not a national plan... please don't try and make me retreat from the words that I wrote in my book. I stand by what I wrote. I believe in what I did." However, as was widely reported at the time, the hardcover edition of his book included the line "We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country," referring to Romneycare, while the paperback removed that line. This line does not necessarily imply a national plan; it may just imply that he wanted the other 49 states to adopt plans similar to Romneycare, which is consistent with his constant defense of that program.

He wants to block grant Medicaid to the states, and then restrict how quickly the block grants grow. In the 8th debate, he wanted to grow them at 1-2% per year, while in the 10th at inflation-plus-one-percent. Reconciling these two numbers requires an inflation rate of 0-1%, which is possible, but implies a persistently stagnant economy during a Romney administration.

In the 15th debate, he said he did not run for re-election in Massachusetts because he had set out a list of 100 things he wanted to accomplish and had accomplished them, so he didn't need to run again. If he was elected as President, however, he said, "of course I'll fight for a second term." Does this imply he expects not to accomplish very much with his first term?

In the 16th debate, Romney was attacked by Gingrich for ads run by a SuperPAC working to elect him, but successfully got Gingrich to admit that exercising any influence on the SuperPAC would be a violation of federal law. He then criticized Gingrich himself for not exercising any influence on his SuperPAC. This can only be reconciled if Romney believes it is appropriate to attack someone for not violating a federal law that he himself chooses not to violate.

In the 18th debate, a moderator pointed out that Romney in the 17th debate had wanted to focus on Obama instead of the other Republicans, but in the intervening time had dramatically upped his negativity towards Gingrich. He justified it by saying he learned "something" from losing to Gingrich in South Carolina, apparently that voters like negativity.

Irreconcilable Inconsistencies:

In the 9th debate, the moderator accused Romney of being for the automaker bailout before he was against it before he was for it again. In that debate, and others, Romney took a position against the bailout and especially against the government-managed bankruptcy process, which he likened to Obama "put[ting] his hands on the scales of justice." Earlier this month, Romney switched back to supporting the bailout and managed bankruptcy, saying, "I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, and finally when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet... So, I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry has come back."

Also in the 9th debate, he claimed that the problem with health care is that "government is playing too heavy a role." However in that debate and many others, he repeatedly defended the individual mandate at the core of both Romneycare and Obamacare, and even championed the individual mandate as a conservative solution for health care. When directly asked about this inconsistency, he instead talked about how he did not want to eliminate Medicaid.

In the 11th debate, he said on immigration, "I'm not going to start drawing lines here about who gets to stay and who gets to go," then immediately said that illegal immigrants should not "get to stay." Whether or not that's an appropriate line to draw, it is drawing a line.

Also in the 11th debate, he complained that Obama wants to cut "a trillion dollars" from defense and spend it on Obamacare, and that this would amount to spending us into bankruptcy. Spending the same amount of money on defense, however, would not be spending us into bankruptcy.

In the 18th debate, he said, "We're still a great nation, but a great nation doesn't have so many people suffering." To formalize, a ∈ B, a ∈ C and B ∪ C = ∅. 

Collected Quotes:

"There are a lot of reasons not to elect me, a lot of reasons not to elect other people on this stage, but one reason to elect me is that I know what I stand for, I've written it down." (From the 6th debate.)

"I don't try and define who's rich and who's not rich. I want everybody in America to be rich... I want people in America to recognize that the future will be brighter for their kids than it was for them." (From the 6th debate.)

"We are a patriotic people. We place our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. No other people on Earth do that." (From the 6th debate.)

"I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals." (From the 8th debate.)

In the 9th debate, he called himself "a man of steadiness and constancy."

Asked why he was not planning on releasing his tax returns until near the end of the primaries, Romney answered, "Because I want to make sure that I beat President Obama." (From the 17th debate.)

When asked in the 20th debate to describe himself in one word, Romney answered, "Resolute."

Mitt Romney on Health Policy

This is the fourth in a series of entries revisiting Mitt Romney's policies as stated in the debates. The first covered foreign policy; the second covered economic policy. The third covered the social issues of religion, gay marriage, contraception, abortion, and guns. This entry covers health care, including Obamacare, Romneycare, Medicare, Medicaid and other health reform ideas.

Obamacare vs Romneycare:

Romney often highlighted differences between the Massachusetts health care reform commonly called "Romneycare" and the national Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called "Obamacare." While he supported and throughout the debates continued to defend Romneycare, he opposed Obamacare to the extent that he promised to grant waivers to all 50 states on his first day in office and to press Congress for full repeal. Claimed differences include:

• Obamacare raises taxes; Romneycare didn't
• Obamacare takes money from Medicare; Romneycare didn't
• Obamacare is a national program; Romneycare is a state program
• Similarly, Obamacare is unconstitutional for the national government; Romneycare is constitutional because it's at the state level
• Obamacare includes "a panel that ultimately is going to tell people what kind of care they can have," referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board; Romneycare does not include such a panel
• Obamacare applies to 100% of the citizenry; Romneycare supposedly only addressed the 8-9% who were uninsured (he said 9% in the 5th debate, 8% in the 6th, 7th and 17th debates)
• Obamacare leads to regulations like the contraception mandate; Romneycare had a provision that people did not have to buy coverage for treatments or medical devices which violated their religious beliefs
• Obamacare was 2,700 pages long; Romneycare was 70 pages long

Note that these are differences claimed by Romney; whether or not you find them believable is up to you. Also, some of these were repeated (a lot) more than others. Throughout the debates, Romney often returned to Obamacare's cuts to Medicare and to the federalism defense that states can adopt individual mandates but the national government cannot. On the other hand, the IPAB point was, to my knowledge, only mentioned once.

Medicare and Medicaid

As mentioned above, Romney often criticized Obamacare for cutting Medicare. In fact, almost every time Romney mentioned Medicare, it was either to criticize Obamacare for cutting it, or defending Romneycare for not cutting it.

Regarding actual reforms to Medicare, he wants a shift to a premium support model like the Ryan plan. He also favors means testing for Medicare, where the rich would receive lower benefits and everyone else would receive higher benefits. Finally, he would not repeal Medicare Part D.

He would send Medicaid to the states as a block grant and only allow it to grow at either 1-2% per year (in the 8th debate) or inflation-plus-one-percent (in the 10th debate). He never mentioned any other reform to Medicaid, but repeated this block grant plan in several debates. 

Other Health Reforms 

Individual Mandates: While Romney opposes Obamacare, including its national individual mandate, he often defended the individual mandate itself as a good policy to carry out on the state level. In the 3rd debate, he compared it to states' ability to require children to attend school. He sees individual mandates as ways to provide the uninsured with what he called in the 6th debate "market-based, private" insurance. In the 8th debate, he said about the individual mandate in Massachusetts, "A lot of people were expecting government to pay their way. And we said, you know what? If people have the capacity to care for themselves and pay their own way, they should." Romney disagrees with Obama on what level of government should impose the individual mandate, but he agrees that it's a good policy in the first place.

Health Savings Accounts: In the 5th debate, Romney said health care "isn't working like a market," but rather is "working like a government utility" because consumers are separated from the cost of health care. He advocated health savings accounts to fix this problem, mentioning HSAs in the 5th and 9th debates.

Employer-based Insurance: In the 9th debate, Romney said we should treat individually-purchased insurance the same as employer-purchased insurance in regards to the tax code. He also mentioned this in the 19th debate.

Tort Reform: In the 9th debate, he advocated tort reform as part of the package of reforms he would replace Obamacare with. 

Health Issues Covered Elsewhere

Romney's positions on contraception and abortion were covered in the third entry in this series, on social issues. In addition to the section above, Obamacare was also covered in the second entry in the context of regulations and fiscal responsibility.

Mitt Romney on Social Issues

This is the third in a series of entries revisiting Mitt Romney's policies as stated in the debates. The first covered foreign policy, including immigration, trade and defense, as well as policies toward some specific countries and regions. The second covered Romney's seven-point plan for economic growth and connected policy areas, including taxes, regulations, energy, the rule of law, education and fiscal responsibility. This entry covers the social issues of religion, gay marriage, contraception, abortion, and guns.

Religion

As is well known, Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Along with the other Mormon in the race at the time, Jon Huntsman, Romney declined to participate in the Thanksgiving Family Forum, which was by far the most religiously-oriented of the debates and the only one to take place in a church.

In the 2nd debate, Romney took a strong position on religious tolerance, saying "People of all faiths are welcome in this country. We treat people with respect regardless of their religious persuasion." In later debates, he said we should not elect people on the basis of their religion or where they go to church. While he would seek God's guidance on critical decisions, for the most part his religious beliefs would not affect his Presidential decisions. In the 20th debate, he said, "I don't think we've seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we've seen under Barack Obama."

Gay Marriage

Romney believes that gay people forming "loving, committed, long-term relationships" is "a wonderful thing to do," and they have the right to do so as long as they don't use the word marriage to describe it. (Quote from the 14th debate.) He supports amending the US Constitution to ban gay marriage, and thinks DADT should have been kept in place. He was the first governor of Massachusetts to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, but said he only did so because the state Supreme Court told him to. After saying in the 15th debate that he supported laws banning sexual orientation discrimination, he was asked when was the last time he advocated expanding gay rights, and he responded, "Right now."

Contraception

The issue of contraception arose first in the 14th debate, before the national contraception mandate controversy broke out. At the time, Romney called it an "unusual topic," and expressed disbelief that anyone would be talking about banning contraception. He said states should not be allowed to ban contraception, but also said none were trying to.

Regarding the contraception mandate, Romney said he included in Romneycare a provision that Massachusites did not have to buy insurance coverage for treatments or medical devices which violated their religious beliefs. His opposition to the contraception mandate was based not on a belief that the mandate was wrong in general, but rather that it applied to those who had religious objections to contraception. He seemed to agree with Santorum in the 20th debate that contraception leads to children being born out of wedlock and undermines the institution of the family, saying "Rick is absolutely right."

Abortion

In the 13th debate, Romney said he was only ever pro-choice to the extent that he did not want to actively change the laws in Massachusetts. He says he became pro-life while governor, and now wants to "protect the sanctity of life." In the 16th debate, he said he had always been pro-life, and said, "I thought I could go in that narrow path between my personal belief and letting government stay out of the issue," but ultimately decided while governor that he couldn't. As governor, he vetoed a bill defining life as starting at implantation rather than conception.

He says he would appoint judges who would follow the constitution, and he does not use abortion as a "litmus test" for judicial appointments. In a later debate, he said he did not believe the constitution contained a right to privacy.

Guns

Romney thinks rather than enacting new gun laws, we should just enforce the laws we already have. In Massachusetts, he signed a bill that was supported by both the pro-gun and anti-gun lobbies that banned assault weapons and raised gun fees 400%, but also opened up the right to cross a road with a gun while hunting, among other gun rights. When asked in the 13th debate about his changing positions of gay marriage, abortion and guns, he ignored the guns part of the question.

Mitt Romney on Economic Policy

This is the second in a series of entries revisiting Mitt Romney's policies as stated in the debates. The first covered foreign policy, including immigration, trade and defense, as well as policies toward some specific countries and regions. This entry covers Romney's seven-point plan for economic growth (which he outlined in whole or in part in the 3rd, 6th, 7th, 17th and 19th debates) and the connected policy areas.

1: Taxes

Romney's position on taxes changed from debate to debate. For example, in the 3rd debate, he said, "I don't believe in raising taxes" and indicated he would walk away from a deal with Democrats offering a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes. But in the 4th debate, he said taxes should be "part of the American experience," so he was not concerned about raising taxes on those who do not pay federal income taxes. In the 8th debate, in Nevada, he advocated a state-level redistribution tax tied to acceptance of a nuclear waste facility. The state that built the facility would receive the money while the other 49 would pay the tax.

In the 16th debate he said the top tax bracket should be 25%, while in the 20th debate, he wanted to cut all marginal rates by 20%. Taken at face value, that would turn the current tax brackets of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% into brackets of 8%, 12%, 20%, 22.4%, 26.4% and 28% (assuming the Bush cuts are kept in place and the 2013 tax cliff is avoided), with two brackets higher than 25%.

He would cut the corporate tax rate to 25% to make it more competitive with other countries. When combined with state corporate taxes, this would move us from the highest rate to the 8th highest rate among the 34 OECD countries. He would also eliminate taxes on savings for people with incomes less than $200,000.

2: Regulations

He said he wants to improve the regulatory climate, and specifically mentioned Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and NLRB actions such as going after Boeing as regulations that are hurting businesses and preventing job creation.

He also wants to require every business to prove the legal immigration status of new hires through a national identification card connected to the federal E-Verify database. Any business that hires someone without the card or that accepts a counterfeit card would be "severely sanctioned."

3: Trade

I covered Romney's trade policy in the first entry in this series. It primarily consists of "cracking down on China," but he also advocated expanding our exports.

4: Energy

Romney said in the 8th debate, "We're an energy-rich nation that's acting like an energy-poor nation." He focuses on energy security-- getting our energy from domestic sources rather than importing them. In the 4th debate, he said he wanted to "make sure we stop sending about $500 billion a year outside our country, in many cases to nations that are not real friendly with ours." However, he does support the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.

To accomplish his goal of increased domestic production, he wants to reduce regulations on energy companies, especially oil and gas. At the same time, he has criticized Obama for subsidies to Solyndra and other alternative energy programs, indicating a general laissez-faire approach to energy. On the other hand, in line with his focus on domestic energy sources, he said he was willing to accept more expensive gasoline if that was the result of the "crippling sanctions" he wanted to place on Iran.

5: Rule of Law

While Romney often spoke of the fifth point as reinstating the rule of law, his focus with this point early on was labor policy. He viewed pro-union actions by the Obama administration as violations of the rule of law, in particular citing the GM bankruptcy and the NLRB case against Boeing. Romney believes the auto companies should have gone through the normal legal bankruptcy process from the beginning, saying in the 2nd debate that the GM bankruptcy allowed Obama to "put his hands on the scales of justice." However, in the 20th debate, he indicated he would be willing to bail out the auto companies after they've gone through a normal bankruptcy process, saying, "If they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees and get them back on their feet. No way would we allow the auto industry in America to totally implode and disappear." (Note that these positions on the auto bailout have apparently already been Etch-a-Sketched.) He also supports a federal right-to-work law.

In later debates he broadened the "rule of law" point to an opposition of "crony capitalism," citing Solyndra and the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline as examples. Since I think it's appropriate, I'll include here a few positions from even broader interpretation of "the rule of law."

Judicial Oversight: Romney does not want Congress to oversee judges directly in most cases, but he does believe Congress has the ability to "rein in excessive judges" (from the 13th debate) either through direct impeachment or by clarifying statutes or, of course, Constitutional amendment.

Extrajudicial Killings: In the 11th debate, he said there is "a different form of law" for those who "attack the United States" compared to those who merely commit crimes against American citizens. In the 10th, he said that anyone who joins a force we are at war with is "fair game" even if they are an American citizen. In the 16th debate, he said, "Let me tell you, people who join al Qaeda are not entitled to rights of due process under our normal legal code."

Indefinite Detention: In the 16th debate, he not only said he would have signed the NDAA, which authorized indefinite detention of American citizens, but also defended indefinite detention itself. He would have signed the NDAA not just as a flawed bill that would still get funding to the troops, but because he believes indefinite detention of American citizens is, in itself, a good policy.

Eminent Domain: In the 2nd debate, he said he believed in eminent domain for "a public purpose" but not for property that would end up going to private organizations.

SOPA: He opposed SOPA and considered opposition to SOPA to be "standing for freedom" in the 17th debate. 

6: Education

In the 6th debate, he said, "We need to get the federal government out of education." He supports school choice and standardized testing. When accused by Perry of supporting Obama's Race to the Top program, which uses funding incentives to reward school systems for meeting certain goals, Romney said he did not support Race to the Top, but did support teacher evaluations and encouraging schools to hire better teachers and get rid of bad teachers. In the 20th debate, he supported No Child Left Behind because it stood up to the teachers unions and promoted school choice by establishing testing standards.

He also supports allowing illegal immigrant children to gain citizenship through military service, but not through attending college. He also frequently cited his policy requiring English immersion in Massachusetts schools as an example of how conservative he is.

7: Fiscal Responsibility

In general, Romney believes government should not spend more than it takes in. He frequently talked about the Cut, Cap and Balance plan-- cutting current spending, capping federal spending at 20% of GDP and thus balancing the budget through spending cuts rather than tax increases-- mentioning it in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th and 20th debates.

He often cited repealing Obamacare as a way he would cut spending, but also complained that money was being cut from defense to pay for Obamacare, and that he wanted to spend the money on defense instead. As mentioned in the previous entry on Romney's positions on foreign policy, he wants to increase defense spending.

Other ways he proposed to cut spending include returning discretionary spending back to its 2008 level, cutting federal employment by 10% through attrition, linking public sector compensation to private sector wages, eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, including public broadcasting, and block granting several programs, such as Medicaid, housing and food stamps, to the states. However, he would walk away from a deal with Democrats offering a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes.

He gave the impression that he would support spending-based stimulus, saying that the recovery was slow partly because we had "a stimulus plan that was not as well-directed as it should have been."

On Social Security, he said in the 4th debate, "Under no circumstances would I ever say, by any measure, it's a failure," because there are "tens of millions of Americans who live on Social Security." He made similar points again in the 5th and 6th debates. In the 16th debate, he said he would keep Social Security the way it is for those 55 and older. For the rest of us, he would apply two different inflation adjustments, a lower one for the rich and a higher one for everyone else. He would also raise the retirement age "a year or two," but for the most part would keep the system in place the way it is today.

Other Economic Policies

The Fed: He would not reappoint Bernanke, and believes the Fed should be less independent and have more Congressional oversight. But contrary to Ron Paul, he argued in the 5th debate that "we need to have a Fed… because if we don't have a Fed, who's going to run the currency, Congress?"

Housing: He wants to block grant federal housing programs to the states. In the 9th debate, he said we have a housing crisis because government was too involved in housing, and that when government is the problem, more government is not the solution. However, in the 18th debate, he added that he wanted to "help people see if they can't get more flexibility from their banks," although he didn't say how he would use government to make that happen.

Poverty: He wants a personal unemployment account system rather than the current unemployment benefits system. He wants most anti-poverty programs to be run at the state level through block grants, specifically mentioning food stamps, Medicaid and housing programs. 

Pro-Market Quotes

In the 13th debate, asked what industries will create the most jobs in the next few years, he says, "The free market will decide that; government won't."

In the 17th debate, he said, "My view is, capitalism works. Free enterprise works."

Anti-Market Quotes

In the 18th debate, he said, "Markets have to have regulation to work-- you can't have everybody open up a bank in their garage."

In the 20th debate, he said, "That's the nature of what it is when you lead an organization or a state. You come to Congress and you say, these are the things we need."

Mitt Romney on Foreign Policy

Now that Newt Gingrich has officially dropped out of the race, only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul remain. Paul up to this point has only gotten about 80-90 delegates depending on who's counting, while Romney has some 840. For all that I dislike Mitt Romney, the Republican nomination is now pretty much settled.

Now that we're entering the general election phase of the campaign, with Romney as the Republican standard-bearer, I think it would be useful to revisit the positions he took during the primary debates. My vote, at this point, is far from certain, and just as I used this blog to decide my vote in the primary, I will also be using it to decide my vote in the general election. While it's possible some or all of Romney's positions in the primary will be Etch-a-Sketched away soon, I think this is a good enough place to start.

My original coverage of the debates can be found under the debate tag and the 2012 primaries tag. Romney attended most of the debates, with the exception of the first, the Thanksgiving Family Forum and of course the one-on-one Gingrich debates with Cain and Huntsman. All my coverage of Mitt Romney himself, which is mostly just the debates so far, can be found under the Mitt Romney tag.

Over the 19 debates, Romney took lots of positions on lots of different issues, so I'm splitting this up into multiple entries. This one covers foreign policy, including immigration, trade, defense and policies toward some specific countries and regions.

Immigration

In the 3rd debate, he said, "We are a nation of immigrants. We love legal immigration." In the 8th debate, he said, "I think every single person here loves legal immigration." But only twice in 19 debates did he talk about encouraging legal immigration, once in the 3rd debate and later in the 11th, both in the context of high-skilled immigrants. For the most part, when Romney talks about immigration, he talks about discouraging illegal immigration. Unfortunately, discouraging illegal immigration by making legal immigration easier doesn't seem to have occurred to him. He focuses entirely on securing the border with a fence and lots of federal agents, and making it harder to hire illegal immigrants.

As for illegal immigrants who are already here, he says in the 19th debate, "Our problem is 11 million people getting jobs that many Americans, legal immigrants, would like to have." In early debates he held that any kind of path to legality, never mind citizenship, amounts to amnesty; later, in the 18th debate, he supported allowing illegal immigrant children to gain citizenship through military service. He would encourage self-deportation by requiring immigrants to present legal-status cards to be hired (and, since the absence of such a card would imply you're an illegal immigrant, the requirement for such a card would also necessarily extend to citizens). He mentions this card multiple times, in the 13th, 17th, 18th and 19th debates.

Trade

Mitt's trade policy leaves a lot to be desired. In the 3rd debate, he called our trade partners our "opponents," and I wasn't the only one to notice. In the 5th and later debates, he substituted "the other guys" for "opponents," but the sentiment still clearly remained. His primary trade policy is to "crack down on cheaters like China," which he mentioned, often with those exact words, in the 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 19th debates.

He did talk about expanding trade, but far less often than cracking down on China, and always in the context of "open[ing] up markets for our goods," as he said in the 14th debate. He seems to hold a typical mercantilist philosophy, where exports are good but imports are bad. Anything China or other countries do to encourage American imports should be punished, and the only goal of free trade agreements is to encourage American exports.

Defense

He opposes all cuts to defense spending, preferring cuts to entitlements and Obamacare. In fact, he wants to increase military spending, in particular by building more ships for the Navy (which he mentioned in the 13th, 18th and 20th debates) and recruiting an extra 100,000 troops (which he mentioned only once, in the 13th debate).

Specific Countries/Regions

China: Most of Romney's policy towards China focuses on trade, particularly "cracking down" on them for cheating. He promised in the 7th debate to issue an executive order on "day one" labelling China a currency manipulator, and to initiate action against China at the WTO.

Afghanistan: His Afghanistan policy is most charitably described as continually evolving. In the 2nd and 3rd debates, he preferred a timetable for withdrawal established by the generals in Afghanistan. In the 10th, he was fine with Obama's 2014 timetable for the general withdrawal, but not the September 2012 withdrawal of the surge troops. In the 11th, he said he wanted to keep the surge troops in Afghanistan until December 2012, and keep "ten thousand or so" troops in Afghanistan after 2014. In the 14th debate, he said he didn't yet have enough information to say when he would withdraw the troops from Afghanistan.

Iran: He is absolutely opposed to Iran getting nuclear weapons, going so far as to say in the 20th debate that re-electing Obama would lead to Iranian nukes being used against Americans, and that a Romney Presidency was the only way to prevent that. He said he would "of course" go to war "if all else fails" (in the 10th debate) and that Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz would "of course" be an act of war (in the 18th debate). He also wanted "crippling sanctions" against Iran in the 10th and 11th debates, and in the 14th criticized Obama for not supporting the Iranian protestors in 2009.

Iraq: Before going back into Iraq, he would want to "require significant, dramatic American interests" to be at stake, and said he would outline a specific endgame in terms of what would qualify as success.

Syria: In the 10th debate, he said, "Of course, it's time for the Assad dictatorship to end," but in the 11th said, "This is not the time for a no-fly zone over Syria."

Israel and Palestine: In the 19th debate, responding to a question from a self-identified Palestinian-American Republican, Romney said, "The best way to have peace in the Middle East is not for us to vacillate and to appease, but is to say, we stand with our friend Israel. We are committed to a Jewish state in Israel. We will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and our ally, Israel."

Europe: In the 7th, 9th and 16th debates, he opposed a direct bailout to Europe, saying they are big enough to solve their own problems. He would, however, be willing to provide assistance through the IMF and World Bank, and hinted he would bail out American companies affected by Europe's problems.

Canada: In 19 debates, Romney mentioned our largest trading partner and the country with which we share the world's largest land border once, and even that was indirectly through his support for the Keystone XL pipeline in the 17th debate.

Twentieth Republican Primary Debate (AZ)

On February 22nd, the twentieth and possibly last Republican Presidential primary debate was held in Arizona. This was the last debate before Arizona votes next Tuesday, and the last debate before ten states vote at once on Super Tuesday, March 6th. But far more importantly, this was the last debate before Washington state votes caucuses on March 3rd. It was, therefore, the last debate that had a chance to influence my vote caucusing. Here are the links for the full video (ht) and the full transcript in three parts (ht).

To get any potential biases out of the way, I've lately been leaning towards Newt Gingrich as the best of a bad field. I don't like his support for government-sponsored enterprise, and he favors more government involvement in the economy than I do, but he would at least be better than the status quo, and in most areas, I believe he would move us in the right direction.

While I like Ron Paul's support for liberty, I don't like other things he supports and I think his overall style is just as likely to turn people off of libertarianism. Mitt Romney is too self-contradictory for me, and I simply don't have any confidence that Rick Santorum would do the right thing on economic issues, which is what really matters right now.

As always, and for the last time, I've summarized the candidates' answers below, and scored and responded to them along the way. For kicks, I've also included the titles CNN gives them.

Ron Paul, the Delegate Hunter

• In his introduction, he says he is "the defender of the Constitution" and "the champion of liberty."
• Asked why a new ad labels Santorum a fake, Paul says, "Because he's a fake." He goes on to especially target Santorum's switch on NCLB, saying he doesn't have credibility to repeal something that he voted to create in the first place. He also criticizes Santorum's support for foreign aid, and the whole concept of foreign aid itself. I think if he had stuck to NCLB, he would've had a stronger answer.
• He says he has low ratings with some conservative organizations because he votes against spending, especially overseas spending, that conservatives want. He says "a strict fiscal conservative and a constitutionalist" doesn't vote for things like foreign aid.
• He's definitely for earmarks, saying that earmarks keep the power in Congress, and to not earmark funds gives that power to the executive branch. He says he wants less spending, but if the money is going to be spent anyway, he thinks Congress should determine how it's spent. Despite his reputation as a man of principle, that's a convenient position for a Congressman to hold.
• He says all bailouts are bad, and saying that one is successful is like applauding a successful bank robber, because bailouts are ultimately stealing from one group to give to another. He says in a free market, there actually would be more regulation, because companies would have to go through the pre-determined bankruptcy process instead of being bailed out.
• He quotes the old idea that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," relating it to contraception, essentially saying contraception isn't immoral, people are immoral. He also says the entire debate over contraception arises from government having too much control in that area. (+1) 
• If you vote to give Planned Parenthood money for birth control pills, you're effectively giving them money for abortions, because money is fungible. He says, "Planned Parenthood should get nothing." (+1) 
• We shouldn't be spending money on abstinence any more than we should be spending money on abortion. He says, "I don't see that in the Constitution." (+1) 
• He repeats his line about moving our resources from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border to our own borders. He says the inefficiency of the current border system encourages illegal immigration, apparently because legal immigration is so hard, but he stumbles around the point a lot and it takes some interpretation to figure out what he means. I agree with most of it, but he has a hard time landing a good point that would convince someone who didn't agree with it already.
• Define yourself using only one word: "Consistent." I gotta give him that.
• He doesn't think men or women should be on the front lines in the current war because he doesn't like the war in the first place. He's also worried about restarting the draft, which I think is a bit overblown.
• We're worried about Iran getting one nuke, while the Soviets had 30,000 and we still talked to them. He says they only want a nuke because they feel threatened by us.
• He says the "neoconservatives" want war with Syria and war with Iran, and if he can't convince them that it's wrong on moral or Constitutional grounds, he'll use economic grounds, saying that we simply can't afford it. It's a mistake for him to lump together everyone who wants intervention in Syria under the "neoconservative" banner. It's also a mistake to think we want to start a war in Syria-- Assad's already done that. He should tell the families of the thousands who are being slaughtered by Assad that it's okay because America isn't going to start a war. I think Paul here falls into the same trap a lot of libertarians do in reflexively opposing anything that looks like war. Obviously, war and violence are not good things, but they're already happening in Syria. The only choices now are how soon it ends and who wins when it does. (-2)
• He criticizes Santorum for "go[ing] along to get along," saying, "That's what the problem is with Washington. That's what's been going on for so long." Funny, that was exactly my response. (+1)
• "The Constitution is very, very clear. There is no authority for the federal government to be involved in education."
• What's the biggest misconception about him? That he can't win.

Rick Santorum, the Late Contender

• In his introduction, he mentions some problems, and says he wants "positive solutions" that "include everybody from the bottom up."
• He promises to cut $5 trillion over five years from federal spending, by spending less money each year. He says, "it's not inflation- adjusted, it's not baseline-budgeting," meaning actual spending will be on average $1 trillion less per year on a nominal basis. That rivals even Ron Paul's spending plan, if it's true. He also promises to tackle entitlements even faster than the Ryan plan. It's a welcome change of position from Santorum, considering it wasn't that long ago that he attacked Newt for wanting to tackle entitlements while we have such a huge deficit. (+1)
• In the same answer, he says that since he was born, entitlements have grown from less than 10% to 60% of the budget, while military spending has gone from 60% to 17%. He adds, "If you think defense spending is the problem, then you need a remedial math class to go back to." I wonder if that remedial math class would include a section on ratios? (-2)
• He says while he was Senator, the debt-to-GDP ratio fell from 68% to 64%, "so government as a size of the economy went down when I was in the United States Senate." Well, taking his numbers at face value, that means government debt compared to the economy went down, it doesn't say anything about government size as a whole, although given that he was a Senator during the 90s boom, I wouldn't be surprised if it had. He says, "I wish I wouldn't have voted" for No Child Left Behind, and now wants to eliminate it.
• He says he has high ratings from the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste and the American Conservative Union, even though Pennsylvania is a Democratic-leaning state.
• He doesn't think Romney's Olympics earmark was bad, and points out that he, as a Senator, voted for it. He says there are good and bad earmarks. He says the V-22 Osprey, a military aircraft, was a good earmark, and says other earmarks were abuse, although he doesn't give an example. As a Senator, he supported earmarks "because Congress has a role of allocating resources when they think the administration has it wrong. I defended that at the time. I'm proud I defended it at the time, because I think they did make mistakes. I do believe there was abuse, and I said we should stop it, and as president I would oppose earmarks." [emphasis added] Santorum has a reputation for integrity, but he's becoming as self-contradictory as Romney. (-1)
• He says the open process Romney described for how Congress should work is how it does work, and how earmarks were decided, so he thinks if Romney had been in the Senate, Romney would have supported earmarks. If this is what he really believes, why, as president, would Santorum oppose them? His position just doesn't make sense to me. (-1)
• He says Ron Paul is "one of the most prolific earmarkers in the Congress today," then when the booing starts says "I'm not criticizing," which he clearly was.
• On the auto bailouts, he says that he "in principle oppose[s] government coming in and bailing out a sector of the economy or an industry with government dollars and with government manipulation of that market." No mention of his manufacturing-only tax cut, though. (-1)
• He says Romney can't compare the airline bailout after 9/11 to the Wall Street bailout and auto bailout of a couple years ago because on 9/11 the government shut down the airline industry. Santorum says they were in trouble because of government action, so it was appropriate to give them money. 
• Asked about his comments on "the dangers of contraception," he rails against moral decay, "children having children" and children being born out of wedlock. I really don't think contraception leads to more pregnancies... While there is an argument that access to contraception promotes a sense of security which then leads to pregnancies in the rare case that contraception fails, and while I'm sure that has happened to some people, the greater demographic trend shows that's not the case overall. Birth rates in countries with ready access to contraceptives are far lower than countries without such access. If Santorum was right, that would not be the case. (-1)
• In the same answer, he attacks a libertarian straw man, saying, "We hear this all the time, cut spending, limit the government, everything will be fine. No, everything's not going to be fine. There are bigger problems at stake in America." First, I don't think anyone actually says that. But even beyond that, are there really bigger problems at stake right now than the overbearing size and scope of the government? I'm tempted to say the economy is one, but then every good political solution to our economic problems comes down to restoring government to its appropriate size and scope. In fact, that's a good answer for just about every political problem this country faces right now. He goes on to say, "Just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean I want a government program to fix it." So obviously he believes there are bigger non-political problems facing the country, and he's probably right. But he's made the point himself that he's not running to be pastor-in-chief. Santorum is a politician running for political office. Call me crazy, but I want a president who will use that office to address the political problems we face, not someone who will lecture us on the finer points of Catholic doctrine. If Santorum wants to convince the nation of the evils of contraception through talking, he can (try to) do that without being president. (-2)
• He says he's always opposed Title X funding for Planned Parenthood, but that it's always part of a larger bill that funds things he does like. He says in order to balance the Planned Parenthood funding, he started Title XX funding for abstinence programs. That right there is the fundamental problem with the big-government conservatism Santorum champions. When government is spending money on something you don't like, the appropriate response is not to get government to spend even more money on something your opponents don't like. (-1)
• He says he has a "personal more objection" to contraception, and then tries to attack Romney on Romneycare. I can't blame him for trying to change the topic. But this whole idea that contraception is immoral is exactly what's fueling the current debate over the contraception mandate. Sensible voices have struggled to make the point that not having a federal mandate for a thing is in no way the same as banning that thing, but the Left is still convincing people that Republicans want to ban their contraception. It really doesn't help to have one of the two front-runners in this race make the ridiculous claim that contraception is immoral, especially when he has had no qualms about assuring us he'll use government to enact his moral vision for the country on other issues. And yes, I know that the immorality of contraception is a Catholic doctrine, and Santorum is a Catholic, but I'm sorry, this is one area where Catholic doctrine is ridiculous. Not only that, it distracts from real issues, especially abortion. (-2)
• He has a great response to Romney, FINALLY pointing out what I said way back when people still talked about Pawlenty. Governors of almost every state in the union are constitutionally required to balance their budgets, and Massachusetts is no different. He says Romney balanced the budget because he was required to, and points out that Michael Dukakis did it even longer. He also says the only way Romney succeeded in balancing the budget was with a federal grant, which has now expired and is causing headaches for the current governor of Massachusetts. (+2)
• He goes on to say that he supported Arlen Specter because Specter promised to support Bush's Supreme Court nominees. He says Roberts and Alito are on the Court today because the not-quite-Democrat Specter's support allowed actual Democrats to hide behind him and let it go through. I have no idea if that's true or not.
• He doesn't want to require homeowners who hire people to work in their home to use E-Verify, and, like in previous debates, emphasizes that illegal immigrants who want to work to support themselves are breaking the law by daring to look for work.
• Define yourself using only one word: "Courage." Not the word I would've chosen, but I guess it does take courage from his viewpoint.
• There are "different roles" for women in combat, and he has "concerns about certain roles," especially the infantry, but doesn't talk about it in any more depth.
• He gets very passionate about the threat of Iran, and criticizing Obama for supporting the Arab Spring in Egypt but not the pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran. He quips that on foreign policy, just find out what Biden wants, and do the opposite and you'll always be right.
• He calls Iran "the most prolific proliferator of terror," and says Obama is "timid" and can't stand up to Iran. Santorum wants to intervene in Syria, and he thinks Obama hasn't because of the Syria-Iran link, and because Obama is afraid of confronting Iran.
• He has possibly his worst line of the evening on No Child Left Behind, saying, "It was against the principles I believed in, but, you know, when you're part of the team, sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader, and I made a mistake." One of the biggest problems in American politics today is this concept that "politics is a team sport," which he says when the crowd boos his previous line. It's that kind of thinking that leads the anti-war Left to support Obama's military exploits, or that leads the small-government Right to support Dubya's spending and deficits. (-1)
• What's the biggest misconception about him? That he can't win against Obama.

Mitt Romney, the Long-Distance Runner

• In his introduction, he says Obama has broken the "American promise" that hard work leads to success, and he wants to restore that promise.
• He criticizes Santorum's history of voting for debt ceiling increases and other votes that increased spending as a Senator. Romney says during Santorum's time in the Senate, spending grew by 80%-- which works out to about 4.9% per year, although Romney doesn't say that. Romney promises to go through every program in the federal government and get rid of some of them, send some of them as block grants to the states (he mentions Medicaid, housing vouchers and food stamps) and cut federal employment of the rest by 10%.
• He says he only supported raising the debt ceiling if there were corresponding cuts and a "cut, cap and balance" provision, which there wasn't. He wants to "cut taxes on everyone across the country by 20 percent." What about people who pay less than 20% now? Or did he mean to cut everyone's tax burden by 20%, whatever that burden is?
• Asked about his "severely conservative" quote, he equates "severe" with "strict." (My parents were very severe when I was little. I had a severe third grade teacher. The airline has a severe cancellation policy. Okay, maybe that last one works...) He lists some conservative things he did in Massachusetts, like enforcing immigration laws, English immersion in schools, refusing to legally define life as starting after conception, and opposing human cloning. He says you have to be a fiscal conservative in business because if your budget doesn't balance, you go out of business.
• He makes a good argument against earmarks, saying things should be voted up or down on their merit. But then he says something very telling: "That's the nature of what it is when you lead an organization or a state. You come to Congress and you say, these are the things we need." Now the Olympics have historically been supported by the federal government, right or wrong is a different issue, so I don't fault Romney for asking for Congressional support for the Olympics themselves. But the way he phrases his defense, he talks about "when you lead an organization." There are many, many organizations who don't get a dime of federal support, who can't go to Congress and ask Congress to give them what they need. There are many, many other organizations that get all kinds of federal support and shouldn't. But Romney sees the process of asking for federal money as just something every organization should do. (-2)
• He says he supports the line item veto, so the President could pass a bill while vetoing earmarks. He doesn't seem to know that it's been ruled unconstitutional.
• He thinks the auto industry should have first gone through a "managed bankruptcy... then if they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provided guarantees and get them back on their feet. No way would we allow the auto industry in America to totally implode and disappear." That sounds like he opposes bailout-then-bankruptcy but is fine with bankruptcy-then-bailout. (-1)
• He says Obama is attacking "religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance" like never before "in the history of this country." I think that's overly hyperbolic, but the general direction of the criticism is right.
• On contraception, he says, "Rick is absolutely right." Romney doesn't like having kids born out of wedlock, but he doesn't say what he would do about it as president. Later, he objects to a Youtube clip where Santorum said he personally opposed contraception but still voted for Title X. Apparently Rick isn't absolutely right...
• He says he has stood up for religious rights in Massachusetts, that Romneycare had a provision saying people did not have to get coverage for treatments or medical devices which violated their religious beliefs (although apparently mandates for coverage that you don't want for non-religious reasons are just fine). He also talks about the Catholic Church being forced out of the adoption business in Massachusetts because they would not put children with homosexual couples.
• He brings up Santorum's 2008 endorsement, in which he apparently said Romney was "really conservative and we can trust him," four years after Romneycare was passed. (The quote is from Romney, I'm not sure what words Santorum actually used in his endorsement.) Romney goes on to say that Romneycare was 70 pages, while Obamacare is 2,700 pages, and there's a lot he disagrees with. He says he doesn't want to raise spending, or raise taxes, or cut Medicare, all of which Obamacare does. Then he says that since Santorum supported Arlen Specter for Senator, who later switched parties and voted for Obamacare as a Democrat, that Santorum is personally responsible for Obamacare. That's a huge stretch, and pretty well undoes the hit he scored on the 2008 endorsement.
• He says Arizona's immigration law is a "model" for the rest of the country. He wants to add more border patrol agents and require every employer in the country to use E-Verify on new hires. When Obama introduces new job-killing regulations, that's a bad thing, but when Republicans do, everyone cheers! (-1)
• Define yourself using only one word: "Resolute." That's pretty much the opposite of his reputation...
• "I believe women have the capacity to serve in our military in positions of significance and responsibility, as they do throughout our society." He's right on there, but then he repeats the mistaken points from previous debates about how our Navy is supposedly shrinking despite Obama's plans to expand it by 10%, that Obama wants to cut the military's budget by a trillion dollars even though that's baseline budgeting not real cuts, and other nonsense. (-1)
• He says if Obama is reelected, nuclear weapons from Iran will be used against Americans, while if Romney is elected, they won't be. I think this is the part of the debate where they all try to outdo each other in hyperbole. Later, he also calls Obama "feckless" which is a fun word that should get used more often. (-1 for the hyperbole despite his use of feckless)
• He says No Child Left Behind stood up to the teachers unions and promoted school choice by establishing testing standards. It's been in vogue for a few years to criticize NCLB from the right, and it's interesting to hear someone stand up for it.
• What's the biggest misconception about him? He doesn't want to say, and when pressed, says the moderator gets to ask whatever questions he wants, and he gets to give whatever answer he wants. Seriously? Of all the questions in all the debates to pick a fight with the moderator, this is the one he wants to fight? (-1)

Newt Gingrich, the Determined Challenger

• In his introduction, he focuses completely on energy, promising $2.50-per-gallon gas and that "no future president will ever bow to a Saudi king again." (-1 for promising a specific price for a globally-traded product; it was wrong when Bachmann did it, and it's wrong now, even if I would like to see it get that low)
• As Romney and Santorum go back and forth attacking each other, Gingrich clearly shoots for the image of rising above the fray. He tells us what he thinks Alexander Hamilton would say today (really now?), then talks about energy and reform. He says we should open up federal lands and offshore areas to oil development, and repeal the old civil service laws in favor of a "modern management system."  (+1 for the comments on energy)
• He again says he wants to repeal the old civil service laws, and stresses that we need to ask "what would a modern system be like?" Unfortunately, he doesn't give much detail on that. His example is controlling the border, saying if the federal government helped Arizona instead of suing the state, that within a few years their costs would go down. But that's not modernizing the system at all, that's just asking the federal government to pay more so states can pay less. And even if the amount states save is greater than what the federal government spends, Newt's idea of moving half of DHS to the southern border would hardly be modernizing it. (-1)
• While Romney and Santorum go back and forth on earmarks, he tries to get out the line, "You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts," aimed at Romney, but there's crosstalk between them all and he doesn't get it all out.
• He says that with Obama in the White House and a Republican House majority, "you may want the House imposing certain things on the president." That's about as close to supporting earmarks as you can get without using the word earmark. He also says it was "totally appropriate" for Romney to ask for federal help for the Olympics, but not to then run ads against Santorum's earmarks.
• On the auto bailout, he points out that "there's a huge amount of the American auto industry that was just fine" and didn't need a bailout. When GM and Chrysler did go through bankruptcy, it was "an unprecedented violation of 200 years of bankruptcy law," and gave money to the UAW instead of bondholders. (+1)
• When the topic of birth control comes up, Newt gives a very strong answer. He says there is a "legitimate question" about the government mandating activities which any religion opposes, but then turns the question back around to Obama and the media in general. He says no one in the media in 2008 asked Obama about his previous votes opposing protections for children born alive during botched abortions. He says Republicans aren't extremists on reproductive issues, Obama is. (+1)
• "When you have government as the central provider of services, you inevitably move towards tyranny, because the government has the power of force." I don't think you could ask for a more direct, more succinct definition of libertarianism than that. (+1)
• He argues for a border fence because when they built one near San Diego, the illegals stopped crossing where the fence was. He says then they went through a wetlands area at the end of the fence, so they had to build a fence around the wetlands area. How exactly that equates to support for a border fence, I don't know. To me, the fact that illegal immigrants will just go around the fence to unfenced areas is a pretty obvious argument against wasting resources building the fence in the first place. (-1)
• He rejects the idea of comprehensive immigration reform since it hasn't been able to get through Congress the last few times it was tried, so he wants to change immigration policy one step at a time, starting with more control of the border. He says he was talking with Hispanics running an import-export business and makes the point that they don't want the border closed, they want it controlled. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when those are the two choices presented by Republicans, who are supposedly the party of free markets and free enterprise.
• Define yourself using only one word: "Cheerful." Maybe it's an example of mood affiliation, but as someone who blogs under the name Expected Optimism, I can't help but love this response. (+1)
• On the issue of women serving on the front lines, he says it's a misleading question because the modern military faces total war, and a truck driver is just as likely to be bombed as an infantryman. He says Obama "is the most dangerous president on national security grounds in American history." I think that's pure hyperbole, but I agree with his first point.
• He disagrees with General Dempsey's characterization of Iran as a rational actor, and says if Iran had nukes, Israel would have an "absolute moral obligation" to protect its people.
• The first thing we need to regarding the Middle East and Iran is open up our own federal lands for domestic energy production. He says we could be the largest producer of oil in the world by the end of the decade, and "we would be capable of saying to the Middle East, 'We frankly don't care what you do.'" In the short-run, he says we need to bring down Assad in Syria, and he wants to do so covertly with our allies. Once again, there's the problem of announcing on national television what you plan to do covertly, but other than he's exactly right. (+2)
• He wants to shrink the Department of Education down to a research role and return all control over education back to the states, and then pressure them to give control back to local school districts and individual parents. He says over the last some decades we've made three mistakes-- first was trusting teachers unions to have kids' interests in mind, second was focusing on things like self esteem and learning how to learn instead of actually learning, and third was the idea of statewide curricula that applied to all students and all teachers. I don't think I buy everything he says, but he obviously feels passionately about it.
• What's the biggest misconception about him? He thinks people don't understand the amount of work it took to get welfare reform passed, and he says we need someone who can get the job done once elected, not just talk about it in a campaign.

Conclusion
Adding up the scores, Santorum and Romney fought for last place with -9 and -7 respectively, while Paul and Gingrich fought for first with +2 and +4 respectively.

Ron Paul did better than usual, mostly because of the contraception issue. As the national debate on the contraception mandate has unfolded, the two sides have shaped up to be the anti-contraception Right against the pro-mandate Left. Very little consideration has been given to the possibility of a pro-contraception, anti-mandate Middle. Paul in this debate did more than anyone else I've seen to advance that position outside the blogosphere, and he deserves credit for that.

On the other hand, Rick Santorum did much worse than usual, again mostly because of the contraception issue, although also because of his stances on military spending and earmarks. I even dedicated a full entry to his military spending argument. Although he started off well, promising to cut as much spending as Ron Paul, his later answers completely derailed him and, in my opinion, stripped him of any credibility he had to actually carry out his spending cut promises.

For once, Mitt Romney was not the most self-contradictory candidate on stage, although that's not saying much considering Santorum's performance. Even so, he was still wrong on almost every policy point he brought up, from military spending to immigration to asking Congress for handouts. As the race seems to wrap up, it increasingly appears that Romney will be the Republican nominee. Unless he completely changes course once he has the nomination, I can easily see myself voting for Gary Johnson instead.

This was probably Newt Gingrich's last chance to reclaim the Not-Romney mantle, and I think he did just about as well as he could have. I don't like his new $2.50 gas promise, but I do like the policy positions that fall under that campaign, like opening up federal lands to development. There were several times where he resisted getting involved in the constant back-and-forth between Romney and Santorum, repeatedly going back to his policy ideas or attacking Obama instead. It made him look like the adult in the room. And I absolutely love his "cheerful" answer. If, through some freak chain of events, Newt actually wins the nomination, I would have no problem voting for him, or even volunteering for his campaign. Which is a huge flip from my opinion of him back last May, but hey, I always reserve the right to change my opinion in response to new information!

Rational Military Spending

And by rational, I mean "of or relating to ratios." I raised this point in comments over at Tree of Mamre a few months ago, related to a Heritage Foundation graph. The topic came up again in the debate Wednesday, when Rick Santorum said this:

Some people have suggested that defense spending is the problem. When I was born, defense spending was 60 percent of the budget. It's now 17 percent. If you think defense spending is the problem, then you need a remedial math class to go back to. Defense spending will not be cut under my administration...

Rick Santorum was born in 1958, when "Major National Security" spending (PDF, page 69) was 61.4% of the federal budget, according to the Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States. So you can give Santorum credit for underestimating, at least. The 2012 edition (PDF) lists total federal spending in 2011 as $3,818.8 billion (page 4), and "National Defense" as $768.2 billion (page 5). Astute observers will note that 768.2/3818.8 = 20.1%, not 17%.* Nevertheless, 20.1% is less than a third of 1958's 61.4%. Is Santorum right?

This is where rationality comes into play, again referring to ratios. These percents are ratios, equal to defense spending divided by total spending. If you have a ratio q = a / b, there are two ways that q can get smaller. If either a gets smaller or b gets larger, while the other stays the same, q will shrink. What happens to q when both a and b move in the same direction? If both a and b increase, q will fall if b increases more than a, and q will rise if a increases more than b. (This may be elementary, but Santorum did suggest a remedial math class...)

In this case, a is defense spending and b is total spending, and Santorum's clear implication is that since q is falling, a cannot be too large. Both Santorum and the Heritage Foundation before him disregard the possibility that q is smaller only because b is larger. Santorum does so even though he had just finished saying he wanted to shrink b because it had grown too large!

According to the PDFs linked above, in 1958 total federal spending was a hair below $72 billion, while in 2011 it was about $3,819 billion. That's a 53-fold increase, although these numbers don't adjust for inflation. Military spending, on the other hand, increased from $44 billion in 1958 to $768 billion in 2011, a 17-and-a-half-fold increase, once again not adjusting for inflation. Military spending has increased, but total spending has increased far more.

Returning to the discussion of ratios, in the case of military spending since 1958, it is clear that b has increased more than a. It is true, as the Heritage Foundation and Santorum both said, that q is smaller now than it was when Santorum was born. That is emphatically not because a has fallen, by any means! The ratio of military spending to total spending has fallen solely because total spending has risen so dramatically!

What does the fall in the ratio of military spending to the total budget mean for actual military spending? Since the total budget has increased by such a vast amount, absolutely nothing! The ratio has zero mathematical significance, and is even misleading since military spending has actually increased since Santorum was born.

Is there some policy reason to prefer this measure of military spending to others, flawed and misleading as it may be? Not that I can think of, not unless your goal is to misrepresent the numbers to reach a predetermined outcome. Controlling for inflation with the GDP deflator, absolute military spending is about 3.17 times higher today than in 1958 in the middle of the Cold War. On a per capita (inflation-adjusted) basis, it's about 1.76 times higher today. As a percentage of GDP, military spending has fallen from about 9.4% in 1958 to 5.1% today, although once again, this is because the denominator, in this case GDP, has risen so much, not because military spending has fallen.

Could current military spending levels be appropriate, or even too low? Hey, anything is possible. But those who want to argue from that position at the very least need to get their numbers straight, and argue why more military spending is needed despite spending three times more than we were in the middle of the Cold War. Getting the numbers and fundamental math concepts wrong, then suggesting that the people who understand the math need a remedial math class, is not the way to make your case-- only Paul Krugman can get away with something like that. Rick Santorum should've known better.

*The ratio was 20.0% in 2010, 18.8% in 2009 and 20.7% in 2008. In fact, the ratio has been 18.8% or higher since 2003; it was 17.3% in 2002, but surely that wasn't what Santorum meant.

Nineteenth Republican Primary Debate (FL)

The nineteenth debate was held in Florida on Thursday, January 26th, in anticipation of that state's primary on the 31st. This was the third debate with only four candidates-- Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. The full video is here, and a transcript is here.

To get any potential biases out of the way, I've lately been leaning towards Newt Gingrich as the best of a bad field. I don't like his support for government-sponsored enterprise, and he favors more government involvement in the economy than I do, but he would at least be better than the status quo, and in most areas, I believe he would move us in the right direction.

While I like Ron Paul's support for liberty, I don't like other things he supports and his overall style is just as likely to turn people off of libertarianism. Plus, I don't agree with him on monetary policy, which isn't usually an issue in electing a President, but for Paul it would be. Mitt Romney is too slick and self-contradictory for me, and I simply don't have any confidence that Rick Santorum would do the right thing on economic issues, which is what really matters right now.

As always, I've summarized the candidates' answers below, and scored and responded to them along the way.

Rick Santorum

• In his introduction, he introduces his 93-year-old mother, who is in the audience.
• He agrees with Romney's "self-deportation" idea, saying "we are a country of laws." He repeats what he's said in earlier debates that an illegal immigrant who is working is breaking the law, and therefore deserves to be deported. (-1)
• He is "not with Congressman Paul" on supporting free trade in South America, and then he talks about Honduras for awhile, and how Obama sided with Chavez and Castro in opposing the rule of law in Honduras. Then he says something really bizarre. He says the EU understood "how important it was for diverse people to be able to come together in an economic unit," and implies that we need some arrangement with South America that even goes beyond the EU, although he doesn't say exactly what that would be. Being in "an economic unit" means free trade as I understand it, yet free trade was the central point of Ron Paul's answer, which Santorum said he disagreed with. Am I missing something? (-1)
• He objects to Paul's answer criticizing Santorum for wanting to use force, saying he doesn't want to use force in South America. He criticizes Obama for holding up the Colombia free trade agreement, so he does want free trade, at least on some level, with South America, so I'm not sure why he said he disagreed with Ron Paul, unless it was specifically about Cuba, perhaps.
• He says in 2006 he tried to reform Fannie and Freddie in the Senate, but it didn't get anywhere. He wants to gradually reduce the amount of mortgages they can underwrite until they disappear, although he doesn't put a specific timeframe on it. Then the old angry Santorum comes back, hitting on the pointlessness of the Gingrich-Romney spat. He says, "Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress and used the skills that he developed as a member of Congress to go out and advise companies -- and that's not the worst thing in the world -- and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy because he worked hard and he's going out and working hard, and you guys should leave that alone and focus on the issues." (+2)
• Asked about tax policy, he really struggles with his answer, stammering quite a bit. He links his tax policy to Reagan, saying that even though he doesn't want to reduce the top rate as much as the other candidates, none of the other candidates want the same top tax rate as we had under Reagan. I think that's taking the hero worship a bit far. He also says he believes in the "differential" of multiple tax brackets, and does not believe in the flat tax. He does want to simplify the tax code, limiting it to five deductions which he doesn't list (although I think he's listed them in previous debates), and two brackets, 10% and 28%. He also opposes eliminating the capital gains tax, saying "lower rates are better than zero." (-1)
• On releasing his medical records he nods and gives a thumbs up.
• He promises to cut spending every year of his administration, and criticizes Gingrich for "grand schemes" which will cost enormous amounts of money, like his proposals for NASA and Social Security. While I like Santorum's commitment to cutting spending, you simply can't cut spending enough in the long term without reforming Social Security, and Gingrich's NASA proposal, as I understand it, would be accomplished through shifting the resources already spent on NASA towards a better purpose, that being prizes to spur innovation in the private sector. (-1)
• He says we're not in the same situation as we were 15-20 years ago when we were able to balance the budget but still increase spending on programs like the NIH. He says we need "bold solutions" to fix the debt problem, which is an interesting contrast to his critique a few minutes before of Gingrich's "grand schemes." (-1) 
• On health insurance, he says, "All three of these folks sound great and I agree with them." He mentions health savings accounts in passing, but then spends most of his answer attacking Gingrich and Romney for supporting the individual mandate. He says Romney supported it as part of Romneycare, and Gingrich supported it for twenty years before Obamacare. It's a good critique, although I wish he would've spent less time on the attack and more time talking about health savings accounts. (+1)
• Santorum's response to Romney's support of Romneycare is pretty much what mine was. He highlights that Romney "just said that top-down government-run medicine in Massachusetts works well." He also points out that Obama is going to say the same thing in the general election, which is true. Romney and Santorum go back and forth a couple times, and Santorum is the clear winner, even judging by the crowd's response, which otherwise had been very pro-Romney. (+1)
• What Hispanic leader would he consider for his Cabinet? Marco Rubio.
• Why would his wife make a good first lady? He mentions the eight children they've had, one of whom died, and says his wife wrote a book about that experience that has saved "at least hundreds" of lives of people who would have been aborted, but were not because of the book.
• He says, "I've been 100 percent in support of the Cuban people and their right to have a free Cuba," but not to the extent of actually reaching out to them through trade and freedom of travel. His idea of supporting the Cuban people is to make sure Americans can't buy anything from them. (-2)
• He supports "self-determination" for Puerto Rico, saying, "I don't take a position one way or the other on statehood, commonwealth, independence, that's for the people of Puerto Rico to decide." (+1)
• The Constitution is the "how of America," while the Declaration of Independence is the "why of America." He's very clear that our rights come from God, quoting the Declaration's line that we are "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights."
• Why is he the best to beat Obama? Because he opposed the bailouts, the individual mandate and cap & trade, unlike Gingrich and Romney, and because like Obama, he appeals to the manufacturing sector. He says his appeal to manufacturing is "the centerpoint of my campaign."

Newt Gingrich

• In his introduction, he mentions that Jacksonville will be "the site of the next nuclear aircraft carrier battle group."
• He wants to "fix legal immigration" to make it easier to immigrate legally than to do it illegally. This right here is the only real solution to illegal immigration, and I wish he spent more of his answer talking about it. As it was, he spent the rest of the answer talking about his draft-boards to decide case by case whether illegal immigrant grandmas should get to stay or not.
• He's run an ad calling Romney "the most anti-immigrant candidate" according to Wolf Blitzer. Asked if he still believes that, Gingrich says yes, of the four on stage, Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate, based on his attacks on Gingrich's plan to allow some illegals to stay in the country. They go back and forth a few times, neither of them saying very much of substance. Gingrich says grandmothers aren't going to self-deport, so we should allow them to "finish their life with dignity under the law."
• In response to Romney's "language of the ghetto" ad, he says he never mentioned Spanish or called it that, but he does think English should be the "official language of government." He doesn't want people "trapped in a linguistics situation" because they don't know English. This argument simply doesn't make sense. What Newt is saying here is that there is a clear economic incentive for people who live in the United States to learn English... but that they won't do it unless government requires it. This is the kind of logic Obama has been following with the whole contraception mandate thing, and it doesn't work any better for Newt. (-1)
• When Wolf Blitzer says they've verified that the "language of the ghetto" ad actually is from Romney's camp, Romney asks Gingrich directly if he said that. Gingrich says no, and that what he did say was taken out of context-- that we're better off if children learn English.
• This time he's done his homework on his Freddie Mac relationship and comes out swinging, saying Romney has invested in not just Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but also Goldman Sachs. I think this is just about as relevant as Newt's own work for Freddie, which is to say not at all, but it's still nice to see that he finally found a good answer on this issue.
• That is, until Romney's answer, which pretty well blows Gingrich out of the water. Romney says they're in a blind trust (where the executor does not tell the owner what he's investing in to avoid conflicts of interest), and that Gingrich himself has also invested in Fannie and Freddie. Newt walked into his own trap on that one. (-1)
• Regarding what he would actually do about Fannie and Freddie, he says he'd break them up into "five or six separate units," then slowly wean them off federal financing over a five year period.
• In the wake of Santorum's call to "focus on the issues," Wolf Blitzer asks Gingrich whether he's satisfied with Romney's tax record release. Gingrich takes Santorum's stance and calls it a "nonsense question." When Blitzer insists, saying that Newt had brought it up on the campaign trail, Mitt speaks up and criticizes Gingrich for saying something on the campaign trail that he's not willing to defend face-to-face. Gingrich comes off looking pretty bad in the exchange, and goes on the offensive against Romney, criticizing him for having a Swiss bank account.
• He says he wants a "Mitt Romney flat tax," where he brings everyone's taxes down to the 15% that Romney pays. He repeats his line that he wants "to shrink the government to fit the revenue, not to raise the revenue to catch up with the government."
• Like Paul and Romney, he says he'd be happy to release his medical records, and adds that having watched Ron Paul campaign, Paul is in great shape.
• Asked about his plan for a moon base, he doesn't actually talk about it. He does, however, say that the current bureaucracy at NASA has mismanaged our space program, and that with a focus on private sector involvement through prizes like the old aviation prizes, we could have a private sector race to the moon. He doesn't mention it, but the success of the Ansari X Prize and the excitement over the Google Lunar X Prize seem to support his position. (+1)
• He says he agrees with Paul that space exploration should be done by the private sector, and that 90% of the spending under his program would ultimately come from the private sector. He wants "to get NASA out of the business of trying to run rockets, and to create a system where it's easy for private sector people to be engaged." He thinks that with private sector involvement, we'll eventually get to a point where space launches are commonplace. (+1)
• In response to Romney's charge that he's telling every state what they want to hear, he says part of the job of the President is to pay attention to what the states want. In response to Santorum on the spending issue, he brings up the balanced budget of 1997, saying they doubled the size of the National Institute of Health even though they balanced the budget, because they prioritized. "It is possible to do the right things in the right order to make this a bigger, richer, more exciting country." (+1)
• He says he agrees with Ron Paul that Social Security should be off-budget, but doesn't address the charge that if it had been off-budget, he wouldn't have balanced the budget.
• Responding to the health insurance question, Gingrich very concisely says what I think Ron Paul was trying to say. "Dr. Paul is right. She ought to get the same tax break whether she buys [health insurance] personally or whether she buys through a company." He also advocates association insurance, and he says that we need to repeal Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley to get the economy going again. (+1)
• On the individual mandate, he says he had founded the Center for Health Transformation, and had talked about the individual mandate with an escape clause at the state level, not at the federal level. That doesn't exactly make it better... (-1)
• He speaks up after Ron Paul to say that health care was "fundamentally more flexible and less expensive" back when Paul was a physician in the 60s.
• What Hispanic leader would he consider for his Cabinet? Susana Martinez, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and possibly Marco Rubio for "a slightly more dignified and central role than being in the Cabinet."
• Why would his wife make a good first lady? "First of all, having gotten to know them, I think all three of the wives..." of his competitors would make good first ladies. Newt needs to be more careful about referencing "all three wives" in his answers... In his actual answer, he says she's very artistic, especially with music.
• He mentions the "Romney attack machine," and claims it's distorting history to say that Newt wasn't as close to Reagan as he claims. Yawn.
• He's "proud" of the Helms-Burton Act that reinforced the Cuban embargo in 1996, and he wants to encourage a Cuban Spring through a "stated explicit policy, that we want to facilitate the transition from the dictatorship to freedom." From where I'm sitting, those two statements don't fit together. (-1)
• He stands by his statement that Palestinians are an invented people, saying they are "technically an invention of the late 1970s," and that they used to just be Arabs. He says Palestinians could have peace "any morning they are prepared to say Israel has a right to exist, we give up the right to return, and we recognize that we're going to live side-by-side."
• He says he agrees with Romney that the President should seek God's guidance in making decisions. He adds that "if you're truly faithful," your belief will "suffuse your life" and be evident in whatever you're doing. He also makes clear that he believes there's a war on religion, and he would stand up to prevent that as President.
• Why is he the best to beat Obama? He cites his involvement in "the two largest Republican sweeps in modern time," 1980 and 1994, and says he'll run "a big election with truly historic big choices."

Mitt Romney

• In his introduction, he talks about his wife, his sons, his daughters-in-law and his grandkids.
• He repeats his plan to require employers to check an immigrant's national ID card to hire them, saying the employer would be "severely sanctioned" if they hire someone without a card or with a counterfeit card. Nevermind the implications for a national ID card for citizens that I've raised before; Romney raises a whole new issue with counterfeit cards. If it's up to individual businesses to determine whether a card is counterfeit or not, just how much is that going to add to the cost of hiring someone? When businesses are already not hiring because they're overburdened with regulation and taxes, Romney wants to add a new regulation specifically targetting new hiring. How does anyone think that's a good idea? (-2)
• In the same answer, he says we have a "responsibility" to the millions who are "waiting at home" in other countries to be told they've reached the front of the line and can immigrate legally. Apparently that "responsibility" doesn't extend to actually making it easier for them immigrate legally. It only extends to punishing those who aren't "waiting at home" because of our archaic immigration laws. (-1)
• He says Gingrich calling him "anti-immigrant" is "absolutely inexcusable" and "repulsive." He says they have "differences of opinion on issues," but he doesn't deserve such "highly-charged epithets." They go back and forth a few times, neither of them saying very much of substance. Romney points out that his father was born in Mexico and his wife's father was born in Wales. The crowd absolutely loves him, for some reason.
• Romney ends the immigration argument by saying "our problem is not 11 million grandmothers... Our problem is 11 million people getting jobs that many Americans, legal immigrants, would like to have." This is the crux of the bad economics that informs immigration opinions like Romney's. If 11 million illegal immigrants are takin' our jerbs, what jobs are the legal immigrants taking? For that matter, if immigrants only take jobs without creating more jobs (if they only add to labor supply and not labor demand), why doesn't that also apply to Americans who move between states? Or between counties? Or if you're Don Boudreaux, between households? (-1)
• Wolf Blitzer asks about a Romney ad that claims Gingrich called Spanish "the language of the ghetto." Romney says he doesn't know anything about it, even though it apparently includes the legal notice "I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message." (-1)
• He says, "I believe English should be the official language of the United States, as it is." But it's not. The United States has no official language and never has. In the United States, our culture is determined by the people, not the government. (-1) 
• When Wolf Blitzer says they've verified that the "language of the ghetto" ad actually is from Romney's camp, Romney asks Gingrich directly if he said that, and when Gingrich says no, Romney said we should "take a look at what he [Gingrich] said," seeming to stand by the ad's claim.
• He criticizes Gingrich for working for Freddie Mac during the housing bubble, offering the memorable line, "we should have had a whistle-blower and not a horn-tooter." When Newt says Romney has investments in Fannie and Freddie, Romney says it doesn't matter because they're through a blind trust and mutual funds, then says Gingrich also has invested in mutual funds that have invested in Fannie and Freddie. 
• He says his Swiss account had been managed as part of his blind trust, and had been fully reported in the US. Then he says, "Let's put behind us this idea of attacking me because of my investments or my money," which is funny, because that's what Gingrich was trying to do before Romney insisted they talk about it.
• He says, like Paul, that he'd be happy to release his medical records.
• He says Newt's plan for a moon base would cost too much, and he'd rather spend the money on housing. He doesn't really have a plan for space, but would develop one in office through consultation with academia and industry. He likes manned spaceflight, but that's as much as he's willing to say. (-1)
• He attacks Gingrich for advocating huge new spending projects in every state they visit on the campaign trail. While that's something I'd noticed in past debates, particularly South Carolina, attacking him for it on space is a bit weird. Gingrich has advocated a prize-based space program for years, going back to when he was in the House.
• On health insurance, Romney says pretty much what Paul and Gingrich said on the tax disparity in health insurance, and like Gingrich, he says the other thing we need to do is get the economy going again. To do it, he says he'd lower corporate taxes, lower regulations, open up energy and crack down on China. I can't help but notice that one of these things is not like the others...
• He says Romneycare is working "pretty well," and Massachusites like it 3:1. He says, "the people of each state should be able to craft programs that they feel are best for their people." He also says he would repeal Obamacare on "day one." I have a hard time believing that someone who still stands by the individual mandate as a good program would be that quick to repeal it at the federal level. I understand the federalism position, but giving any level of government the power to force individuals to purchase a private product as a condition of being alive is not a good idea, to put it mildly. (-2)
• What Hispanic leader would he consider for his Cabinet? Brian Sandoval, Susana Martinez, the Diaz-Belart brothers, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mel Martinez, Marco Rubio and Carlos Gutierrez. If you interpret this question as "name as many Hispanic politicians as you can," Romney wins hands down.
• Why would his wife make a good first lady? She's battled both multiple sclerosis and breast cancer, and will be able to reach out to Americans who are suffering, especially young women.
• Gingrich was "of course" closer to the Reagan era that Romney was, since Romney was in the private sector at the time.
• He wants more free trade agreements throughout South America, but opposes free trade with Cuba. He says freedom for Cubans is a "God-given right" that we shouldn't do anything to support until "Fidel Castro finally leaves this planet." Since Fidel is no longer in power, I'm not sure why that should matter unless, as I pondered in the last debate, Romney doesn't actually know that Raul is in power now, not Fidel. (-1)
• Asked about peace between Israel and Palestine by a self-identified Palestinian-American Republican, Romney says, "the best way to have peace in the Middle East is not for us to vacillate and to appease, but is to say, we stand with our friend Israel. We are committed to a Jewish state in Israel. We will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and our ally, Israel." It's a very strong answer, and he says it with conviction, on a question where it would have been very easy to tone down the rhetoric and play to both sides. (+1)
• He says he agrees with Ron Paul on religious beliefs, though he adds that he would seek God's guidance on critical decisions. He says America was founded on "Judeo-Christian values and ethics," and he would uphold those values.
• Why is he the best to beat Obama? We need to change Washington, and he is the only candidate left who has not spent his career in Washington.

Ron Paul

• In his introduction, Ron Paul is the only one to actually talk about real issues, bringing up in a few seconds monetary policy, a gold standard and military policy. (+1 for bringing up the issues, even if I disagree on some of them)
• On immigration he makes a good point, saying "the way we're handling our borders is actually hurting our economy," although he seems to be talking about loss of tourism rather than more general deadweight loss. But then he repeats his old talking point about bringing the resources now on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and putting them on ours. Is he talking about actual militarization of the border with this talking point, or is he talking about financial resources? He's never made that clear, at least that I've seen, but it's an important distinction.
• What should we do about left-leaning governments in Latin America? Paul says, "I think free trade is the answer," including with Cuba. (+2)
• In South America, we can get what Santorum wants without resorting to using force or payouts to "bully" those nations around. I don't think Santorum was talking about using force-- I think Paul here is jumping to the wrong conclusion. Although to be fair, I don't know what Santorum really did mean, so maybe I'm wrong.
• On the Fannie and Freddie spat between Gingrich and Romney, and on their investments, Paul says, "that subject really doesn't interest me a whole lot," and instead he talks about actual issues surrounding housing. He says Fannie and Freddie should've been auctioned off years ago; that he opposes the Community Reinvestment Act; and that he wanted to shut down their special line of credit from the Fed ten years before the crash. It's a great answer. He brushes off the inconsequential bickering that Romney and Gingrich got themselves mired in and zeroes in on the real policy issues that the campaign should be about in the first place. (+2)
• He wants to get rid of the Sixteenth Amendment, which allows for the income tax. He goes on to say, "I understand and really empathize with the people who talk about the 99 percent and the 1 percent." (-1)
• Asked about his age and health, he says he would "obviously" be willing to release his health records, and is willing to challenge any of the other candidates to a 25-mile bike ride in the Texas heat.
• He supports space spending for national security, but doesn't think we should spend any money on space science. He says he doesn't like the idea of government-business partnerships, but he misses the point that Newt's prize structure is designed to avoid explicit partnerships in the first place. Contracts aren't awarded to government partners, and indeed no contracts are awarded at all-- rather, the prize money is awarded to those who actually succeed at the tasks. (-1)
• Regarding the balanced budgets of the 90s, Paul says the national debt actually increased in those years because it doesn't count Social Security. I'm not sure about the details here, and Paul doesn't go into them.
• An audience member says she's unemployed and can't afford health insurance. I think I agree with Paul's answer, but it's not a very direct answer. He says people should have individual health insurance, not employer-provided health insurance, and that we should get a total deduction for health spending on our taxes. I like that as far as it goes, but he goes back and forth between that idea and medical inflation, ending by saying the government caused the recession. It dilutes his answer and I wasn't actually able to figure out what he was saying until I went back to the transcript and picked it apart. Still, I do agree with most of it. (+1)
• Asked whether Santorum or Romney was right about health care, he says, "I think they're all wrong," because they're just "arguing about which form of government you want," when we should be getting government out of health care. He's right, but I think he missed the point that that's what Santorum was also saying.
• What Hispanic leader would he consider for his Cabinet? He won't name any names, but rather talks about issues, saying he would want someone who understands monetary policy and non-interventionist foreign policy. (+1 even if I mostly disagree with him on those issues, because he's the only one of the four to use this question to actually talk about issues)
• Why would his wife make a good first lady? He says they've been married for 54 years, they have five children and 18 grandchildren, and she wrote a cookbook.
• On Cuba, he says, "as well intended as these sanctions are, they almost inevitably backfire and they help the dictators and hurt the people." Right on target, although he does take awhile to get there. (+1)
• His religious beliefs affect his character and his lifestyle choices, but they wouldn't affect his Presidential decisions, as those would be based on the oath of office and his campaign promises.
• Why is he the best to beat Obama? He mentions that polls have indicated he would do well in the general election, and says the message of liberty appeals to people in both parties, because it supports both free markets and civil liberties.

Conclusion
Adding up the scores, Romney once again was the clear loser with -9. Santorum got -2 and Gingrich 0, and Ron Paul took a surprise lead with +6, which I think is the highest I've ever rated him.

As in other debates, Mitt Romney really said very little I agree with. He defended the individual mandate and had a whole lot of nonsense to say about immigration. His best answer by far was the one he gave on Israel and Palestine towards the end of the debate, but by then it was too little, too late.

I didn't think Rick Santorum did himself any favors in this debate, either. He did the best in his attacks on Gingrich and Romney over health care, but he was much weaker on the economy and downright confusing on trade.

Newt Gingrich had a very ho-hum debate. A lot of it was focused on meaningless issues, like his and Romney's investments, or how close he actually was to Reagan. He momentarily tried to get past that, at Santorum's urging, but quickly went back to it when it was clear Romney wasn't going to leave it behind.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, had a great debate. Where the other three got angry and protested the pointlessness of the questions, he quietly and persistently pressed the issues in question after meaningless question. There were times he seemed to jump to the wrong conclusions about the others' positions, and other times he diluted his answer with some rambling, but when he was on target, he was really on target. It also helped that the issues where I disagree with him were mostly kept out of this debate.