Fifteenth Republican Primary Debate (NH)

The fifteenth debate was held in New Hampshire on Sunday morning, January 8th, in anticipation of that state's primary on Tuesday. This was held a full ten hours after the previous debate, and was the last New Hampshire debate. The official video is here in a really small player, and also on Youtube here. The full transcript is here.

To get any potential biases out of the way, I don't really like any of the six candidates at this debate, although I'm increasingly leaning towards Jon Huntsman. I think Ron Paul has a tendency to be nutty, and I think he gives sane libertarians a bad name. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum are all big government conservatives of one brand or another. The two governors naturally prefer big state government, especially Perry, while the Speaker and the Senator prefer big federal government as long as it does what Republicans want instead of what Democrats want. Jon Huntsman seems to have the most reliably conservative record of the six remaining candidates, which makes it even more tragic that his campaign has done its level best to paint him as the moderate alternative of the race.

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

Jon Huntsman

• He's the last candidate to get a question, more than fifteen minutes into the debate, and he ignores the question. He says Romney has criticized him for serving as an ambassador under Obama, and Huntsman says he was willing to serve under a Democrat President just like his sons in the Navy are willing to serve under a Democrat President. Being an ambassador isn't quite like being in the Navy, but it's a good answer. (+1)
• Defending his decision to be Obama's ambassador, he says the nation is divided because of partisan attitudes like Romney's, which gets a surprising amount of applause from the audience.
• Asked for three areas that need to be cut that will cause pain, he says he supports the Ryan Plan because it doesn't have any "sacred cows," and gives two examples, Medicare and the Department of Defense. When pressed, he says he wants to introduce means testing to Social Security and Medicare, and that he would cut Defense. (-1 for means testing because I think that's a step backwards)
• He repeats his point from the previous debate that he wants to eliminate tax loopholes and deductions, as well as corporate subsidies. (+1)
• Asked about working with Democrats, he talks about "trust" again, although he avoids using his phrase "trust deficit." He pledges to support term limits for Congress as President.
• He calls oil a "one product distribution monopoly" that we need to break up in favor of more diverse energy sources. He doesn't explain why he thinks there's a "distribution monopoly," but he sees it as a major hurdle to energy independence. (-1)
• Asked to give some fluff about New Hampshire's motto, he obliges, and even throws in a reference to the "trust deficit."

Rick Santorum

• He criticizes Romney for not running for re-election, saying if his record as governor was as good as he claimed, he would have run for re-election. Then he compares their two elections in 1994, where Santorum won and Romney lost "by almost 20 points." Santorum doesn't mention his own 17.4-point loss in 2006. (-1)
• He supports means-testing for Social Security, and wants to turn food stamps, Medicaid and housing programs into block grants to the states. I am not nearly so enamored with block grants to the states as he is. (-1)
• He says seniors "should be free to make the choices in their healthcare plan that's best for them." It's not clear from his answer whether that means they should be able to choose to stay on their current Medicare plan, or just be able to choose from a variety of premium support plans.
• He criticizes Ron Paul for "being out there on the margins" and never getting anything done, but says that as commander-in-chief, he'd be able to do the things Republicans don't want him to do. "The problem with Congressman Paul is all the things that Republicans like about him he can't accomplish, and all the things they're worried about he'll do day one."
• How will he change the culture in Washington when both Bush and Obama have promised but failed to do so? He points to welfare reform in the 90s and says that was a cultural change where he had to work with the Democrats to get it done, and he would do the same thing as President.
• Asked about gay rights, he talks a lot about respect, saying he wants everyone to have equality of opportunity, but that does not mean he wants to change marriage laws. He says "the beautiful thing" about the First Amendment is that we can have public discussions respectfully and that the people then decide by voting for candidates they agree with. Regardless of his conclusion on gay marriage, his opponents would do well to listen to his points about respect. (+1)
• What if his son said he was gay? "I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it, and I would try to do everything I can to be as good a father to him as possible." (+1)
• He signed a pledge to support a federal right-to-work law, but says he voted against it as a Senator from Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania was not a right-to-work state. In other words, he's fine telling other states to change their laws, but doesn't want anyone to tell his state to change its laws. (-1)
• On Medicare Part D, he says there were a lot of good things, including support for health savings accounts, and for premium support through Medicare Advantage, but there was one bad thing, that they didn't fund it. "We should have paid for it and that was a mistake." He doesn't say how he would have paid for it though, whether through higher taxes or cutting spending elsewhere.
• Iran is a theocracy, and Ahmadinejad has said matyrdom is a "principal virtue" for the country. Where the Soviets, Chinese and other nuclear powers were dissuaded from using nukes by the threat of retaliation, Iran in their apocalyptic desires is actually encouraged by such threats.
• Pakistan is different from Iran because they're not a theocracy, and because we still have hope that they will maintain "secular" governance.
• How would he use the bully pulpit? To push families and marriage. He criticizes Obama for having a "secular ideology," which is a fascinating thing to say after using that same word quite differently in relation to Pakistan. (-1)

Mitt Romney

• He says his record in Massachusetts is one of "a solid conservative." His evidence is that he cut taxes 19 times (nevermind how many times he raised other taxes), balanced his state's budget every year (nevermind that not balancing the budget would be violating the Massachusetts state constitution), increased the money in the state's rainy day fund, and got the state police to enforce immigration laws. (-1)
• In response to Santorum's criticism about not running for re-election in Massachusetts, he says he had set out a list of 100 things he wanted to accomplish, and he accomplished those things, so he didn't need to run again. That's a great response, but then he waters it down by saying if he's elected President, "of course I'll fight for a second term." Why the "of course," if he really meant what he said earlier?
• Responding to Newt, Mitt doesn't say anything about his 2007-08 campaign, he only talks about 1994. He says he knew he couldn't beat Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, but that he was running unopposed and somebody had to run against him.
• He says he's grown more conservative as time goes on, as he's seen government try and fail to solve problems.
• He says he doesn't "disrespect" Huntsman's decision to be Obama's ambassador, but he does think it disqualifies him from being the Republican nominee. (He also stutters a bit, so he actually says, "I don't don't disrespect," but I won't get into conspiracy theories...)
• Government has been growing faster than inflation for decades, and he wants to cut spending, including Obamacare. He supports Santorum's list of programs to block grant to the states.
• He says as governor of Massachusetts, his legislature was 85% Democrat, so he knows how to work with the other party. Considering Romneycare came out of that arrangement, I'm not sure that's something he should be bragging about.
• We don't need "a federal government saying we're going to solve all the problems of poverty across the entire country," but rather, he thinks anti-poverty programs should be run at the state level so that different programs can be tailored to the needs of the poor in each state. (+1)
• He says he opposes sexual orientation discrimination, but he also opposes gay marriage. Asked when was the last time he advocated expanding gay rights, he says, "Right now."
• He agrees with Perry in supporting a federal right-to-work law, and goes a bit further saying that federal employees should have their compensation tied to their private sector equivalents. (+1)
• Businesses aren't hiring because "they feel they're under attack" from Obama's policies. He mentions Obamacare, the NLRB and Dodd-Frank as examples where Obama's policies are hurting businesses. He says Obama is "anti-investment, anti-jobs, anti-business."
• Asked about cross-state pollution, he mostly sidesteps, saying he's not familiar with those particular regulations, but that we could have less pollution all around and cheaper energy by switching to natural gas.
• Responding to Newt, he points out that under the law, he can not have any control over what independent PACs say. Then he lists some of the things they did say about Newt; his couch moment with Pelosi, his opposition to the Ryan plan, having to repay money after an ethics investigation and being "forced" out of the speakership, and Romney says all those are true. I don't know how much he was "forced" out, but the others are true. (+1)
• With Newt, he says he "hopes" that the PACs only talk about the truth, and if there's anything wrong, that they'll take it out.

Ron Paul

• More than eleven minutes into the debate, Paul becomes only the fourth candidate to get a question. He says we won't be able to effectively challenge Obama if we put up somebody who supported single-payer health care and the TARP bailouts or who doesn't "challenge this huge empire we have overseas." Does Paul know the difference between the individual mandate and single-payer? How could he effectively challenge Obama if he doesn't? (-1)
• He has sponsored 620 measures as Representative, only four of which made it to a vote, and one of those became law. (The moderator doesn't say which one.) Paul says that's evidence of how "out of touch" most people in government are. He says he'll work with Democrats when Republicans won't work with him and he'll work with Republicans when Democrats won't work with him.
• Defending his lack of success, he says it's not easy to repeal a hundred years of "sliding away from our republic."
• Asked about energy policy, he says subsidies in general are bad economic policy, and he also doesn't like the monetary policy of printing more money to fund the subsidies. (+1)
• "Entitlements are not rights." We have rights to life and liberty, which are individual rights, not group rights. No group has the right to take from another group. He says the entitlements we should be worried about are for banks and "the military-industrial complex."
• How would he use the bully pulpit? "Preaching the gospel of liberty."

Newt Gingrich

• He repeats his point from the previous debate that he is "a bold Reagan conservative" while Romney is "a relatively timid Massachusetts moderate." I don't know how timid Romney actually is, but considering his debate tactic has almost always been to stay above the fray, it looks like a decent attack. (+1)
• When Romney says he didn't run for re-election in Massachusetts because he'd accomplished what he wanted, Newt says, "Just level with the American people," and tell them he left office to run for President. (+1)
• He says he likes the Ryan-Wyden bill because it gives seniors the choice of whether to stay on the current Medicare system or switch to vouchers. He also criticizes the moderator for asking about the pain of austerity, saying we could save a trillion dollars over ten years just by eliminating theft and fraud. He doesn't mention that the deficit is over a trillion dollars every year, or that even in a best case scenario we still need massive cuts to balance the budget. (-1)
• Asked about working with the other party, he refers to the Clinton years, saying "We got welfare reform, the first tax cut in 16 years, 4.2 percent unemployment and four straight years of a balanced budget with a Republican speaker and a Democratic president." (+1)
• Romney's line that someone in college will have a job if he's elected but not if Obama's re-elected is "a statement of fact."
• He wants to open up offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands to bring down the price of energy and encourage job growth. He says that will raise revenues and save on expenses, so it will also help the deficit, and by increasing our energy independence it helps our national security as well. It's a fairly succinct answer that hits on almost every major issue in a pro-market way. Answers like this make me feel a lot better about Newt. (+2)
• Asked about his "Environmental Solutions Agency" proposal, he says of the EPA "it is increasingly radical, it's increasingly imperious, it doesn't cooperate, it doesn't collaborate, and it doesn't take into account economics." He cites examples where the EPA issued a citation to the city of Nashville, then couldn't back up the citation because they'd lost the records, so Nashville had no idea why they were received the citation; in other examples, he criticizes regulation of crop dust in Iowa and desert dust storms in Arizona. (+1)
• He's criticized Romney for hiding behind a PAC, so is he willing to stand beside what a PAC is now saying against Romney to support Newt? "Sure," but then says he hasn't seen the video and can't comment on it, and says it's the New York Times criticizing Romney's role at Bain, not him. (-1)
• Asked if he stands by his claim that Romney is "a liar," he says "Well, sure," then turns to Romney and says, "Governor, I wish you would calmly and directly state it is your former staff running the PAC, it is your millionaire friends giving to the PAC, and you know some of the ads aren't true." (+1 for passing the Pawlenty test, -1 for criticizing Romney over a PAC he legally has no control over)
• With Mitt, he says he "hopes" the PACs will stick to the truth and that a future half-hour film on Romney's time at Bain from his PAC will reflect the truth.

Rick Perry

• He gets his first question thirteen minutes into the debate. He says the nominee needs to both challenge Obama and inspire the Tea Party. He says his opponents on stage "from here down to Rick Santorum" were all "insiders" and "big spending Republicans in Washington, DC." He pointedly excludes Huntsman from the "insiders" criticism, just as he had the night before, although again it's not at all clear why Huntsman is not an insider but Romney is. (-1)
• In reference to the three areas of pain asked of other candidates, he jokes about his forgetfulness in the ninth debate, saying the pain would be felt by the bureaucrats in the Departments of Commerce, Energy and Education.
• He says it's "wrong-headed" to think that Americans are "clamoring for government" assistance. Rather than focus on direct assistance, he wants to focus on creating an environment where jobs are created by the private sector. (+1)
• What would he do to make Republicans uncomfortable? He would call out Republicans for the spending increases under Bush. Asked if there's anything else, he says he wants a part-time Congress with less pay and a balanced budget amendment.
• He says he's "not anti-union," but rather "pro-job," and "a right-to-work guy." He supports federal right-to-work legislation and would also support right-to-work laws on the state level. (+1)
• He's "proud" to say that Obama is a "socialist." Perry says he supports the Tenth Amendment and wants states to have more power, especially regarding education, health care and environmental regulation.

Conclusion

Adding up the various scores, Huntsman did a lot worse than the previous evening, Romney, Gingrich and Perry did much better, while Santorum and Paul were more or less the same. Huntsman and Paul both got 0, and Santorum came in last at -2. Gingrich, Romney and Perry were all positive for once, with Gingrich at +4, Romney at +2 and Perry at +1.

Although I'm growing to like him, Jon Huntsman's answers this time felt like mostly fluff. It didn't help him that his biggest moment was fighting the moderator over whether or not he'd give an answer about the "pain" from austerity. Mitt Romney wasn't exactly fluff, but I found it very hard to care about most of his answers one way or the other. Most answers seemed to balance things I agreed with with things I disagreed with. Actually, that goes for Ron Paul this time too.

Rick Santorum held himself together this time, and still kept up his Presidential air that he's had since doing so well in Iowa. Rick Perry hardly got any time in this debate, and really struggled to say something worth remembering.

Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, had a few shining moments in this debate that pushed him to the top of the field. In particular, I liked his statement on energy policy, and his early attacks on Romney, even if I didn't like the direction the attacks took later in the debate.

Fourteenth Republican Primary Debate (NH)

The fourteenth debate was held in New Hampshire on Saturday January 7th, in anticipation of that state's primary on Tuesday. This was the first debate of 2012, the first since the Iowa caucuses, and the first since Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race. The full video is in one part here and in six parts here. The full transcript is here.

To get any potential biases out of the way, I don't really like any of the candidates at this debate. I think Ron Paul has a tendency to be nutty, and I think he gives sane libertarians a bad name. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum are all big government conservatives of one brand or another. The two governors naturally prefer big state government, especially Perry, while the Speaker and the Senator prefer big federal government as long as it does what Republicans want instead of what Democrats want. Jon Huntsman seems to have the most reliably conservative record of the six remaining candidates, which makes it even more tragic that his campaign has done its level best to paint him as the moderate alternative of the race.

As always, I've summarized the candidates answers below, and scored and responded to them along the way. Since the fifteenth debate was held a whole ten hours after the end of this fourteenth debate, I'm already two behind as I start this, so the responses here aren't as verbose as usual. Okay, who am I kidding, they probably are, but I tried to make them shorter.

Jon Huntsman

• He says Romney's time at Bain Capital is a part of his record and it will be scrutinized, but that more important is Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts, especially how it compares to Huntsman's own record as governor of Utah. He says in Utah he instituted a flat tax, reformed health care without a mandate, and led Utah to being the #1 state for job creation, even better than Texas. (+1)
• He repeats that as governor he led Utah to being #1 in job creation, this time comparing it to Massachusetts, which was #47. Then he talks about the "trust deficit" for awhile, and advocates term limits for Congress.
• He says he's the only candidate on stage to have lived overseas, and having run two embassies, he says he'd be better on foreign policy issues than any of the other candidates.
• He supports civil unions, apparently with all the same rights as marriage, but also wants to reserve the word marriage for the relationship between a man and a woman.
• He repeats the points he's often made on Afghanistan--we've killed bin Laden, the Taliban is no longer in power, al Qaeda in Afghanistan is broken, and the country has had free elections. He would draw down our troops there over his first year in office to about 10,000 who would remain in the country for counterterrorism and intelligence purposes, but not for "nation building." (+1)
• Employing the trademark Huntsman tactic of turning optimism into pessimism, he says he really wants to get out of Afghanistan, not because he actually believes the schtick from his last answer, but because he thinks they're headed for a civil war, and he doesn't want to be around when it happens. (-2)
• When Santorum says that we can "wait the next few weeks and months" and watch the violence in Iraq to see what will happen to Afghanistan if we pull out, Huntsman asks, "So how long do you want to wait, Rick?"
• Asked how he would pay for infrastructure, his answer boils down to economic growth, which he would encourage by revamping the tax code and eliminating many deductions along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles proposal. (+1)
• He says China's growth is slowing, and getting closer to our own, and we have an opportunity to reclaim lost manufacturing jobs by eliminating all tax loopholes and deductions. I think his analysis of China is spot on, but his analysis of the manufacturing sector is lacking. Then again, I like his policy of eliminating all the loopholes and deductions, so doing the right thing for the wrong reason is better than vice versa. (+1)
• Putting a tariff on China like Romney wants to do is "nonsense." (+2)
• Showing off his Mandarin, he says Romney's policy towards China would lead to a trade war. If we put tariffs on China, they'll put tariffs on us, and that's just going to hurt Americans. (+1)
• If he wasn't at the debate on a Saturday night, where would he be? He'd be on the phone with his sons in the Navy.

Ron Paul

• He cites a survey that found Santorum was "one of the top corrupt individuals" because of connections to lobbyists. Paul also says Santorum is "a big government, big spending individual," who voted to raise the debt fives times, voted to double the size of the Department of Education through NCLB, but voted against right to work. (+1)
• He agrees with Santorum that Congress has the right to earmark spending, but says that Santorum is still a "big government conservative," and even saying he's a conservative "is a stretch" because of his support for higher spending and opposition to right to work laws.
• He repeats his belief that Congress should earmark "every penny" because it gives his branch of government more power. This is a point about Ron Paul that I don't think gets nearly enough coverage. This is one of the very few areas where he wants to give politicians more power, and the politicians he wants to have more power just happen to be the ones holding the same job title as he does. (-1)
• People who did not serve in the military, as Paul and Perry did, "have no right" to support wars or to "be even against the wars that we have." Only those who have been in the military have any right to have any opinion on what the military does either way. How exactly did this guy get a reputation for being pro-liberty? (-2)
• Asked about the newsletters, he says they were written 20 years ago, and he didn't write them anyway. But rather than explain how exactly that happened, he wants to talk about how MLK Jr. and Rosa Parks are heroes of his, and how he says drug laws are unfairly enforced. If he really believes that, fine, but it comes across as an attempt to say "I can't be racist because I believe this!" (-1)
• He says the Fourth Amendment does have a right to privacy, but that even without it, the interstate commerce clause would allow the federal government to require that states allow contraception to be sold. I think his interpretation of the commerce clause is too broad, but I agree with him on the right to privacy. (+1)
• He "essentially ha[s]" ruled out running on a third party ticket, but he says, "I don't like absolutes." After all, only a Sith deals in absolutes... He says he's not planning a third party run, but doesn't want to absolutely rule it out.
• "The President is commander-in-chief, but he's not the king." He would not want to send troops into a country without a Congressional declaration of war. He's also against sanctions on Iran because sanctions "always lead up to war."
• His "great vision" is individual liberty. He says we're at the end of a 40-year bubble that is still collapsing. He says we need to "liquidate the debt," apparently talking about private debt since he goes on to talk about businesses and individuals.
• If he wasn't at the debate on a Saturday night, where would he be? With his family, and after they went to bed, reading an economic textbook.

Mitt Romney

• He's optimistic about the economy, but says any turnaround we see is in spite of Obama's policies, not because of them. He says the recovery has been slow because of Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and "a stimulus plan that was not as well-directed as it should have been." I like the optimism, but it sounds like Romney would support spending-based stimulus as long as he's the one doing the spending. (-1)
• Succeeding in the private sector isn't just about management, it's also about leadership. He says he's learned leadership skills in the private sector, as governor of Massachusetts, and also leading the Olympics.
• He says that in the private sector, "sometimes investments don't work." He admits there were companies Bain took over that lost jobs as Bain tried to make those companies profitable, but says "net-net" the companies he was involved with created 100,000 jobs. That is, at best, a dubious claim, and may even be impossible to either verify or falsify. (-1 for hiding a decent defense of free enterprise behind a distracting and dubious number that plays straight into statists' hands)
• Given time to respond to Huntsman's attack on his record as governor, Romney completely ignores Huntsman, and focuses entirely on his private sector experience. (-1)
• He thinks Huntsman would be better than Obama, and then proceeds to attack Obama for the rest of his answer. He criticizes Obama for not standing up for the Iranian protestors in 2009, and for deciding to "shrink" the military.
• Asked about the federal right to privacy and whether or not that means states can ban contraception, he calls it an "unusual topic." He tries to punt the question to Ron Paul, "our constitutionalist here," then gets into a long back-and-forth with Stephanopoulos about banning contraception. Ultimately, he seems to say there is no right to privacy in the constitution, but that states shouldn't be allowed to ban contraception anyway. When Stephanopoulos points out that Romney seems to have given two answers to the question, he gets boo'd, and they move on to Ron Paul.
• He says gay people forming "loving, committed, long-term relationships" is "a wonderful thing to do," and they have "every right" to do so as long as they don't use the word "marriage" to describe it.
• He agrees with Gingrich on the issue of bias against Catholics, and says that in Massachusetts after that state's supreme court ruled gay marriage legal, that the Catholic church was no longer allowed to provide adoptive services, even though they had been providing for half of the state's adoptions beforehand.
• He wants "to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can," but doesn't want to say when that will be. He notes that Huntsman wants to do it in 2013 while the President and current generals are saying 2014, but Romney himself says he'll wait until he has more information. That's a departure from previous debates, where he's advocated staying in Afghanistan much longer than 2014.
• Before going back into Iraq, he would want to "require significant, dramatic American interests" to be at stake, and would outline a specific endgame in terms of what would qualify as success. (+1)
• Asked about infrastructure, he gives some lip service to the idea that building infrastructure is a proper role for government, then spends most of his answer talking about Obama. He points out that America's GDP per capita is 50% higher than Europe's, which is something that I think surprises some people, so it's good that he's saying it on TV. (+1)
• He says in the days of JFK, government at all levels was 27% of the economy, and today it's 37%. He says government is already too big, so he wants to make it smaller. He would cut the corporate tax rate to 25%, and eliminate taxes on savings for "middle income Americans." Why not eliminate taxes on savings for everybody? Why should the poor pay taxes on savings? I don't think Mitt actually wants to tax the poor's savings, but you couldn't tell that from his rhetoric. (-1)
• Asked why he would not want to close all the tax loopholes, he deflects, and instead talks about "the soul of America." The rest of his answer is just fluff. (-1)
• He wants to "open up markets for our goods," and complains that Obama hasn't opened up any new trade relationships while Europe and China have. While I welcome his support for trade, his rhetoric once again betrays him. He supports trade where it increases our exports, but he's made clear in other debates that he does not support trade where it increases imports, such as with China.
• Romney finally responds directly to criticism from Huntsman. He says for two years Huntsman was putting into place Obama's policies as his ambassador, while everyone else on the stage was working to elect Republicans to fight those policies. That's a devastating response to Huntsman, even if Romney does go on to defend putting tariffs on American consumers who buy from China. (+1 for the Huntsman attack, -1 for the trade policy)
• He says China sells us more than we sell China, so they would do more to avoid a trade war. Because exports are the only aspect of trade that matters. (-2)
• If he wasn't at the debate on a Saturday night, where would he be? Like the others, he'd be watching football.

Rick Santorum

• He says we need "someone who can paint a positive vision for this country" and who "has the experience to go out and be the commander-in-chief." He cites his eight years on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate as qualifying experience, and says the most important issue the next President will face will be Iran.
• In his earlier comments that "we don’t need a manager as president," was he talking about Romney? "Yeah, well, of course I was talking about Governor Romney." (+1 for passing the Pawlenty Test)
• He says the corruption charge stems from CREW, or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which he calls "left-wing" and "Soros-like." He says, "If you haven’t been sued by CREW, you’re not a conservative." He goes on to say that after losing his seat in the Senate, he joined several causes he believed in, including the fight against cap and trade, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center where he wrote about Iran.
• In the same answer, in response to Paul having called him a "big government individual," he says, "Ron, I’m a conservative. I’m not a libertarian." Apparently he thinks being a conservative means being for big government. He also says his job as Senator was "to make sure that Pennsylvania was able… to get its fair share of money back." (-1)
• He cites his support for a balanced budget amendment and the line item veto as evidence that he's not a big spender, but says there are areas where the government should spend more, "particularly in defense." (-1)
• He says he did vote to raise the debt limit while in Congress, but that he also wrote the welfare reform bill, tried to pass Social Security reform, and tried to reduce spending every time they raised the debt limit.
• He agrees with Paul that there is a right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment, but says that Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut went beyond that right to privacy to create an additional right to privacy that was not in the constitution.
• Marriage is a federal issue, but adoption is a state issue. He says, "We can’t have somebody married in one state and not married in another," but doesn't explain why that same logic doesn't apply to adoption.
• He thinks Obama has made mistakes in Iran, Egypt, Syria, Libya and Israel. He says if we want to know what will happen in Afghanistan after we withdraw, we can watch what is happening in Iraq now.
• When Huntsman asks, "So how long do you want to wait, Rick?" meaning how long do we stay in Afghanistan, Santorum responds, "Until the security of our country is ensured."
• In responding to Ron Paul on national security, Santorum uncharacteristically focuses on Obama, criticizing him for tacitly supporting Ahmadinejad's 2009 election. He says "the Iranian people love America," and we need to do more to support them and to support their desire for freedom. (+1)
• Stephanopoulos  asks if anyone besides Huntsman would support the tax increases in Simpson-Bowles. Santorum speaks up and says no, he wouldn't, but he would get rid of a lot of the current tax deductions, except for "health care, housing, pensions, children and charities." That's a long list of exceptions, and just about the only one I'd agree with is health care. (-1)
• In the same answer, he says he wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 17.5% for everybody, which is the first time I've heard that. He also repeats that he wants to cut it to zero for manufacturing corporations. He says that because of government regulation and taxes, our businesses face a 20% cost disadvantage compared to our nine largest trading partners, and therefore he's worried about manufacturer's facing that cost disadvantage, but not about anyone in the service industry who faces that cost disadvantage. (-1)
• He attacks Romney for using the phrase "middle class," saying that Republicans don't put people in classes, and that Romney is buying into Obama's "class warfare arguments." He's absolutely right, and I had thought the same thing listening to Romney. (+1)
• In the same answer, he attacks both Romney and Gingrich on the individual mandate, saying he had never supported it. He also says he would appeal to blue collar voters in swing states in a way that Romney won't.
• If he wasn't at the debate on a Saturday night, where would he be? He'd be with his family watching the football game.

Newt Gingrich

• He says, "I'm very much for free enterprise," then goes on to justify why it's "a legitimate part" of a political debate to attack Romney for what he calls "a particular style of investment." He doesn't seem to see the contradiction there. (-1)
• He says he grew up as "an army brat," with his father in the Army, and understands what military families need. He promises some specific changes to the way veterans affairs are handled in New Hampshire, but doesn't say whether or not he supports similar changes in states that vote later in the primary.
• "Dr. Paul has a long history of saying things that are inaccurate and false." Specifically, he takes issue with Paul's comment about deferments from the draft. Gingrich says he never asked for a deferment because he wasn't eligible for the draft in the first place.
• He says, "The sacrament of marriage was based on a man and woman, has been for 3,000 years." He says marriage is "an historic sacrament," not "just a civil right." I'm not sure what that means.
• He says the Catholic church is being forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won't accept gay couples, and that the Catholic church has been discriminated against by the Obama administration because of its stance. He says "there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side."
• The problem in the Middle East is "not primarily a military problem." He mentions Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Libya and Iraq and says "we need a fundamentally new strategy for the region comparable to what we developed to fight the cold war." What exactly that strategy is, he's less clear about.
• Later, he gets a chance to clarify some of that long-run strategy. He says if we're worried about Iran going into Iraq, the answer is not to send troops into Iraq, but to raise the stakes on Iran. If we're worried about the spread of Wahabism, the answer is to work on energy independence so that we can pressure the Saudis from a position of power.
• On infrastructure, he focuses on the need to compete with China and India, which he thinks requires a top-down solution through federally-funded infrastructure. He also wants to have an energy independence program, and although he doesn't say exactly what that would look like, it would generate enough government revenue that one-third of the new revenue could pay for all the infrastructure investment he wants to do. I have no idea how that's supposed to work. (-1)
• He says his approach is "a bold, Reagan conservative model," while Romney's is "cautious." He cites the Wall Street Journal in calling Romney's plan "timid and more like Obama" than his own. He wants zero capital gains tax, a 12.5% corporate tax and 100% expensing for all new equipment. (+1)
• If he wasn't at the debate on a Saturday night, where would he be? He'd be watching the championship basketball game, until Santorum corrects him and says it's a football game.

Rick Perry

• In his first answer of the night, he says Americans want an outsider, not an insider, "and it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re an insider from Washington, D.C., or you’re an insider from Wall Street." I would say that this reinforces the idea that Perry believes the only bad government is the federal government, since working in the Texas state government for 21 years apparently doesn't make you an insider. But he also says that he and former ambassadaor Huntsman are the only real outsiders. I have no idea what makes Romney an insider and Huntsman an outsider in Perry's mind, except maybe their poll numbers. (-1)
• The "biggest problem that America faces," bigger than Iran, bigger than the economy, bigger than the debt, bigger than entitlements, bigger than civil liberties issues, is Obama's cuts to the defense budget. Are you kidding me? (-1)
• Rather than talk about whether anyone should rule out a third party candidacy, he instead wants to talk about the "war on religion." What does he consider to be the "war on religion"? Obama's decisions to not defend a law he believed to be unconstitutional, to not give government subsidies to the Catholic church, and to not allow the ministerial exception (without which, churches would be forbidden from considering a person's religion in hiring decisions). Those first two don't seem like very big deals to me, although the last one seems pretty significant.
• He would send troops back into Iraq right now. He says, "We’re going to see Iran, in my opinion, move back in at literally the speed of light." Either he doesn't know what "literally" means, or he doesn't know what "the speed of light" means. Or more comically, perhaps he actually believes the Iranians have that technology, in which case I'd be soiling my pants too. But complaints about word choice aside, sending troops back into Iraq without some major change in the situation on the ground needs to be taken off the table. (-2)
• Americans "want Washington out of their hair." He wants to allow federal lands and waters to be explored and developed by energy companies, "whether it’s solar or wind or oil and gas or coal." (+1) 
• If he wasn't at the debate on a Saturday night, where would he be? At a shooting range.

Conclusion
Adding up the various scores, Huntsman hit it out of the park with +5, the only positive score. Santorum and Gingrich both got -1, Paul got -2, Perry got -3 and Romney came in last with -4.

In his first time in the middle of the stage, Rick Santorum had some hits and misses, but mostly misses. On the other hand, he came across as more Presidential than usual, more sure of himself, less angry and more focused on Obama than the other Republicans.

Jon Huntsman's strong showing and Mitt Romney's poor showing were almost entirely related to trade. Those two candidates are the only two to really talk about trade and to really make trade an important issue. But while Huntsman wants to encourage trade and is opposed to tariffs and trade wars, Romney very much has a mercantilist view of trade and would rather punish American consumers to make a political point than encourage trade.

Ron Paul ended up negative because of his bizarre and self-serving claim that only people who have served in the military have the right to have an opinion on what the military does. It hardly felt like Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry were even at this debate.

Thirteenth Republican Primary Debate (IA)

The thirteenth debate was held December 16th in Sioux City, Iowa, but with Christmas I haven't been able to wrap up the summaries until now. This was the last debate of 2011 and the last debate before the Iowa caucuses. The full video is on YouTube here, and an unofficial transcript is here.

To get any potential biases out of the way, I don't really like any of the candidates at this debate. Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum all have tendencies to support truly dangerous ideas, the only difference is which policy areas they're most dangerous on. For that matter, Mitt Romney does too, although he's more likely to weaken his position or switch sides to get support. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry both seem to me like big government, crony capitalism supporters who are just fine with the government running things as long as they're running the government. Jon Huntsman is probably the best of the remaining candidates in my eyes. As always, I've summarized the candidates answers below, and scored and responded to them along the way.

Rick Santorum

• He says he's been to every county in Iowa and held more than 350 town hall meetings. He's counting on Iowa to propel him to national victory, despite currently holding sixth place out of seven in that state [since the debate, and since this was written, his fortunes in Iowa have greatly improved], barely above Huntsman. He says in the 90s, there was a "conservative revolution" against Gingrich, and that conservatives would come to him (Santorum) to help them get their ideas through.
• How would he get Congress to cooperate? He'd go out and build a "narrative." He says Obama convinced Americans they needed someone to believe in, but he wants to convince Americans that he believes in them.
• He wants to lower taxes on repatriated money to 5.5% in general and 0% for money spent on "plant and equipment." He says even excluding labor costs, there's a 20% cost differential for manufacturing between America and "our nine top trading partners." Economists would say we need to take advantage of comparative advantage and let our trading partners make stuff so we can buy it cheaper. Santorum says we need to give manufacturing special tax breaks to even out the comparative advantage so that we can all pay more for less. (-2)
• He says he's the only one on the stage who helped campaign in Iowa to remove the judges who had brought gay marriage to the state. He also says when the partial birth abortion ban was overturned, he worked with Bush to pass a clarifying law that was then upheld.
• Iran "has been at war with us since 1979." He says we need to be working with Israel, planning strikes against their nuclear facilities. If Iran does "not close them down, we will close them down for you."
• Like Perry, Santorum is also not happy about Iran-Venezuela connections, complaining that there are planes flying straight from Tehran to Caracas. He thinks we need to pay more attention to South America and do more to "promote our values in the region." Paying more attention to South America is good, but I'm not sure I trust Santorum to promote our values in the right way.
• He says that Romney ordered officials in Massachusetts to issue gay marriage licenses. The Massachusetts Supreme Court had ruled in favor of gay marriage and given the legislature 180 days to change the law. When they didn't, Romney simply ordered the officials to issue gay marriage licenses anyway. Romney, for his part, calls this a "very novel understanding" of Massachusetts constitutional law. I've seen different legal analyses that support both positions, usually favoring the analyst's prior position on gay marriage. Not being a constitutional expert or a Massachusite, I don't know who's right here.
• What about Reagan's 11th Commandment? "We have a responsibility to vet the candidates." He says if they don't attack each other, we won't know which candidate could survive the attacks from Obama. (+1)

Rick Perry

• He's starting to like these debates, he says, and he's willing to debate Obama. He supports a balanced budget amendment and a part-time Congress. Then to trump Bachmann's "real person" answer, he says, "I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses."
• How would he get Congress to cooperate? He'd use his executive experience as governor of Texas, where he says he learned to "work with both sides of the aisle." I've noted this before, but for most of Perry's term as governor, both houses of the Texas state legislature have been held by Republicans, and he has never faced a united Democrat legislature. (-1)
• The moderator says that as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Perry oversaw a loan guarantee program that failed and had to be bailed out. Perry denies this and says, "those programs worked as they were supposed to work." According to Politifact, the Texas Agricultural Finance Authority was supposed to make loans to agricultural entrepreneurs "who could not get commercial loans." Surprise, surprise, a lot of them couldn't get commercial loans for very good reasons. Although the program was supposed to fund itself without any appropriations from the general fund, it was unable to do so because of an 18% default rate. It was ultimately bailed out in 2009. (-1)
• He again calls for a part-time Congress, saying we should cut their pay and cut their time in half. The moderator points out that they were only in session 151 days last year, less than three days a week on average. Perry says to cut it to 140 days every other year like in Texas.
• He wants to get rid of lifetime terms for federal judges. His favorite current Supreme Court justices are Alito, Roberts and Thomas.
• He wants to intervene in Syria by establishing a no-fly zone, but doesn't get into any more specific details. He sees this as part of our strategic position against Iran, and takes some time to criticize Obama's handling of Iran. (+1)
• The moderator says Perry has criticized Obama for favoring green industries, while Perry himself has favored the oil industry. Perry's answer is the Tenth Amendment. He says "government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers from Washington, D.C.," but apparently government picking winners and losers from Austin or any other state capital is just fine. Replacing big federal government with big state government isn't exactly an improvement. (-2)
• Asked about Fast and Furious and his statements that Holder should resign despite not knowing about it, he says he'd fire his own Attorney General for not knowing about a program like that. He then links border security to Iran's influence, and says we need to have "a Monroe Doctrine again like we did against the Cubans in the 60s," particularly against what he perceives as Iran's influence over Venezuela.
• He quotes... well, someone, but he's not sure who, to say, "if you don’t get your tail kicked every now and then, you’re not playing at a high enough level," then thanks the other candidates for "letting me play at a high enough level." Besides not knowing who he's quoting, it's a nice, light-hearted response to the 11th Commandment question. (+1)

Mitt Romney

• He says in the general election, he will run on his private sector experience. He cites companies he's helped succeed like Staples, and also mentions a company he passed on, JetBlue.
• How would he get Congress to cooperate? His state legislature in Massachusetts was 85% Democrat, which he calls "a blessing in disguise." He found a way to cooperate with them, and would be able to do so on a national level as well.
• When Chris Wallace asks him about criticisms related to his time at Bain Capital and the "creative destruction of capitalism," Romney ignores Newt's role in the criticism and instead lays out how he would respond to Obama laying those criticisms. That itself is a good strategy, but his response is to compare his work at Bain with the Obama team's management of GM. If he does that too much, he won't be able to effectively criticize Obama on the auto bailout issue.
• He spends quite awhile praising the Wyden-Ryan plan, not so much for it's actual features, but for it's bipartisan nature.
• Asked what industries are going to be creating the most jobs in the next few years, Mitt says, "the free market will decide that; government won’t," then segues into criticizing Obama for Solyndra and other "green jobs" programs. (+1)
• The moderator asks why only one-fourth of the judges he nominated in Massachusetts were Republican, and he says that every judge he nominated had to be approved by a seven-person council that was all-Democrat.
• He doesn't want Congress to oversee judges directly, but he says Congress does have the ability to "rein in excessive judges" through impeachment, clarifying statutes or Constitutional amendment. (+1)
• His favorite current Supreme Court justices are Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Scalia.
• He criticizes Obama for "a foreign policy based on pretty please" in reference to asking Iran for our drone back. "A strong America is the best ally peace has ever known," and by strength he means military strength. He wants to expand our military spending, increase the number of new Navy ships built per year by two-thirds and recruit an extra 100,000 troops, even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to an end. (-1)
• He wants legal immigrants to be given a card with "bio-information" on it, and require that employers only hire people who can show their legal-status card. He doesn't mention it, but that means every American citizen who wants to work would also have to get this national identification card. (-2)
• Asked about changing his positions on gay marriage, abortion and guns, he says he never changed his position on gay marriage; he opposes gay marriage, but also opposes sexual orientation discrimination. He also says he was only ever pro-choice to the extent that he wanted to keep the laws in Massachusetts the same as they were, and he became pro-life while governor of Massachusetts, implying that it was not for political purposes. He wants to "protect the sanctity of marriage, protect the sanctity of life." 
• Romney calls Santorum's description of what happened with gay marriage in Massachusetts a "very novel understanding," and says the Supreme Court had the final say on the matter, not him, and in issuing gay marriage licenses, he was only doing what the court told him to do. I've seen different legal analyses that support both positions, usually favoring the analyst's prior position on gay marriage. Not being a constitutional expert or a Massachusite, I don't know who's right here.
• Obama's going to have a billion dollars to go after the eventual nominee, so it's fine to go after each other before then. "We can handle it," he says. (+1)

Newt Gingrich

• Asked about his own electability, he compares himself to Reagan in 1979, and implicitly compares Obama to Carter. He repeats his call for a series of Lincoln-Douglas debates with Obama. On his record as a conservative, he cites welfare reform, tax cuts and the balanced budget of the 90s.
• How would he get Congress to cooperate? "Leadership is the key." He calls Obama "a Saul Alinsky radical" and "campaigner-in-chief," which is exactly the kind of language that will excite the base, but isn't going to help in swaying independents.
• He says when he took money from Freddie Mac, he was just a private citizen, while Barney Frank and Chris Dodd abused the power of their offices to make money. He believes in goverment-sponsored enterprises, GSEs. He also says it's "a good conservative principle" to use government to encourage more people to learn how to buy a house. Is that really what he thinks Freddie Mac primarily does? (-1)
• "There are a lot of good institutions that are government-sponsored." If Ron Paul wants to criticize GSEs for being involved with government, he should also criticize doctors who accept Medicare or Medicaid. (-1)
• "I never lobbied under any circumstance." He also says he encouraged housing reform with Rick Lazio while he was speaker, apparently referencing this effort to "encourage more working families" to move to "public-housing neighborhoods." Hmm.
• His policy as President will be to break up both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite his earlier stalwart defense of GSEs in general. He also reiterates his support for using government to make it easier for people to buy houses. Breaking up Fannie and Freddie into lots of smaller GSEs that do the same thing isn't exactly an improvement... (-1)
• Romney "deserves some of the credit" for the Wyden-Ryan compromise, which Gingrich also supports. He says his initial criticism of the Ryan plan as "right-wing social engineering" wasn't a criticism of the plan itself, but rather how the plan was communicated to Americans... somehow. (-1)
• His plans to subpoena judges to Congress and shut down courts that make rulings he disagrees with does alter the balance of power in Washington because "the courts have become grotesquely dictatorial." He says, "just like Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR, I would be prepared to take on the judiciary." I'm no historian like Newt, but Jackson and FDR aren't exactly the best Presidents to be aspiring towards, especially for a Republican. I happen to agree with him that courts (and the rest of government) generally concentrate too much power in the hands of too few, but I don't see how concentrating that power in even fewer hands solves the problem. (-1)
• He agrees with Romney on the Supreme Court justices, noting that Scalia is "probably the most intellectual," but that Alito, Roberts and Thomas are also good.
• He would not leave the UN, but he would "dramatically reduce our reliance on it." He doesn't like how the UN treats Israel, and criticizes the idea of a "peace process" between Israel and Palestine when Palestinians have fired over 200 missiles at Israel this year.
• He bashes Obama over the Keystone XL pipeline, saying the Canadians would be happy to send their oil to China instead. He says Congressional Republicans should attach support to the pipeline to the payroll tax cut and force Obama to veto it, then keep sending it back to him until he passes it. While I agree with his support for the pipeline, his plan seems to require the support of Senate Democrats to work...
• He wants to remove all tax deductions for illegal immigrants. He apparently doesn't realize that most illegals don't even file tax returns (doing so would be telling the government where they were, after all). He would also drop immigration-based lawsuits against the states, and drop all "federal aid" to sanctuary cities.
• He says he believes that life begins at conception, he's against embryonic stem cell research, and he says he has a 98.5% positive rating from Right to Life. He says he didn't necessarily support Republicans who supported partial birth abortion, but that he wasn't going to lead a "purge" of the Republican party either.
• He says he's "tried very hard" to run a positive, ideas-based campaign, and that ultimately, "these are all friends of mine. Any of these folks would be better than Barack Obama in the White House." (+1)

Ron Paul

• He says anybody on stage could beat Obama, which is a nice feel-good thing to say, but completely sidesteps the question of whether he would support the eventual Republican nominee. Instead he gives a broad overview of his policies, mentioning civil liberties, foreign policy, monetary policy and balancing the budget.
• How would he get Congress to cooperate? There are two factions in Congress: "one wants welfare, the other wants warfare." The way to cut spending is to work with the welfare people to cut the warfare spending and work with the warfare people to cut welfare spending. That's not going to win him any diehard partisans, but it's an unusually cogent way to phrase the problem. (+1)
• He attacks Newt's support for GSEs, criticizing "when big business and big government get together" as "very, very dangerous." It's hard to argue with that. (+1)
• He thinks Congressional earmarks are no different than taking deductions on your tax return. He also says the entire federal budget should be earmarked by Congress so that the executive branch has zero authority in determining the specifics of how money is spent. "I think the congress has an obligation to earmark every penny, not to deliver that power to the executive branch." (-1)
• He disagrees with Newt's proposal to subpoena judges and eliminate courts for political reasons because it "could open a can of worms." (+1)
• He won't name any Supreme Court justices he favors, saying "all of them are good and all of them are bad." He says the court separates personal liberty and economic liberty, when he thinks you can't separate the two.
• The moderator says he'd be running left of Obama on Iran, since Obama supports sanctions while Paul doesn't. Paul agrees with that assessment but says he thinks he'd be running with the American people. He says "the greatest danger" is over-reacting on Iran. He doesn't believe they have a nuke or will have a nuke anytime soon. Then he says that if he was Iran, he'd be trying to get a nuke too, and we shouldn't be worried if they do get a nuke. It's a very rambling, shifting answer that ends with Paul practically yelling, "We don't need another war!" (-1)
• He thinks Iranian talk about closing the Strait of Hormuz is basically bluster. Then he goes on to say, "Sanctions are an act of war when you prevent goods and services from going into a country." Now I don't think sanctions actually work, but it's quite another thing to say they're an act of war. If he really believes that, he's saying that Iran would be perfectly justified in launching a war against us because we have levied sanctions against them. How is this man doing so well in the polls?! (-2)
• "To declare war on 1.2 billion Muslims and say all Muslims are the same, this is dangerous talk." Except that no one said that, or anything like it, at all. Indeed, if we're at war with all Muslims, and they are all the same, why do the other candidates talk about the current Iraqi government like it's a good thing? Why do they want stability in Muslim Afghanistan? Why are we working with Muslims in Pakistan? Never mind Saudi Arabia, Indonesia or any of the other Muslim countries we're not remotely at war with, or the Muslim Americans who aren't in concentration camps, or the Muslim citizens in Canada and Europe that we're not bombing. (-2)
• Bachmann says that according to an IAEA report, Iran is "just months" from having a nuclear bomb. Paul immediately denies it, saying there's "no evidence" that they're building a bomb. According to factcheck.org, they're both partially right and partially wrong. The report itself said Iran had the capability to make a bomb, but did not put a time frame on it, and could not say one way or the other whether Iran was actually building the bomb. But unnamed officials connected to the report independently told the LA Times that if Iran chose to make a bomb, it would take about six months to do so.
• The candidates have a responsibility to "expose" their opponents and "what they believe in." While the substance of his answer is basically the same as the others', that the purpose of the primary is to vet the candidates, Paul sounds a lot more vindictive in framing that answer than the others do, especially compared to Perry or Gingrich.

Michele Bachmann

• She says she's 55 years old, and has spent 50 years "as a real person," then 5 years as a politician, taking on Obama, "and I will do that as President of the United States." She's obviously trying to challenge Perry for his position as worst debater. (-1)
• How would she get Congress to cooperate? She cites three principles: no new taxes, a balanced budget and reforming entitlements now. Whatever you think of the policies themselves, she'll be lucky to get Congress to agree to just one of them. For a current member of Congress, she seems to have an exaggerated idea of the power of the President. (-1)
• What is her evidence that Gingrich was a lobbyist for Freddie Mac? Well, we know they paid him for something, and... actually, that's it. Apparently being paid anything for any reason by a GSE is evidence that you were a lobbyist for them. (-1)
• She later claims Politifact backed her up, a claim Politifact has since rated as "Pants on Fire." They had rated one statement "Mostly True," about Gingrich's support for the individual mandate, but apparently they never even rated the issue of whether Gingrich had lobbied for Freddie Mac or not. In the same answer, she also backpedals a bit, saying that even if Gingrich wasn't technically "lobbying," he was still "influence-peddling." (-1)
• She agrees with Newt that the courts have too much authority, and Republicans should target and eliminate left-leaning courts. She ignores the question of whether Democrats should have the ability to target and eliminate right-leaning courts as well. (-1)
• On Supreme Court justices, she likes Scalia the most, but also likes Thomas, Roberts and Alito.
• She gets some of the longest-lasting applause of the night by saying, "I think I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security than the one that we just heard from Ron Paul," regarding what he said about Iran. She says Iran wants to build a "worldwide caliphate." (+1)
• Bachmann says that according to an IAEA report, Iran is "just months" from having a nuclear bomb. Paul immediately denies it, saying there's "no evidence" that they're building a bomb. According to factcheck.org, they're both partially right and partially wrong. The report itself said Iran had the capability to make a bomb, but did not put a time frame on it, and could not say one way or the other whether Iran was actually building the bomb. But unnamed officials connected to the report independently told the LA Times that if Iran chose to make a bomb, it would take about six months to do so.
• She says that Obama's moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf after the BP oil spill "hurt the economy more than the original disaster." Considering the "original disaster" was an environmental, not economic, disaster, that's not exactly surprising. She also agrees with Newt that Obama should have approved the Keystone pipeline.
• She promises to "be 100 percent pro- life from conception until natural death," and takes issue with Gingrich's pro-life credentials. She says he had a chance as Speaker to defund Planned Parenthood and didn't, and also promised to campaign for Republicans who supported partial birth abortion. (+1)
• "I’m a serious candidate for president of the United States." I'm sorry, but if you have to say that in a debate, you're probably not. (-1)
• She brings up Reagan's "are you better off now than you were four years ago" line. She notes that he used that line against Carter, and that Republicans in 2012 need to make the same point against Obama, but she completely ignores the 11th Commandment question. Or perhaps, she just sees it as an opportunity to talk about Reagan.

Jon Huntsman

• "I am the consistent conservative in this race... and I'm not going to sign those silly pledges," including one promising no new taxes. Then he talks about the "trust deficit" for awhile. (-1)
• "Leadership is action, not words." He cites his record in Utah, where he instituted a flat tax, reformed health care without a mandate, and says he got over 80% of the vote in his reelection. (+1)
• How would he respond to new Chinese tariffs on American vehicles? He says that everything about our relationship with China is related, including trade, Korea, Pakistan, Iran, etc. "You move one end of the relationship, it impacts the other." Strategically, he would reach out to dissidents within China and work to encourage democratic values among the Chinese citizens, but he doesn't mention any specific short-term response to the tariffs.
• Like most of his fellow candidates, he likes Roberts and Alito, although he pointedly fails to mention Scalia or Thomas.
• He thinks the UN is "useful" in peacekeeping and humanitarian areas, but says, "I hate the anti-Americanism" and "the anti-Israel sentiment." Then he goes on to talk about "our core" for awhile, in the first answer that I remember from these debates to go so far over time that he gets two bells. He doesn't like that we fought in Afghanistan, only for the Chinese to get mining contracts. Apparently he thinks the war should have been for oil! (-1)
• He says we have "a heroin-like addiction" on imported oil, and we need "an aggressive plan" to encourage Americans to switch to using natural gas instead of oil. (-1)
• He says Republicans need to stand for our "limited government, pro-growth" values. Legal immigration is "an engine of growth," and he wants to encourage it by reforming our visa system. He doesn't say exactly how, but it's nice someone who at least supports immigration and frames it in terms of limited government. (+2)
• A "respectful," "rigorous" debate will lead to a higher level of trust in the candidate, and trust is what the country needs. Thankfully he stops short of using his "trust deficit" line again.

Conclusion
Although crowds have boo'd questions before, this is the first time I remember crowds actually cheering to have a question asked, and that was at Megyn Kelly's mention of Fast and Furious. On the other hand, this debate returned to using the Gchat buzzer, which is especially annoying if you watch the debate online, as I do.

Summing the scores, none of the candidates scored positive. Romney and Huntsman both scored 0; Santorum got -1, Perry -2, Paul -3 and Gingrich and Bachmann came in last with -4 each.

Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum are both in very similar places in this campaign. Santorum has put absolutely everything into Iowa, and Huntsman has put absolutely everything into New Hampshire. Both need to win their chosen state. Current polls show Santorum in a close race for 3rd or 4th with Gingrich in Iowa, with Paul and Romney in a similar fight for first. But he's in dead last in South Carolina, and only above Huntsman nationally. Likewise, Huntsman is holding on to a fairly solid 4th place in New Hampshire, but he's only above Santorum in Florida, and dead last nationally. I don't expect either to last until Super Tuesday. In this debate, both men said some things I liked and some I didn't, but neither is exactly inspiring. Santorum is good on the attack, but not so good policy-wise, and Huntsman depresses me when I listen to him too much.

Ron Paul started this debate with an amazing amount of clarity. If this had been a thirty- or sixty-minute debate, it would have been great for him. But about halfway through he fell off a cliff. He went on a long, rambling, wandering rant about Iran and he fit perfectly the ranting-old-man image that he desperately needs to get away from. And that was before saying Iran would be justified in going to war with us, and before saying we're at war with every Muslim on the planet. With Ron Paul on the campaign trail, it's no wonder so many Americans think libertarians are nuts.

Michele Bachmann wasn't as nuts as Ron Paul, but she was sure trying. She was "a real person" before she became a politician, she'd get Congress to cooperate by insisting on things they'd never agree to, and thinks it's just fine for a Republican Congress to subpoena left-leaning judges without any worry about whether a future Democrat Congress will do the same to right-leaning judges. She also thinks that accepting any payment from a GSE for anything is evidence of lobbying, and calls Gingrich "outrageous" for disagreeing with her. The highlight of her night was proclaiming, "I’m a serious candidate for president of the United States!" As I said above, if you have to say that in a debate, you're probably not.

Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney all seemed to spend this debate vying for the votes of people who government to be bigger. From agricultural finance to GSEs to energy subsidies to national ID cards, all three wanted to solve our nation's problems with more government. The biggest difference is that Perry wants big state government instead of big federal government, and Romney's more willing to change his support for big government if he thinks it will help him politically. That these three currently seem to have the best chance of getting the nomination is, shall I say, not very encouraging.

The Gingrich-Huntsman Debate

Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman held their own two-person debate on Monday. Although Huntsman is in dead-last place in the RCP poll of polls, there has been plenty of speculation that he will be the next flavor of the week if-and-when Gingrich implodes like the others. Unlike the others, Huntsman is focusing totally on New Hampshire and counting on a win there to propel him to national victory. He's skipped two national debates in order to campaign in New Hampshire. Even this debate was held in New Hampshire. Only time will tell if this strategy will work, but his current polling average at 3.2% is higher than it's ever been before, not that that's saying very much.

Like the Cain-Gingrich debate, this was only broadcast on C-SPAN, and even then only after a several-hour delay and several scheduling changes. I don't think this has quite the same potential for Huntsman as the Cain-Gingrich debate had for Newt, but I still think it will be interesting enough to cover here. The official C-SPAN video is here, and an alternate version is here. The C-SPAN page includes a "transcript" with different quotes linked to the video, but it doesn't seem to be an actual full transcript. I haven't been able to find one of those.

In their opening statements, Gingrich mostly talks about how he likes this debate format, while Huntsman outlines four points on foreign policy. He says we need to recognize that we're fighting against terrorism, but that we also need to structure our foreign policy with regard to economics and strengthening "our core." He also wants to remind the world what it means to be an ally of the United States.

Afghanistan & Pakistan
Huntsman starts off, saying we've accomplished our goals in Afghanistan, and "it's time for us to come home." He says we've done the best we can and it's time to move on. He repeats what he's said in previous debates that we've knocked out the Taliban and al Qaeda, enabled Afghanistan to hold free elections and killed Osama bin Laden.  He says that going forward, our mission should not be nation-building or fighting a counter-insurgency, but rather leading a counter-terrorist effort, which he sees as involving far fewer troops and having more of a special-ops focus.

Huntsman says despite our history with Pakistan when the Soviet Union was still around, and despite the aid we send them, there's a rising anti-Americanism in the country. Our relationship with them is "transactional," that is, we give them money and they give us cooperation in fighting terrorists, even if neither of us necessarily likes the other side. He thinks they could potentially become a "failed nation-state," and we have to be very careful in choosing our national interest objectives in that region, especially given Pakistan's nuclear weapons and terrorist training grounds in Pakistan. He also thinks we need to develop closer ties with India, a country that "shares our values" and is the largest democracy in the world.

Gingrich talks about differential development, and how in the world we now live in, it's possible to have modern, developed institutions right down the street from people living in third-world conditions, and that this is the kind of thing that the leaders in Afghanistan have to deal with. He believes that eventually the forces of "modernity" will eliminate the tribal aspect of Afghan culture, and that this will be an economic process, not a military process, so we need to decide what our position will be in the meantime. On Pakistan, he says that bin Laden could only have successfully hidden in Abbotabad for so long "if a substantial part of the Pakistani intelligence service was protecting him." He also notes that the Pakistani government's first response when we found bin Laden was to get angry at the Pakistanis in Abbotabad who had helped us.

Gingrich also says that the number of Christians in Iraq has fallen from 1.2 million to 500 thousand since we took out Saddam, and he's worried about how things will turn out in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria. He says in opposing communism, we had a uniting "theory" that motivated all of our actions, but that now under Obama, we don't have such a theory. We're using force "randomly" without a clear mission in the world, and that's what he wants to restore.

Newt says we have four immediate needs. First is to develop an energy policy that not only increases our own energy independence, but also helps us become an energy reserve for the rest of the world if Iran destabilizes energy sources in the Middle East. Second is to restore our manufacturing capabilities that we never lost in the first place. Third is develop more independent intelligence so we're not relying on foreign intelligence as much. Fourth is to develop a national strategy to deal with "radical Islamism" itself, not just dealing with individual countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan where problems crop up.

Iran
Gingrich believes that if you are not willing to let Iran have a nuclear weapon, you must ultimately be for regime change. He is absolutely against letting Iran have a nuclear weapon because he believes they would use it if they had it. He also thinks that it's not practical to simply destroy their nuclear research every few years, partly because they've built their facilities underground, under cities and mosques. He would prefer to see regime change come about non-militarily, the way the Soviet Union collapsed, but he's willing to force regime change militarily if he thinks he needs to.

Gingrich says that while China doesn't have an existential concern with Iranian nuclear weapons, Israel does. He says that if Iran gets nukes, an Israeli prime minister would be in the position of trying to prevent a second holocaust, and that they would understandably do whatever was necessary to prevent that, even if it meant using their own nukes against Iran. Newt believes the only way to prevent an all-out nuclear war in the region is through close cooperation with and support of Israel.

Huntsman calls Iran "the transcendent threat" of the coming decade. We should've supported the "Persian Spring" in 2009, and since we didn't, Iran has continued to refine their nuclear material. He says China is fine with Iran having a nuke, but Russia is more concerned about proliferation. If Iran gets a nuke, then we'll also have to deal with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt possibly wanting their own nukes to balance Iran. This is why he doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and since he wants to prevent that from happening, "all options need to be on the table." He doesn't think that further sanctions against Iran will work, because the mullahs have already decided that they want nukes and they're willing to pay the price. He also says China isn't willing to go any further on sanctions than we already have, and those haven't worked, so it will be left to America to prevent Iran from getting nukes.

The Arab Spring
Hunstman says the real cause of the Arab Spring has been long-term dictatorships and the resultant economic stagnation. In the long-run, we need to "put the pieces back together," and he favors establishing free trade agreements in the region. He doesn't say exactly which countries he would want to include, but he does imply that it would be a regional agreement, based off our current agreement with Israel, rather than a serious of bilateral agreements.

He goes on to say that the more immediate issue is trying to figure out which groups in the Arab Spring will be aligned with our values not just in the short term, but in the long term as well, and that we have to be careful that we're not picking sides that will end up fighting against our values. Several times he compares the Arab Spring to the instability after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which is an interesting historical idea that I hadn't heard before. On Libya, Huntsman thinks we should not have gone in because the events would've played out the same anyway and we didn't have a discernible national interest there. On Syria, he thinks we should go in, because we do have a national interest via Israel, as Syria is a "conduit" for Iran.

Gingrich doesn't like how Obama "dumped" Mubarak, because Mubarak had been our ally. Gingrich is fine with corrupt, brutal dictators as long as they're our corrupt, brutal dictators. He also repeats his earlier complaint about our intelligence network, and goes into more detail about the uniting theory that he wants to promote. He says we need to have a US-led cultural shift in the Arab world, where we encourage young Arabs to come to the United States or other Western countries to study and learn our values, and to take "modernity" back to their home countries. He also wants to translate Western books into Arabic as part of this cultural push.

Defense Spending
Gingrich is "deeply opposed" to the sequester on defense spending that results from the failure of the Supercommittee. He says we shouldn't allow government waste just because it's part of the defense budget, but he's opposed to any cuts to defense aside from the politician's favorite thing to cut-- waste, fraud and abuse. He says we should cut entitlements instead of cutting defense in order to balance the budget.

Huntsman, on the other hand, says the level of debt we face is a national security issue, and if we don't cut back our debt, we'll end up like Japan, Greece and Italy. Given the threat posed by our mounting debt, he says every spending area needs to be on the table, and we can't have any "sacred cows." Defense gets almost $700 billion, which is more than at the height of the Cold War, more than the rest of the world spends on their militaries combined, and we should be able to find some cuts. He says even though we're spending so much more, we're getting much less than we were, for example, after WWII, and we could save a lot of money if we reform our military's procurement process.

Gingrich's response is that we should realign our military now that the Cold War is over. He brings up the troops we have in Stuttgart, who were put there to defend against a possible Soviet invasion from East Germany, but are no longer necessary. He says he agrees with Huntsman's point about the military's procurement process, and says they spend too much time thinking and writing reports for each other. He wants to "thoroughly modernize" the military to get rid of the waste.

Along the realignment lines, Huntsman says that we still have 50,000 troops in Germany, who don't need to be there. He says the 21st century military and economic challenges will be in the Pacific region, and that's where we need to focus our military capabilities.

China and the Pacific Rim
Huntsman says US-China will be "the relationship of the 21st century." He thinks a lot of the old guard in the Chinese leadership will soon be retiring and the "fifth generation" will take over. He says the new generation are "hubristic nationalists" who have gotten used to the idea of 10+% economic growth and believe "they can do no wrong." As that generation takes over and they're confronted with economic problems and a growing class of former farmers, investing in China will become riskier. Huntsman predicts that a lot of the capital that has been investing in China will return to the US and other safer countries. He goes on to say that the Chinese are the greatest long-term strategic thinkers in the world, and that Americans are the greatest short-term tactical thinkers in the world, and that our challenge is to figure out how to get these two cultures to work together.

Gingrich says he largely agrees with Huntsman on China, but differentiates between the relationship between the American people and the Chinese people versus the relationship between the American and Chinese governments. He says we're always going to have certain tensions with an authoritarian government, but that we should be careful to not build an antagonistic relationship between our two peoples. Gingrich also spends some time talking about our domestic policies, saying, "If we're determined to be domestically stupid, it is impractical to ask the Chinese to match us in stupidity." He wants to make sure we're educating students in math and science so that they can compete with China and other countries.

Huntsman agrees with Gingrich's point about the American and Chinese peoples versus the governments, and says we need to take the American-Chinese relationship out of Washington and Beijing and develop more direct relationships at subnational and private levels. He says the conversation within the Chinese Communist Party is now being driven by the internet and their people's increasing awareness of the outside world.

Conclusion
I like this debate format a lot, and I'd love to see other candidates have debates like this as well, even not including Gingrich. A Perry-Santorum-Bachmann debate could be very interesting, and I think a Romney-Gingrich debate could easily reshape the current state of the race. I think I'd also like to see the proposed Gingrich-Obama debates even if Newt doesn't win the nomination, as that could be very entertaining.

Both men in this debate came across as very knowledgeable in every area they covered. There weren't any you-go-first moments like in the Cain-Gingrich debate, although Newt did say that Huntsman knew more about China than he did. Their different backgrounds were evident in their answers. Newt's responses tended to be more big-picture and broader in nature, building long-run historical narratives with anecdotes to justify the narratives. Huntsman's responses tended to be more specific, with more concrete plans, and the detailed facts that support his plans.

In general, I liked Huntsman's answers better. I mostly agree with him on Afghanistan, and absolutely agree about India. It was good to hear him bring up India because they're a very important country that is often ignored in these foreign policy discussions. By contrast, Gingrich's position on Afghanistan seemed to be rather patronizing. Several times he talks about bringing "modernity" and Western culture to the Muslim world, even as he opposes democracy in places like Egypt.

Neither man supports the Arab Spring as much as I would like, and although Gingrich doesn't actually oppose it, he seems a lot closer to opposing it than to supporting it. He seems just fine with the old-school idea that we should support brutal dictators who oppress and kill their own people. He doesn't at all address the idea that maybe the reason Egyptians don't like us is because we supported Mubarak for so long. Huntsman, on the other hand, talks about the United States being a "shining beacon" for hope and democracy in the world, and generally supports the Arab Spring. He would not have gone into Libya, but he justifies that by saying Gaddafi would have fallen anyway (which is dubious, but shows his support for democracy even if he disagrees about the methods used). Huntsman also proposed a regional free trade area in the long-term, which I think was the only mention of trade in this foreign policy debate.

I also agree with Huntsman more on defense spending. Gingrich wants to cut entitlements rather than defense. Although we should cut entitlements, the best reforms to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will take years if not decades to implement. Some, like personal retirement accounts, will be great in the long-term but will increase the deficit in the short-term. We can't balance the budget by only cutting entitlements, but Gingrich seems to disagree. Huntsman is more practical, saying that military spending is far higher than it needs to be, and pointing to a specific area, the procurements process, where we're spending more and getting less than we used to.

Overall, this debate reaffirmed some of the policy reasons why I don't like Newt Gingrich. It also reaffirmed that Jon Huntsman is possibly the best option on foreign policy at the moment. In terms of the underlying philosophy that informs their positions, I agree with Huntsman's far more than with Gingrich's. On the other hand, I don't really like Huntsman as a person. He's more of a downer than any of the other candidates, and that matters when you have to inspire your supporters to actually get out and vote for you. Of course, Gingrich isn't exactly inspiring either. Between the two men, I think I'd rather vote for Huntsman.

Eleventh Republican Primary Debate (DC)

CNN held the eleventh Republican primary debate on November 22nd in Washington, DC, cosponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. This debate had the regular cast of eight candidates, and was billed as a national security debate. A full video is here; a version with higher video quality and skipping the introductions is here.

Before this debate, I had a somewhat negative view of most of the candidates, including Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman. I had a more negative view of Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul, and a somewhat positive view of Herman Cain. As always, I've summarized the candidates' answers below, although I didn't score them as thoroughly as I have in the past. Usually I try to give a positive or negative score to almost every answer, but this time there were more answers that simply scored zero because they didn't move me one way or the other.

Rick Santorum

• There was some kind of technical failure that seems to have cut off the recording during part of Santorum's introduction (the same error is in all versions I found and shows up in the official transcript). It sounds like he's saying national security is the "one constitutional responsibility of the federal government," but that sounds more like something Ron Paul would say, not Rick Santorum, and as it cuts back in halfway through his sentence, I'm not sure if that's what he means or not.
• He supports "profiling," saying, "We should be trying to find the bomber, not the bomb." Who would fit the profile? "Muslims" and "younger males." There's a right way to do profiling, based on psychology, criminal history, that kind of thing. Santorum's got the wrong way to do it. (-1)
• He says the last time we faced a similar threat on American soil was the Civil War. He says of that time, "of course, Abraham Lincoln ran right over civil rights," and apparently thinks that's what we need to do today. Santorum really out-does Ron Paul in the quest to see who can make Gingrich look sane by comparison. (-2) 
• "I agree with Ron Paul. We are not fighting a war on terrorism." Rather, he says, we're fighting a war against radical Islam, and the Islamists are saying that they're just going to wait us out. Eventually, we'll get tired of fighting and go home, and then they'll be in charge again. He doesn't address it, but this raises the question of whether there will ever be a point where we can bring our troops home. (-1)
• He supports Bush's program against AIDS in Africa because "Africa was a country on the brink." He sees our humanitarian aid to Africa as a national security issue because it helps prevent radical Islam from getting a foothold there.
• He would be willing to compromise with Democrats, but raising taxes would push the economy back into recession and make the deficit situation worse. He's willing to compromise by cutting things that he doesn't really want to cut. (+1)
• He wants to make sure that products made by companies started by legal immigrants are made in America. Santorum is obviously not a believer in free trade. (-1)
• He says he has a four-point economic plan, including eliminating the corporate tax only for manufacturing and repatriation of profits. He's less specific on the other two points, which are general regulatory reform and energy policy.
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? The "militant socialists" of Central and South America. He criticizes Obama for delaying the Colombia FTA and for taking the wrong side in Honduras. (+1)

Ron Paul

• His introduction focuses on "needless and unnecessary wars" and how he's against them. I think everyone's against needless and unnecessary wars, they just don't agree on which ones count as needless and unnecessary.
• "The Patriot Act is unpatriotic." He says Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist and we dealt with him without the Patriot Act, so we don't really need it. I don't exactly like the Patriot Act, but Paul seems to miss the point that we only caught McVeigh after he successfully bombed the Murrah building. (-1)
• "You can prevent crime by becoming a police state." He warns about having a policeman in every house and rants for awhile. Ron Paul is a master at making Gingrich look sensible by comparison. (-1)
• We say too often that we're at war, he says, and points out that we're not in a Congressionally-declared war. He says terrorism isn't a person, it's a tactic, so we can't say that we're in a war on terrorism. Then he goes off and talks about how we're all at risk of assassination now because we can all be loosely associated with terrorist organizations.  (-1)
• He doesn't believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear facilities, but he says even if they did, it's none of our business. (-1)
• He does not support Bush's program against AIDS in Africa because it's foreign aid and he doesn't like the "endless wars" or what we did in Libya. (-1)
• "They're not cutting anything out of anything." He says thanks to baseline budgeting, the cuts to the military really just mean the budget won't go up as fast as it would have gone up before. (+1)
• He doesn't like the drug war, and he wants the money spent in Afghanistan and Pakistan to be spent instead on securing the US-Mexico border. He says if you have "an easy road to citizenship," that somehow amounts to a subsidy and it's going to encourage more illegal immigration. (-1)
• Asked a follow-up about the drug war, he says it's a "total failure." We should at least let sick people use marijuana, and alcohol and prescription drugs kill more people than illegal drugs.
• Someone from AEI asks about "an al Qaida affiliate, al Shabab" in Somalia, and Paul generalizes to al Qaida and overall Middle East policy. In fact, he doesn't address Somalia at all. (-1)
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? "Overreaction" and getting into another war. He says the Taliban doesn't want to kill us here, they only want to kill us over there. Even if that's strictly true, he misses the fact that we only care about the Taliban because they supported al Qaida who most certainly does want to kill us here in America. (-1)

Rick Perry

• His introduction is entirely about his wife for some reason.
• He wants to privatize the TSA (which would be really good) and strengthen the Patriot Act (not so good).
• Pakistan has shown us that "they cannot be trusted," and it sends the wrong message to the rest of the world to be giving them money. (+1)
• He still wants to "engage" with Pakistan, just "quit writing blank checks to these countries." He suggests starting some kind of trade zone between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, which is one of the few good long-term ideas expressed in this debate, but I can't see any of those countries agreeing to it any time soon.
• Given that decades of sanctions against Iran have failed so far, does he think that more sanctions will work? "Absolutely." He wants to "sanction" their central bank in order to "shut down that economy." (-1)
• He says he "signed six balanced budgets" in Texas. He doesn't mention that the Texas state legislature is required by the state constitution to pass balanced budgets, probably because that would be admitting he didn't actually have anything to do with balancing those budgets. That might be why he says he "signed" six balanced budgets, rather than saying that he actually balanced six budgets. (-1)
• He says he's had to work with Democrats as governor of Texas. That doesn't have quite the same impact as when Romney says it about Massachusetts. Republicans have held majorities in both houses of the state legislature since 2003, and they've held the majority in the state Senate since 1997.
• He says he wants a 20% flat personal tax, a 20% corporate tax and a part-time Congress.
• He wants "a 21st century Monroe Doctrine," and promises "that within 12 months of the inaugural, that [Mexican] border will be shut down, and it will be secure." I guess shutting it down would technically make it secure, but that's absolutely the wrong direction for this country to go in. (-2)
• He first wants to secure the border with Mexico, and any discussion about what to do with immigrants afterwards is "just an intellectual exercise" until the border is secure. At the same time, he does side with Gingrich's view that an illegal who has been here for some length of time should not be deported.
• We need to use several different tactics to pressure Syria's government, including a no-fly zone, economic sanctions and covert activity. He says we should take Syria seriously. Later in a response to Romney he seems to step back a bit and says the no-fly zone is "one of the options," not necessarily the option that we should take. (+1)
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? Communist China, even though he thinks they're "destined for the ash heap of history."

Mitt Romney

• He introduces himself by saying, "I'm Mitt Romney and yes, Wolf, that's also my first name." But as others have pointed out, it's not.
• "We could do a lot better" than TSA pat-downs, but he'd rather talk about how he agrees with Newt's criminal law/national security distinction. He says there's "a different form of law" for those who "attack the United States" vs those who merely commit crimes against its citizens. However, he stops short of implying that "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply on national security issues, as Newt does.
• He says America's current approval rating in Pakistan is 12%, and we need "to bring Pakistan into the 21st century, or the 20th century for that matter." I wonder if he thinks quotes like that will help raise Pakistani's opinions of Americans. (-1)
• He wants to pull out the surge troops from Afghanistan by December 2012 and all but "ten thousand or so" of the rest of the troops by the end of 2014. He says that's the timetable the generals on the ground prefer and that's what he'll do. When Huntsman criticizes him for this, Romney says he's been to Afghanistan and we need to keep our troops there until the generals say it's time to withdraw.
• He says, "They're cutting a trillion dollars out of the defense budget" and putting it into Obamacare instead, and this amounts to spending us into bankruptcy. But somehow spending the same amount of money on the military instead wouldn't be spending us into bankruptcy? How does that work? (-1)
• He rattles off a list of military programs that he says are being cut and insists that all of them are necessary for national security. He wants "crippling sanctions" on Iran and says he doesn't care if it makes gasoline more expensive. (-1)
• Mitt agrees with Bachmann that any kind of path to legality for illegal immigrants amounts to amnesty and is a magnet, but he doesn't say a thing about what we should do with illegals already here. He also agrees with Gingrich that we should give visas to people who get degrees in certain preferred fields. (-1)
• He says, "I'm not going to start drawing lines here about who gets to stay and who gets to go," then immediately says that illegal immigrants should not "get to stay." That sounds a lot like drawing a line about who gets to stay to me, it's just a different line from Newt's and Perry's. (-1)
• When asked about Somalia, he doesn't talk at all about Somalia, but rather generalizes to foreign policy in general and bashes Obama for a range of things that have nothing to do with Somalia. (-1)
• "This is not the time for a no-fly zone over Syria," although he does support sanctions and covert actions against the government.
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? What Perry and Santorum said, but also Iran, because that sure wasn't addressed yet. (-1)

Herman Cain

• The only introduction he gives is that he is a "businessman," and then he says "our national security has indeed been downgraded."
• He supports what he calls "targeted identification," which sounds like it's just Santorum-style profiling, although he says straight religious profiling is "oversimplifying it." He would be willing to "refine" the Patriot Act, but he thinks for the most part that it's a good law.
• He would support an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear facilities if he was satisfied that their plan had a reasonable chance of success. (+1)
• In a response to Ron Paul, he says he doesn't believe it's very likely that Israel would be able to come up with a plan that had a reasonable chance of success. He's giving Israel a condition that he doesn't think they can meet, but then says it's in America's interest to prevent Iran from influencing Afghanistan. He doesn't clarify how he plans to do that. (-1)
• He's not sure whether he would support Bush's program against AIDS in Africa because he doesn't know whether it's been successful or not. This is possibly the most common criticism of Cain's campaign, but shouldn't he know that already? (-1)
• An insecure border is a national security threat. He says terrorists have come into the country through Mexico and says more people were killed by violence in Mexico last year than in Iraq and Afghanistan. He repeats his four-point plan from the earliest debates: secure the border, enforce existing laws, clean up the immigration bureaucracy to make legal immigration easier and allow the states to deal with illegals already in the country.
• He would not support a no-fly zone over Syria, but would rather work to enact sanctions on Syria's oil exports. He doesn't seem to know what else to say, so he spends the rest of his time talking about growing the domestic economy. (-1)
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? Cyber attacks. (+1)

Newt Gingrich

• His says his father was in the infantry, and then he compliments Heritage and AEI.
• He wants to make a distinction between "national security requirements and criminal law requirements." He says that "it's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty, if it's a matter of criminal law," but not if it's a matter of national security. Hmm... that's not very reassuring. (-1)
• Asked to clarify, he says, "Again, very sharp division. Criminal law, the government should be frankly on defense and you're innocent until proven guilty. National security, the government should have many more tools in order to save our lives." He apparently really believes that "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply, even to American citizens, on matters of national security. (-1) 
• His response to Ron Paul is, "Timothy McVeigh succeeded." He wants a law that prevents attacks, not a law that punishes people after attacks.
• He asks Wolf for a chance to respond to Romney and Huntsman, then says their debate over how quickly to withdraw from Afghanistan confuses him and he'd rather talk about Pakistan. He wants to get tough with the Pakistanis and tell them, "help us or get out of the way, but don't complain if we kill people you're not willing to go after." That takes on a somewhat different connotation after the recent attack on the Pakistan military outpost...
• He's fine with cutting off Iran's supply of oil to Europe "now" because in the long term we'll be able to develop a "massive all-sources energy program in the United States" to replace that oil. He also wants to cut off their supply of gasoline, then sabotage what he says is "the only refinery they have." That reminds of something else. (-1)
• He is not willing to say that cuts to the military are "unacceptable" because he believes there are things that the military can do less expensively. (+1)
• He goes on to say that we're just not "serious" as a country, and that if we were, we could drill into enough oil fields to make the price of oil "collapse" within a year. (-1)
• He would only bomb Iranian nuclear facilities as a "last recourse" and only as part of a larger war to get rid of Ahmadinejad. He wants to "seriously talk about" that larger war. (-1)
• On Social Security reform, he supports the Chilean model, and yes, this is Gingrich, not Cain. He says Chile has guaranteed their citizens that if they did not earn returns in the private market as high as their previous government benefits, that the government would make up the difference, and that in thirty years, they've never had to make up that difference, even during the global recession. (+1)
• He wants special visas for foreigners who earn graduate degrees in certain preferred fields. He wants "something like a World War II Selective Service Board" to individually examine every illegal immigrant and determine on a case-by-case basis who's allowed to stay and who isn't. The decision would primarily be based on how long they've already been here, but would also include factors like whether or not they go to church. Yeah, there's no room for corruption in a setup like that. (-2)
• He says if someone has been here for 25 years and has family and is part of the community here, we shouldn't take them away from that family, but that if someone has just recently arrived, we should send them back.
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? He cites the Hart-Rudman Commission under Clinton, which he says concluded their were three major threats: a WMD in an American city, an EMP attack and cyber attacks. (+1)

Michele Bachmann

• She uses her introduction to talk about her family in the military and to send a Happy Thanksgiving to American troops both home and abroad.
• We need a national security law that's updated to deal with wireless communications. She complains that the underwear bomber was read his Miranda rights "within 45 minutes," saying that terrorists shouldn't be read their rights because "they don't have any." (-1)
• Pakistan is "one of the most violent, unstable nations" in the world, and that's why we need to give them money. They're "too nuclear to fail," she says. Now that's a phrase her Tea Party base will love... (-1)
• She calls Perry "naïve" because she's afraid that Pakistan's nukes will fall into al Qaida's hands, and end up in American cities. "We have to maintain an American presence," apparently indefinitely since she never says we should try to get Pakistan to give up their nukes. (-1)
• She says we're not writing blank checks to Pakistan, and we are exchanging intelligence with them. That may very soon no longer be the case, although of course she didn't know that at the time.
• She agrees with Newt on Iran. She criticizes Obama for giving the Iranians extra time to get a nuke by meeting with them without preconditions. Because not meeting with them at all would've ended their nuclear program somehow. (-1)
• She repeats for a third time her idea that a $2.4 trillion check is a "blank check." She says we need to talk about balancing the budget, not just cutting the deficit.
• She agrees with Gingrich about letting in more highly-skilled immigrants, but disagrees with him on giving any illegals already here any kind of path to legality. She sees that as another kind of magnet bringing more illegals into the country. (-1)
• What issue is she worried about that no one else is talking about? She starts talking about Iraq, but then mentions al Shabab and broadens it to the issue of homegrown terror and people in America supporting and joining terrorist organizations.

Jon Huntsman

• He has the most introduction-y introduction, talking not just about his family but also his experience as governor of Utah and ambassador.
• Asked about the Patriot Act, he says we need to be "very careful" with our liberties, but also supports DHS and doesn't raise any specific complaints about the Patriot Act.
• When someone from AEI asks about drone campaigns in Pakistan, he stalls for a bit but eventually gets around to saying he does support an expanded drone campaign.
• He says we've run the Taliban out of Kabul and had free elections since 2004, we've killed bin Laden and "upended, dismantled" al Qaida. He thinks we don't need as many troops in Afghanistan anymore, and we could accomplish our goals there with small numbers of special forces, drones and training units to help the Afghanis. (+1)
• Pressed by Romney, he thinks we could get by with 10-15,000 troops in Afghanistan. That sounds like the kind of compromise where everyone loses. Either he was right in his previous answer, that we've accomplished our primary goals and can now shift to more of a covert/special ops/drone attack kind of campaign, or we haven't, and we need to keep our troops there until we do. (-1)
• In response to Romney's comment about doing what the generals in Afghanistan tell him to do, Huntsman says the President is Commander-in-Chief, and that although he would listen to the advice of his generals and other staff, there have been times such as Vietnam where the generals have been wrong.
• Asked about defense cuts, he talks about the national deficit and something he calls "the trust deficit." He wants defense spending to be on the table when we're talking about cuts. "If we can't find some savings in the $650 billion budget, we're not looking closely enough." (+1) 
• "We missed the Persian Spring," because Obama declined to support the Iranian protesters. Sanctions against Iran won't work because China and Russia won't abide by the sanctions. (+1)
• What about the Arab Spring? He advocates caution and doesn't want to take sides just yet. I'm not sure why, but he thinks that's different than Obama's reaction to the Iranian protests. (-1)
• What issue is he worried about that no one else is talking about? He mentions China, but alludes to the possibly imminent Chinese collapse and says what he's really worried about is our national debt. He also mentions the "trust deficit" again.

Conclusion
Summing the candidates' scores, Huntsman again scored the highest with +1. Everyone else was negative; Cain was at -1, Perry at -2, Santorum at -3, Gingrich at -4 and Bachmann at -5. Paul and Romney pull up the rear at -7 each.

Since this debate, but before I was able to publish this post, Herman Cain has dropped out of the race. With the mounting sex scandals... wait, that's a bad word choice. Erm... anyway, Cain this time didn't talk about 999, but clearly demonstrated his lack of foreign policy knowledge. Most of his answers amounted to relying on his advisers or deflecting from the question to talk about the economy instead. The fact that he had the second-highest score despite this doesn't say very much for the rest of the candidates.

The current frontrunner Newt Gingrich had a few good moments, especially his willingness to cut military spending if necessary. I also like that he's willing to put in place a path to legality for at least some of the illegal immigrants currently in the country. But many of his answers betray a top-down, government-run ideology. The way to choose who to deport, he thinks, is with panels of experts who carefully examine each illegal's personal life, including where they go to church and who they associate with, to decide whether they deserve to stay. On civil liberties, he heavily implies that even American citizens are guilty until proven innocent on national security matters. Newt Gingrich seems to be just fine with "elites" running the show and making decisions about the minutiae of our lives, just as long as he's one of those elites.

Rick Perry loves shutting things down, whether it's the US-Mexico border or the entire country of Iran. After this debate, I'm not sure there's anything he wouldn't shut down. (Except maybe the Department of Energy?) The other Rick's best moment of the night, in my opinion, was at the very end, when all the candidates were asked what they're worried about that no one else is really talking about. Santorum was one of the few who actually answered the question, and was persuasive about it.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, was in rare form in this debate. No matter what the question was, whether it was the border, foreign aid or Somalia, he was able to turn his answer around until he got to talking about the "endless wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm not sure either Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann said anything I agree with in this debate, other than throwaway lines like how we "could do a lot better" than the TSA. Not only did Romney contradict himself on illegal immigrants in a single sentence, but he also got his own name wrong. Bachmann spent half of the debate saying how much she agrees with the current frontrunner and the rest of the time mostly talking nonsense.

The highest scorer of the night, at least in my estimation, was Jon Huntsman, despite pushing some concept he calls the "trust deficit" and even going back to talking about "our core." The only reason he scores so highly is that half of his answers didn't rise to the point of being scored at all, either positive or negative. Of the five answers that I did score, four contradicted each other (in two pairs). He says we've accomplished our goals in Afghanistan... but he wants to keep upwards of ten thousand troops there just in case we haven't. He criticizes Obama for not supporting democracy in Iran, and then turns around and says we shouldn't yet support democracy in the Arab Spring. His best answer of the night that he didn't later retract was when he said, "If we can't find some savings in the $650 billion budget, we're not looking closely enough."