Sixteenth Republican Primary Debate (SC)

The sixteenth debate was held in South Carolina on Monday January 16th, in anticipation of that state's primary on Saturday. This was the first debate since Jon Huntsman dropped out of the race (earlier that day), meaning, if memory serves, this is only the second debate to have only five candidates (the other being the very first debate back in May). The only two candidates to have been in both this debate and that first debate were Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Herman Cain and Tim Pawlenty have long since dropped out, and Gary Johnson is now going for the Libertarian nomination instead of the Republican one. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry were the three who replaced them. The full video is here, and the full transcript is here.

To get any potential biases out of the way, I had been leaning towards Huntsman before he dropped out. I don't think there's really any good options left, but if I had to pick someone this instant it would probably be Gingrich. Romney, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum all have big government tendencies in my opinion, but I think Romney and Perry would use big government to help themselves politically, while Santorum and Gingrich would at least use big government to do what they thought was best for the country, right or wrong. I tend to agree with Gingrich's vision more than Santorum, it seems. As for Ron Paul, he's too involved in conspiracy theories, and I think having him as the national spokesman for libertarianism hurts libertarianism far more than it helps.

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

Rick Perry

• "As Republicans, we cannot fire our nominee in September." He wants to see Romney's tax records, and makes a point of having visited a town with a steel mill that had been shut down by Bain. I like the quote, but in typical Perry fashion he embeds a great quote in the middle of a rambling, uncertain answer that should've made the same point in half the time.
• During the Santorum-Romney spat about felons' voting rights, Perry speaks up to say that's a perfect example of something that should be left to the states, and says both Santorum and Romney are Washington "insiders."
• On the issue of voting ID, he says, "South Carolina is at war with this federal government and with this administration." Really? That's the most appropriate way to phrase that? (-1)
• What should the highest tax percentage be? "Twenty percent, flat tax."
• He says we need to "have a conversation" about whether Turkey should remain in NATO, and we should not be giving them any foreign aid. He says we should not have any space between us and Israel.
• He criticizes the Obama administration's "disdain" for the troops, particularly for saying the Marines urinating on corpses was "despicable" and for reducing the military's budget.
• Asked what he would do about the housing market, he doesn't say anything particular about housing, but instead talks about Texas, his proposed 20% flat tax, a balanced budget amendment and a part-time Congress. Pressed by the moderator, he says cutting taxes and cutting regulation is all we need, and we've learned from Fannie and Freddie that "we don't need the federal government in the housing market anymore." (+1)
• He says we need "thousands" of National Guard troops on the border, with Predator drones, and "the issue isn't about how much is it going to cost." So much for making Washington DC inconsequential in American's lives. He promises that within a year of taking office, "that border will be locked down." That will do wonders for the economy! (-2)

Rick Santorum

• He considers it "a badge of honor" to have been attacked by left-wing organizations, and says Ron Paul's criticisms of him come from left-wingers. He said he "shouldn't have" voted for No Child Left Behind, and if he could, he would repeal it today.
• He repeats what he said in an earlier debate about his vote against a federal right-to-work law. He says as a Senator representing a non-right-to-work state, he did not want to vote for a federal law that would change his state's law. This sounds like a principled federalism/state's rights position, if he thinks right-to-work is a state issue. But then he says, as President, he would sign a right-to-work law. Santorum is usually not so baldly political in his positions, but I can't figure out how that makes sense without resorting to the idea that he was a Senator aiming for re-election in a Democratic state. (-1)
• Asked about the negativity in campaign ads, he brings up a Romney PAC ad that attacked him for voting to give felons the right to vote. He then turns and directly asks Romney whether he believes that felons who have served their time should be able to vote. Romney stalls and makes it clear he hasn't thought about the issue before ultimately saying that those convicted of violent felonies should not get their right to vote to back. Santorum then presses the attack, bringing up Massachusetts state law, obviously having done his homework. Santorum expects Romney to have too much control over his SuperPAC, but other than that Santorum comes across as a strong, knowledgeable fighter, and Romney is mostly left spinning, wondering what happened. (+1)
• He wants to send unemployment insurance to the states, and give them flexibility to decide whether to extend or not extend it in their state, or to add other provisions.
• What should the highest tax percentage be? Same as under Reagan, 28%.
• He says a study by Brookings found that if Americans do three things, they can avoid poverty-- of those who work, who graduate high school and who get married before having children, only 2% are in poverty. Santorum ignores the first two and concludes that we need to be using government programs to encourage young girls to get married. Never mind the direction of causation there; never mind conflating factors; never mind that many people now can't find a job whether they're married or not. Santorum ignores all of that and complains that Obama doesn't want to use taxpayer money to encourage young girls to get married. (-2)
• He doesn't support a unilateral military mission in Syria, but he does support "policies that effectuate the removal of Assad," though he doesn't say what exactly those would be.
• He says American citizens who have been detained as enemy combatants should have the right to petition the government in federal court, a right that we had before the NDAA which we no longer have. As President, he says he would "maintain the standard" we had before the NDAA, presumably meaning we would go back to the way it was before, although he could've said it more clearly. (+1)
• His corporate tax plan isn't picking winners and losers because he'll "cut corporate taxes for everybody," just more for some than for others. (-1 for lack of self awareness)
• He says Mitt's Social Security plan isn't bold enough, and Newt's is "irresponsible" and "fiscal insanity." He wants to have personal retirement accounts like Newt, just not now. Not until after we've balanced the budget-- never mind that by then it will be too late. He wants to get rid of Social Security's deficit with means testing, and complains that there are 60,000 seniors earning more than $1 million per year. (-1)
• In response to Newt's plan to consolidate federal bureaucracies to pay for the Chilean model, he says we should do that anyway to reduce the deficit we already have rather than do it to pay for a new program.
• He says he had a record of 100% agreement with the NRA, and, like Romney, says the times he's voted for increased gun restrictions were working with the NRA trying to pass a bill that wasn't as restrictive as the anti-gun lobbyists really wanted. He attacks Ron Paul for voting against a bill removing gun manufacturer's liability in gun-related injuries where the gun was functioning properly, saying if Ron Paul had had his way, it would have de facto removed the Second Amendment.

Mitt Romney

• He says at Bain they invested in over a hundred companies, and some of them failed while others succeeded. He says he gained experience "turning around tough situations" in the private sector, and carried that on to the Olympics and to the governorship of Massachusetts.
• Responding to Perry, he says the steel mill that had been shut down was a result of dumping from China, and that some 40 other steel mills were also shut down at that time. He then uses that to say we need to "crack down on cheaters" like China. Interesting way to turn the question around even if I disagree with his policy.
• He's asked about job losses at a specific company Bain took over, and says it was in a shrinking industry and that they had to consolidate two factories, that all the union members at the closing factory were offered non-union jobs at the remaining factory, but a lot of them didn't want to make the switch.
• During one of his answers, Santorum turns and directly asks Romney whether he believes that felons who have served their time should be able to vote. Romney stalls and makes it clear he hasn't thought about the issue before ultimately saying that those convicted of violent felonies should not get their right to vote to back. Santorum then presses the attack, bringing up Massachusetts state law, obviously having done his homework. Santorum comes across as a strong, knowledgeable fighter, and Romney is mostly left spinning, wondering what happened. (-1)
• A question from Twitter says, "convince me you won't change again." He talks about being pro-life and anti-gay marriage, and frames both issues in a way that suggests he's never really changed his position. He says he's "always" been against gay marriage, and on pro-life issues, he implies he's always been pro-life, but just wanted to keep the government out of the issue. That doesn't exactly match what he's said before. Romney's problem isn't so much that he's changed positions, it's that he doesn't deal with the changes in a consistent manner. (-1)
• He comes out strong against bailouts, a lot stronger than he has before, saying we shouldn't look to "push government into the American economy" but rather pull it out. He doesn't want to bail out Europe, and is against giving anyone in government a "blank check" to pay back their friends, the way previous bailouts have. (+1)
• What should the highest tax percentage be? 25%.
• He's willing to release his tax records, but not until tax season in April, after the primaries will probably be over. (-1)
• He claims to "love legal immigration" and says, "I absolutely believe that those who come here illegally should not be given favoritism or a special route to becoming permanent residents or citizens that's not given to those people who have stayed in line legally." Of course, it never occurs to him that requiring people to stand in line for years on end just to come here contradicts his claim to love legal immigration. If he doesn't want illegals to have a "special route," why not extend the DREAM Act to allow everyone the same easy way in? If he really loves legal immigration, that shouldn't be a problem, should it? (-1)
• On Afghanistan, he doesn't want to negotiate with the Taliban, and especially not from "a position of weakness" after we've announced our withdrawal date.
• He says he would have signed the NDAA, and then goes on, over booing, to defend the NDAA's authorization to indefinitely detain American citizens. He says there are "a lot of things" Obama has done wrong, but says, "I don't think he is going to abuse this power," and says he wouldn't either. Glad to know he has such faith in Obama, but even if he never abuses that power, what about the next President? Or the one after that, or after that? He says people, even American citizens, who join al Qaeda, "are not entitled to rights of due process." How exactly, without due process, do you determine which American citizens have taken some action that you think strips them of their right to due process in the first place? In all the debates so far, this position is I think the most dangerous thing I've heard any of the candidates say. What makes it worse is that the moderator even gave him a possible out-- that despite it's problems, the NDAA authorized funding for the troops, so he could have said, "I don't like it but would have signed it to get funding to the troops." He doesn't take that route. He doesn't even mention it. Not only would he have signed the bill, but he truly believes that indefinite detention of American citizens is a good thing. He gives the impression that even if Obama hadn't signed it, he would have once he got into office. (-3 I usually give scores in the ±2 range, but this is serious enough to go outside that range for once)
• He would keep Social Security the way it is for those 55 and older. For the rest of us, he would apply two different inflation adjustments, a lower one for the rich and a higher one for everyone else. He would also raise the retirement age "a year or two," but for the most part would keep the system in place the way it is today. (-1)
• On Medicare, he first criticizes Obama for cutting Medicare to fund Obamacare, then says he agrees with Paul Ryan's plan to shift to premium support. He would also use means testing, giving lower benefits to the rich and higher benefits to everyone else. So he wants you to be mad at Obama for changing Medicare even though he wants to change Medicare too. At least I like the Ryan plan, so that would be good, but his rhetoric about Obama cutting Medicare makes me worry about whether he actually believes the rest of what he says. And again, this is Romney's problem-- the things he says simply lack internal consistency.
• After the Santorum-Gingrich split on Social Security, he says he agrees with Santorum. He wants to keep Social Security mostly the way it is now, but charge no taxes on income used for savings by the middle class.
• He says he does not think the nation needs new gun laws, that we just need to enforce the laws we already have. Asked about his record in Massachusetts with banning assault weapons and raising gun-related fees 400%, he says he signed a bill that was supported by both the pro-gun and anti-gun lobbies, and says even if it restricted some rights, it opened up others, like the right to cross a road with a gun while hunting. He says he's not a "serious hunter" but he still enjoys it.
• He calls out Gingrich for saying he needs "influence" over his SuperPAC, getting Gingrich to admit that "absolutely" such influence would violate federal law. But then he waters down his point by criticizing Gingrich for a SuperPAC that supports Newt making a film with falsehoods about Mitt. So, once again, what does he really believe?
• He says they all want to get rid of SuperPACs, and allow money to be given directly to campaigns so the campaigns can run the ads they want to run. The camera pans out and everyone except Ron Paul is nodding in agreement (though to be fair, Paul is at the furthest end from the camera and with YouTube's resolution it's impossible to see his facial expression).

Newt Gingrich

• He says Romney has been running on his record at Bain, so that makes it appropriate to question his record at Bain. He says Obama will be asking the same questions in the general election, so someone has to ask them now to make sure Romney has good answers. That's a convenient flip from his position earlier in the campaign, but at least it's a flip in the right direction.
• He wants to tie all unemployment insurance to business-run training programs, saying "99 weeks is an associate degree." (+1)
• What should the highest tax percentage be? 15% flat tax, and he wants to "reduce government to meet the revenue, not raise revenue to meet the government." (+1)
• Asked about things he's said that have been portrayed as racially insensitive (at best), such as calling Obama a "food stamp president" and saying that poor children should work as janitors in their schools, he has perhaps his strongest answer in any debate yet. He shares stories of children, including his daughter, who started working young and learned good a work ethic. He says for what they pay janitors in NYC, they could hire 30 kids in place of one janitor, and not only would it be a learning experience for the kids, but they'd get money too, and "Only the elites despise earning money." After a long applause, he says, "So here's my point. I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness. And if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn some day to own the job." Not only does this get applause, he actually gets a standing ovation as the moderator cues to the commercial break. (+2)
• He calls Paul's Chinese dissident analogy "utterly irrational." "A Chinese dissident who comes here seeking freedom is not the same as a terrorist who goes to Pakistan seeking asylum." (+1)
• He's adopted the Chilean model for Social Security, saying it would be entirely optional. It would include a guaranteed benefit, but he says in Chile they've had a similar guaranteed benefit for 30 years and it's an "historical fact" that they've never had to pay out, because everyone has earned more than the guaranteed benefit. He says government won't tell you when to retire, and it turns "every American" into an investor. He says it would reduce wealth inequality by 50% over a generation "because everybody becomes a saver and an investor." It's a very strong, hopefully convincing argument for the Chilean model. (+2)
• In response to Santorum's charge that his Social Security plan is "fiscal insanity," he says he can pay for the plan by consolidating 185 separate federal bureaucracies dealing with the poor into a single block grant to the states. I'm skeptical that he can get enough money from that, but it's still probably a good idea overall. Responding again to Santorum, he says switching to the Chilean model would add $7-8 trillion to the economy over a generation because of the reinvestment, and adds that he can balance the budget without hurting today's youth because he "helped balance the budget for four consecutive years, for the only time in your lifetime."
• He criticizes Romney for not having any influence over his SuperPAC, the one that he is legally forbidden from having influence over. Talk about a low blow. (-1)
• He says he has a 98.6% positive rating over twenty years with National Right to Life, and that the only bill they had disagreed on was welfare reform. (+1)
• No Child Left Behind is "clearly a failure" because he disagrees with standardized testing, and he says almost no teachers like it. Well, of course not. In what industry do employees actually like their performance reviews? That doesn't mean they shouldn't be done. Now it might make sense to oppose NCLB on federalism grounds, but he doesn't. He opposes it because of standardized testing. That's really disheartening to hear. (-1)

Ron Paul

• He doesn't have a problem with negative advertising, and says his only problem with a recent ad attacking Santorum was that he couldn't fit in all his negative points in just 60 seconds.
• He wouldn't close military bases on American soil, in fact, he says, "I'd probably have more bases here at home." He only wants to close overseas bases. He has a few good zingers, saying there's a difference between military spending and defense spending, and that somehow building an embassy in Baghdad bigger than the Vatican counts as defense, but then he starts talking about the "military industrial complex." I know it's an Eisenhower quote, but I just have a hard time taking seriously anyone that uses that phrase. It's too much of a conspiracy theory codeword, and Paul is too agreeable with conspiracy theories in the first place.
• What should the highest tax percentage be? "Up until 1913 it was zero percent. What's so bad about that?" He also says inflation is a tax, and he wants inflation to be zero as well.
• He's concerned about the racial disparity in arrests, convictions and executions. He says we need to "address" the drug war but stops short of advocating actual legalization, even though it's no secret that's what he supports. He says Martin Luther King, Jr. would agree with him on drugs, and on "the wars" as well.
• Asked about a statement he made that the Osama raid violated international law, he says we should have worked with the Pakistan government and had them catch him and turn him over to us. Considering the circumstantial evidence at least indicates the Pakistanis would've been more likely to warn him to get away, somehow I don't think that would have worked. He says if a Chinese dissident came to America, we wouldn't accept China killing him within America, so we shouldn't have killed bin Laden within Pakistan. (-1)
• He says we need to have a "golden rule" in foreign policy, and complains that we're ramping up to go to war with Iran. Interestingly, the "golden rule" line is boo'd, but when he says he wants to bring the troops home, he's applauded.
• He distinguishes between the Taliban and al Qaeda, saying the Taliban just wants to keep foreigners off their land, while al Qaeda wants to come here to the US and kill us.
• He, obviously, opposes the NDAA and says, "Don't give up on our American judicial system so easily." He says we've arrested 362 people related to al Qaeda, and 260 of them have been tried and convicted and are in jail, so the system works without special indefinite detentions from the NDAA. (+1)
• Defending his vote on the gun manufacturer's liability issue, he says tort reform is a state issue, and that includes medical tort reform, and he supports various tort reforms at the state level, but not the federal level.

Conclusion
Adding up the scores, Gingrich and Romney were clear outliers. Gingrich got +6, one of the best scores of any debate, and Romney got -7, one of the worst scores of any debate. In the middle, Santorum got -3, Perry got -2 and Paul got 0.

Rick Perry was largely a non-presence at this debate. He tried to pick a fight with Romney and Santorum, calling them Washington insiders, but neither took the bait. He mostly lost points for wanting the border to be "locked down." Ron Paul had a few good points, like distinguishing between military spending versus defense spending, and the different goals of al Qaeda and the Taliban. But he tempered that with some general zaniness, referring to the "military industrial complex," calling for zero income tax and zero inflation, saying MLK would agree with him and equating Osama bin Laden with Chinese dissidents.

Rick Santorum was clearly on the offensive, going after everybody else-- except Perry. He went after Romney on SuperPAC ads, felons voting and his Massachusetts record; he went after Newt on entitlement reform and balancing the budget; and he went after Paul on the Second Amendment. He obviously had done his homework, catching Romney flat-footed at one point, and attacking each of his major rivals on their strongest issues-- Mitt's executive experience, Newt's budget experience and Paul's constitutionalist reputation. But even though I liked his style, I didn't like his content, particularly on poverty, taxes and entitlement reform.

Mitt Romney had a horrible debate, and it's no wonder that his polls tanked and Newt's started rising right after this debate. Romney was attacked by both Santorum and Gingrich, and was handily beaten by both of them. Not only was he lacking in style, but he was horribly lacking in content. He actually defended indefinite detentions of American citizens without due process, explicitly saying that we should take away due process. Nearly every good thing he said was countered by something negative in the same answer, and his lack of internal consistency in his beliefs really shone through this time.

By contrast, Newt Gingrich had possibly his best debate of the entire season. He deflected Santorum's attack, and himself ably attacked both Romney and Paul. He made his points and made them powerfully, and for the most part, I agreed with them. I like that he's adopted the Chilean model for Social Security, as that was one of my favorite things about Cain. And his answer on the work ethic and racism question was pure gold. If he can hold that up through the rest of the campaign, and if there aren't any (more) skeletons in the closet, I think he'll be the nominee.

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.

Twelfth Republican Primary Debate (IA)

The twelfth Republican primary debate was held this past Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. The full, official ABC video is here, and the transcript is here. This was the first debate since Herman Cain left the race, and with Jon Huntsman skipping the debate to campaign in New Hampshire, only six candidates took to the stage. (There was also the "Huckabee Forum" on December 3rd, attended by the same six candidates as this debate, but that wasn't so much a debate as a series of back-to-back interviews.)

To get any potential biases out of the way, I don't like any of the candidates who showed for 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 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. As always, I've summarized the candidates answers below, and scored and responded to them along the way.

Rick Santorum

• He complains that manufacturing employment has gone from 21% of Americans to 9%, and wants to subsidize manufacturing to stop the shift towards a service-oriented economy. Of course, he doesn't say it like that, but that's exactly what his manufacturing-only tax cuts amount to. (-1)
• Diane Sawyer complains that only Romney supplied a number of jobs that he expects to create in his first term, and Santorum speaks up to say he doesn't think the government can "from the top down, dictate how many jobs" will be created. (+1)
• "You either care about Social Security and you want to fund it, or you don't." Santorum makes clear that he does not support extending the payroll tax cut. (-1)
• He counters Newt's claim that all conservatives supported the individual mandate in the 1990s, and says in 1994 he supported medical savings accounts as a bottom-up solution instead of the top-down solutions of Hillarycare and the individual mandate. (+1)
• He says Bachmann is a consistent conservative, but she's been fighting and losing, whereas he has a history of fighting and winning (until he lost by an 18-point margin in 2006, that is).
• In response to Bachmann, he says he was in the minority too, but still found a way to fight and win, not just fight. He says he was part of the Gang of Seven and helped send Dan Rostenkowski to jail in the Congressional Post Office scandal. (+1)
• "Character counts," he says. Although marital infidelity should not be a disqualifying factor, it should be a factor. Voters want someone they can trust. (+1)
• On Newt's remarks on Palestinians, he says we need to "speak the truth," but "do so with prudence." He agrees with Mitt that we shouldn't say that Palestinians are an "invented people."
• He says the most important need that was met for him growing up was having both a mother and a father who provided him with a supportive home. He's worried about the family breaking down and leading to economic struggle.
• He says when he first entered politics, he learned about conservatism from Newt Gingrich in the late 80s.

Rick Perry

• He says his distinguishing idea is a 20% flat tax, but he doesn't talk about it much. He promises to balance the budget by 2020, with spending at 18% of GDP. He also references the $7.7 trillion he says "was being put into these people and these banks," which wasn't at all, but it helps him say the problem with the economy is the link between DC and Wall Street.
• George Stephanopoulos notes that Perry is against extending the Social Security payroll tax cut, and Perry says, "Very much so." (-1)
• Bachmann is right that both Romney and Gingrich were for the individual mandate, and we need a candidate who can oppose Obama on the individual mandate. (+1)
• He brings up Mitt's book, and especially the difference between the hardcover and softcover editions where he eliminated the line about replicating Romneycare for the entire country. Romney offers his $10,000 bet in response, and Perry says he's "not in the betting business."
• Should voters consider marital fidelity in judging a candidate? He says his marriage vows are both to his wife and to God, and a vow to God is "even stronger than a handshake in Texas." Fidelity is important, he says, because if someone cheats on their spouse, they'd cheat on their business partners or anyone else too. (+1)
• He says if we enforce the immigration laws we already have, then we wouldn't have so many illegals already here to deal with. He complains that Obama isn't deporting enough people, despite the fact that Obama has set new records for the number deported every year that he's been in office. (-1)
• Newt's comments on Palestine are a "minor issue" especially compared with Obama's policies, from not supporting the Iranian protesters in 2009 to how he handled Egypt and Libya to the recent drone we lost to Iran. Memorable quote of the evening: "He had two opportunities-- well, he didn't have two opportunities, he had two choices-- actually, he had three." I don't know why they say Perry's a bad debater...
• Asked about personal hardships, Perry talks about growing up in a house without running water when he was little, but ultimately says he's never felt like he didn't have everything he needed.
• If states want to have anti-obesity or pro-exercise programs, they can. He's fine with big government as long as it's big state government, not big federal government. He also wants a part-time Congress and a balanced budget amendment, two things that might be good but will never happen. (-1)
• Of the other candidates on stage, he's learned the most from Ron Paul, particularly about the Federal Reserve. (-1)

Mitt Romney

• He repeats his seven-point plan from previous debates. Those points are: lower employer taxes (+1), regulation that encourages private sector employment, less free trade policies including limiting trade with China (-1), energy policies to encourage domestic energy production, the rule of law, policies to encourage human capital growth, and a balanced budget (+1).
• He criticizes Obama for not even having a plan to fix the economy right after Bachmann got done criticizing Obama's plan for increasing the deficit. He also largely avoids talking about extending the payroll tax cut, other than briefly saying he doesn't want to raise anybody's taxes.
• Asked about Gingrich's statement that he is more conservative than Romney and more electable than anybody else, Mitt says he disagrees, then talks about Obama for awhile. 
• He makes an off-hand comment that he and Newt have "a lot of places" where they disagree. Stephanopoulos asks him to name some, and after stalling for awhile, he says Newt supports a lunar colony, relaxing child labor laws and cutting the capital gains tax for the wealthy.
• He says it's true if he'd beaten Teddy Kennedy, he could've been a career politician, but that if he'd gotten into the NFL like he wanted as a kid, he could've been a football star. It's a great laugh line, and he goes on to say that losing to Kennedy forced him to go back to the private sector and learn the lessons that he needed to learn about how the economy works. It's a great way to turn Newt's line around into something positive. (+1)
• "I know Newt Gingrich, and Newt Gingrich is a friend of mine. But Newt Gingrich and I are not clones, I promise." He goes on to defend Romneycare and criticize Obama for cutting Medicare. (-1)
• Gingrich favored a national individual mandate, while Romney has only ever favored a statewide individual mandate for Massachusetts. He seems to think the mandate itself is good policy, as long as it's invoked at the state level. His problem with Obamacare is that it raised taxes and cut Medicare. (-1)
• In the moment that got the most press after the debate, Mitt offers a $10,000 bet to Rick Perry about the content of his book, and whether or not he supported an individual mandate for the rest of the country. Perry, of course, declined the bet.
• Asked about marital fidelity, he instead talks about Obama and offers platitudes about how he wants to make it good to be in the middle class in America again.
• He wants to deport all current illegal immigrants and send them to the back of the line if they want to get back into the US legally, no matter how many years it might take them to go through our legal process. He says others have been waiting in line legally, and any kind of "amnesty" would be unfair to them. He acts like it's illegal immigrants keeping out the legal ones waiting in line, rather than the US government's own quotas. If he really feels so badly for immigrants waiting in line, why not just raise the quotas, or get rid of the quotas entirely? That would be too intellectually honest for Romney. (-1)
• He agrees with most of what Gingrich said about Palestinians, but not that they are an invented people. He says the United States should not be saying things that make it more difficult for the Israelis to talk to the Palestinians, and in that he includes both Obama's 1967-borders statement and Newt's invented-people statement. (+1)
• He says he didn't grow up poor, but his father did, and his father made sure that Romney learned a good work ethic and to have compassion for others through their church's ministries.
• Should other states adopt Massachusett's individual mandate? "States can do whatever the heck they want to do." He also says "we have no government insurance" in Massachusetts, since a government mandate to buy private insurance is so much better. He repeats his opposition to a federal mandate, reinforcing the idea that his opposition to Obamacare is on federalism grounds, not because he actually thinks it's bad policy. (-1)
• He says he's learned about leadership from all the other candidates on stage, but especially from Ron Paul's ability to energize his supporters. Mitt says whenever he goes to these debates, the only signs he sees are Ron Paul signs.

Newt Gingrich

• To create jobs, he would lower taxes, have less regulation, have "an American energy plan," and "be positive" about people who create jobs. He wants no capital gains tax, no estate tax, a 12.5% corporate income tax, and allow writing off new equipment in one year. That last points sounds like an accounting gimmick to me, but I like the rest of it. (+1)
• George Stephanopoulos notes that Gingrich is for extending the Social Security payroll tax cut, which presumably is true since Gingrich doesn't speak up to contradict him.
• He tells Mitt, "the only reason you didn't become a career politician is because you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994." It gets boos from the crowd, but I think it's an awesome line. (+1)
• When he grew up, the space program was "real," and inspired students to study math and science, but NASA has been "bureaucratized." (+1)
• He says janitors in New York schools are paid twice as much as teachers, and that if we took half of them and had students do the work instead, they would learn a healthy work ethic and make some money.
• He says if you want to create jobs, you have to cut taxes for those who have capital and can use it to create jobs, meaning those who earn more than $200,000 a year. He criticizes Romney for wanting to cut the capital gains tax only for those making less than that amount. (+1)
• He agrees with Ron Paul that the housing bubble came from the Federal Reserve, although he downplays the role Freddie Mac played. He says he wasn't a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, he was a strategic advisor. Considering lots of people have been saying contradictory things about what Newt did for Freddie Mac, it's hard to know what the truth is here.
• He says Bachmann's claim that he was lobbying was not true, and that even if it was, he made a lot more money from his books and speaking deals. Answers that make ya go hmm... (-1)
• In the 1990s, he says conservatives came up with the individual mandate as an alternative to Hillarycare, but once Hillarycare was defeated, they took a closer look and found problems with the mandate. He sees this as a good justification for having once supported the mandate, but it makes me wonder, what if it had been adopted back then? Do we really want a President who adopts a newfangled idea just because it's different from the other guy's without actually thinking through whether it's a good idea or not? (-1)
• Bachmann questions whether we can trust Newt or Mitt to repeal Obamacare once in office. Newt simply says, "Yes," and the crowd goes wild. I'm increasingly getting the sense that I would not fit in as an Iowan Republican.
• Voters "have the right to ask every single question," including ones about marital fidelity. He admits he's made mistakes and he's "had to go to God for forgiveness." He says people should "measure who I am now and whether I'm a person they can trust." (+1)
• Deportation should be "dramatically easier," he says. He also repeats his plan to make English the "official language of government" and use Selective Service-style boards to decide on a case-by-case basis whether someone actually gets deported or not. (-1)
• Hamas and Fatah don't admit to Israel's right to exist, so we shouldn't be afraid to say that they're an invented people. He says this is "factually correct" and "historically true," and comes very close to saying all Palestinians are terrorists. He later says he's not making things difficult for Israel, but Obama is. (-1)
• He says he grew up in an apartment above a gas station in Pennsylvania, and with his wife runs the "small business" of Gingrich Productions, so he understands the struggles that small business owners face.
• He now thinks the individual mandate is unconstitutional at the federal level because if Congress can compel you to buy health insurance, they can compel you to buy anything. He wants to move towards medical savings accounts and away from the "third-party payment model," whether public or private. (+1)
• He's learned the most from Rick Perry on Tenth Amendment issues, and from Rick Santorum on Iran. He says, "if we do survive, it will be in part because of people like Rick [Santorum] who've had the courage to tell the truth about the Iranians for a long time."

Ron Paul

• He says they're all for tax cuts, but he alone understands where recessions come from-- the Federal Reserve. Recessions are actually "corrections," he says and we haven't actually corrected the economy because of all the bailouts. He would cut a trillion dollars from the federal budget in his first year.
• George Stephanopoulos notes that Paul is for extending the Social Security payroll tax cut, which presumably is true since Paul doesn't speak up to contradict him.
• Later, Paul confirms that he is for extending the payroll tax cut because he doesn't want to raise taxes. He also wants to pay for it by reducing spending, especially military spending overseas, and complains about the size of our embassy in Baghdad. (+1 for supporting the tax cut, even if I don't like Paul's inevitable dovetail into complaining about the wars)
• Gingrich has been hypocritical on single-payer health care, by supporting TARP and by taking money from Freddie Mac. Paul says that Newt will have "a little bit of trouble" competing with him on consistency.
• Character is "very important," but he doesn't want to talk about marital fidelity, he'd rather talk about taking the oath of office seriously. He says if we took that oath seriously, the government would be 80% smaller and we wouldn't have the Federal Reserve or the Patriot Act.
• He criticizes Gingrich's statement that Palestinians are an "invented people" because he says we shouldn't be dealing with problems like that. Then he turns around and says that Gingrich is "technically correct" and under the Ottoman Empire the Palestinians didn't have a state, but neither did the Israelis. (-1)
• He says he grew up poor but "I didn't even know it." He and his wife worked to pay for his college to become a doctor. He says what we're seeing now is "the elimination of the middle class" because of bad monetary policy.
• Government should not be involved in protecting you from yourself, including programs against obesity or promoting exercise. He says all government is force, and if people don't like the force of the individual mandate, they should see that paying Medicare taxes is also force.
• He says he's learned that if you persistently present your case, the opposition will eventually come around and agree with you, like Rick Perry has on the Federal Reserve.

Michele Bachmann

• She calls her jobs plan the "win-win-win plan," explicitly referencing Cain's 999. She wants to lower both individual and corporate tax rates, but raise taxes on the 47% who currently don't pay income taxes. She also wants to get rid of Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and the EPA, and "legalize American energy," whatever that means.
• The Social Security payroll tax cut should never have been implemented in the first place. She says it took away $111 billion from the Social Security trust fund, and doesn't seem to notice that it gave $111 billion back to taxpayers and employers. She also repeats Obama's name as often as she can, trying to tie him to the tax cut that she opposes. (-1)
• She says Gingrich was a lobbyist for Freddie Mac. She calls him "the epitome of the establishment... the epitome of a consummate insider." She attacks Newt for supporting the individual mandate for longer than Obama has, and she attacks Romney for being the only governor to institute "socialized medicine." She repeatedly calls them "Newt Romney," saying they're basically the same as each other, and they're also close to Obama. (+1)
• Saying that 2012 will be our only chance to repeal Obamacare, she asks whether we can trust either Newt or Mitt to actually repeal it once in office. (+1)
• She says she fought Nancy Pelosi on health care and didn't "sit on [her] hands" even though she was in the minority. She promises to work to elect a Republican supermajority in the Senate and maintain the majority in the House.
• She refers to the Federalist papers and that voters need to know "the measure of a man" or woman who wants to be President. She says she's willing to talk about her religion and her family because that goes to showing voters who she really is. (+1)
• Asked about Newt's comments on Palestine, she defers and instead talks about the culture in Palestine that vilifies the Israelis.
• She opposed the bailout because it allowed the banks to have private gains but socialized losses. She was born in Iowa and when her parents divorced she started working at 13 years-old. She says she still clips coupons and understands the hardships people are going through.
• She's learned the most from Herman Cain, who showed the benefit of being plainspoken and making policies simple and straightforward enough to understand.

Conclusion
With only six candidates, this debate allowed for some more in-depth responses. They actually revisited the individual mandate issue towards the end based on real-time feedback through Yahoo, which is pretty cool. There also seemed to be more questions in this debate where every candidate was given the chance to respond to the same question (or at least very similar questions), unlike previous debates where everyone got different questions. On the other hand, this was less of a policy-focused debate than others, and got into issues like marital fidelity and personal hardship stories.

Adding up the scores, I think this was the closest-scoring debate yet. Santorum, Gingrich and Bachmann all scored +2, while Paul scored 0, Romney scored -1 and Perry scored -2.

Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann both had a pretty good night. Santorum did a great job of outlining his past and running on his record, even if I disagree with some of his policies. Bachmann clearly was aiming to pick up Cain's supporters with her "win-win-win" motto, and launched an effective "Newt Romney" attack against the two frontrunners. There was also some interesting back-and-forth between Santorum and Bachmann as they both jockey for position to be the next "flavor of the week."

Ron Paul didn't talk as much about the Federal Reserve and the wars as he usually does. He also got accolades from both Rick Perry and Mitt Romney at the end of the debate, which certainly says something about his rising position within the Republican party.

Rick Perry, as always, had a couple flubs and spent most of his non-flubbing time attacking Mitt Romney. That led to Romney's most-talked-about line of the night, the apparently-scripted $10,000 bet offer. I thought what he said about the individual mandate was far more interesting, since Romney seems to believe the individual mandate is actually good policy. His opposition to Obamacare is based on federalism; he disagrees with what level of government should carry out these policies, not whether the policies should be carried out in the first place.

Newt Gingrich did well in this debate. He didn't debate the moderators, and for the most part did a good job defending and/or repenting for his past policies and his past personal actions. At the same time, he wasn't quite the target that Cain was at this point in his rise. Bachmann targeted Newt and Mitt jointly, and Mitt obliged the moderators by attacking Newt when asked to, but the others didn't. Perry only really attacked Romney, while Santorum primarily went after Bachmann, and Ron Paul didn't go after anyone. Does that mean they expect Gingrich to fall just like Perry and Cain before him, so they don't need to attack? If so, that reluctance to attack might prove to be a self-defeating prophecy.