Reasons for Optimism VIII

1. The number of people imprisoned in the US has been falling since 2008.

2. More cars were sold in 2012 than any other year since the recession began, and sales grew 13% over 2011, more than in any year since 1984.

3. Audi is showing off technology that would allow a car to autonomously find a parking spot within a parking garage and park itself. No word yet on when this will be available for consumers, but a garage-only feature like this might circumvent some of the legal grey areas with autonomous cars, at least in privately-owned garages.

4. The Earth is getting greener. And I don't mean humans are becoming more environmentally-conscious; I mean the physical Earth is literally greener, as measured by satellites, because there's more plants. There are two reasons plants are growing more: higher temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels. This is a another piece of evidence that climate tends to have stable equilibria.

5. Fully 64 new supplies of energy have been discovered in Africa in the past five years, and the pace seems to be picking up (ht). When combined with the previously-featured GravityLight, Africa is on track to save millions of lives in the coming years.

6. The incredible exponential growth of US oil production continues. We are now producing seven million barrels per day for the first time since March 1993.

7. More than two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about their own economic situation in 2013. On the other hand, nearly two-thirds are pessimistic about the economy as a whole. If you believe in Hayek's local knowledge, this is a great reason to feel optimistic about the economy as a whole (though perhaps pessimistic about the media's portrayal of it).

8. Herbert E. Meyer, who is called "the official who predicted communism's demise," says the good news that nobody is noticing is the global rise of the middle class (ht). In a recent interview [mp3] with Jerry Bowyer, Meyer says, "When you stand back from all the yelling and the screaming…you can see what I believe is the most important trend in the word…the world is emerging from poverty fast. ... Each year between fifty and one hundred million human beings are leaving poverty behind. ... By the way, it’s going to be a five billion-person middle class. This will become the most powerful force in the world. Their demand for our goods and services will set off an economic boom…I believe that we’re heading for not just a sonic boom, but maybe a supersonic boom."

Recent Reasons for Optimism VI

While it's been awhile, I think it's time for another installment of Recent (more or less) Reasons for Optimism.

The Best of Humanity
1. Buzzfeed profiles some of the heroes of Sandy Hook. A single man embodied the worst that humanity can be and caused enormous suffering. But these six women stood up to the challenge and saved dozens of lives, some at the cost of their own.

2. Buzzfeed also has a list of "26 Moments that Restored Our Faith in Humanity." My favorites include the responses to Hurricane Sandy at #4 and #5, the man with the arthritic dog at #23, and the "parents of the year" at #24.

Health
3. This infographic, covering the leading causes of death since 1900, has some great reasons for optimism. The number one cause of death in 2010 was heart disease, but the deaths caused by heart disease have fallen steadily since their peak in the 60s, from about 370 to 193 per 100,000. Deaths from the second-worst killer, cancer, have also been falling since they peaked in the early 90s.

4. Scientists in the UK have successfully spurred nerve regeneration in paralyzed dogs by transplanting cells from the dogs' own noses to the injured areas. It remains to be seen if the technique will work in humans, but over several months, the dogs went from complete paralysis in the rear legs to being able to walk on a treadmill without assistance.

5. Jan Scheuermann, who is paralyzed from the neck down, can now operate a robotic arm using only her mind "with speeds comparable to the able-bodied" and with a 91.6% accuracy rate.

Civil Liberties
6. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill that would require law enforcement to actually get warrants to read private emails, no matter how old the email is. The bill will now go to the full Senate, and if it passes there, would also need to pass the House and be signed by Obama, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Technology
7. Self-driving cars are inching closer to reality. Ford plans to introduce cars that can drive for you in stressful stop-and-go traffic, possibly by 2015. But Volvo will beat them to the punch with cars that can drive themselves at slow speeds in 2014. Meanwhile, a company called Rio Tinto is already using ten driverless trucks to transport iron ore, with plans to expand to 150 over the next few years.

8. 3D printing is coming to a store near you, at least in Europe. Staples will be offering 3D printing services next year in The Netherlands and Belgium. No doubt the US will soon follow, if this turns out to be profitable for them. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is providing 3D printing free for students (ht). Researchers in Britain are also having some success in printing electronics.

9. From Planetary Resources, a nearly hour-long video with a great amount of detail on the work they're doing to mine asteroids. Early in the video, Eric Anderson says, "The fact of the matter is that the population of the planet has grown a lot over the last couple hundred years, and people live longer, people live much better lives. It's really an extraordinary time to be alive. And yet, we're just at the cusp of doing some of the more incredibly exciting things that we never thought were possible before."

Some more highlights:

• 17% of near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach than the surface of the moon.
• Platinum-group metals are usually mined in concentrations of a few parts per billion and have an average price of $1500 per ounce. A single 500-meter asteroid has more of these metals than have been mined from Earth in the history of humanity.
• Anderson: "Some of the naysayers to asteroid mining say, well gee, if you bring back all the platinum, then the price will crash. And I say, great. I would love to see that. I would like to see a world of abundance."

10. First-world technology is bringing simple, inexpensive solutions to third-world problems. The GravityLight uses the same idea as old weight-driven clocks to provide light and electricity to those not connected to the grid.

Economics
11. In the US, household net worth is the highest it's been since 2007, and higher than any point prior to 2006. The total value of US real estate is also on the rise for the first time since 2006.

12. Don Boudreaux is in the midst of a series of blog entries detailing how everyday items are both less expensive and higher quality today than in 1956, based on an old Sears catalog from that year. So far, he's included women's clothing, bedsheets and lawn care. Mark Perry has made similar observations using other old advertisements, including dishwashers and home entertainment.

And finally, not a reason for optimism, but rather a quote from Winston Churchill: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

Aftermath: Reflections on Obama's Re-election

Barack Obama has been re-elected President of the United States.

For starters, Gary Johnson was not a spoiler. While the results are still coming in, as of 11:30pm Pacific, there was not a single state won by Obama where Romney would have won even if every Johnson voter had voted for Romney instead.

Second, there is no mandate. While Obama won, he won with a far narrower lead in both the popular vote and the electoral college than he had in 2008. While Democrats increased their lead in the Senate, Republicans increased their lead in governorships, and the House is on track to be more or less the same as it was. This was very much a status quo election.

On the whole, will we be better or worse with Obama as president?

First of all, expect the fiscal cliff to stay in place. After all, we just re-elected most of the people who put it there to begin with. While I haven't spent too much time learning about the fiscal cliff, Wikipedia claims a 19.63% increase in revenue and a 0.25% decrease in spending, or a nearly 80-to-1 ratio of tax hikes to spending cuts. This will not end well-- and even if our new old government leaders manage to avoid the cliff, the re-elected Obama is in a prime position to extract concessions he was unable to before the election. Any compromise will include more tax hikes than spending cuts, if spending is actually cut at all.

Second, Obamacare will be implemented fully over the next few years. Expect the nation's health, freedom and balance sheet to all suffer. Although to be honest, I don't believe Romney would have done any better.

The national debt will continue to grow. If the fiscal cliff causes a second recession, expect more stimulus and bailouts, probably for Europe too. We may look back at $1.5 trillion deficits and laugh about how small they were. On the other hand, the same probably would've happened under Romney, considering his plan to index military spending to 4% of GDP.

On other long-term important issues, I don't expect Obama to do much of anything. He'll keep ignoring space (mercifully), Social Security will continue to stumble forward without reform, trade deals will be forgotten, immigration won't change. We'll mostly withdraw from Afghanistan on schedule, although the lack of attention the war gets these days means we'll probably keep troops there for the long haul, same as we've still got troops in Germany, Japan and Korea. On trade and Afghanistan, at least, Romney would have been even worse. While Romney may have avoided the fiscal cliff, his insistence to go after China on trade might have been just as bad for the economy.

The main difference between the two candidates in terms of our long-term welfare is this: With Obama's victory, 2016 will see another wide-open primary for Republicans, where we'll have another shot at nominating a true spokesperson for liberty. Had Romney won, we wouldn't get that chance until 2020. So hold onto your hats. It's gonna be a rough four years for liberty, but we made it through the last four. We'll make it this time, too.

Recent Reasons for Optimism V

The latest installment of recent reasons for optimism was a bit delayed on account of this being the tenth day of a ten-day workweek for me. But that doesn't mean there was any less good news! There's been lots of good news in health, but there's also reasons for optimism on the economy, civil liberties and even the threat of asteroid impact.

Health

1. First the bad news-- the cytomegalovirus (CMV) infects 50-80% of people in the US, UK and Australia, and decreases life expectancy as much as smoking or drinking because of its unique effects on the immune system. Now the good news-- researchers at the University of Birmingham are working on an antiviral drug to reverse CMV's effects, potentially adding years to life expectancy. The drug has shown promise in mice, and tests on humans will begin soon. Finally, the great news-- researchers at the University of Connecticut at Farmington have genetically modified CMV to take advantage of what it does to the immune system. The result is a self-reinforcing cancer vaccine. In a study on mice, an untreated control group died of cancer within 23 days; the CMV-treated group lived for the entire length of the study.

2. A new breathalyzer can detect some kinds of cancer on your breath (ht Jason Silva). Although currently less accurate than more complicated tests, it's also far less costly, and could provide cancer screening to the poor around the world who can't afford current tests.

3. One more on cancer: Researchers have developed a patch (that looks very much like the birth control patch) that completely eliminated a certain kind of skin cancer after wearing it just three times, for three hours each. It was a very small trial, with just ten patients, but three months later the cancer was still gone from all ten patients, and after six months, there was no cancer in eight out of ten patients.

4. In Sweden, doctors have successfully transplanted a vein into a 10-year-old girl without the use of immunosuppressive drugs. They accomplished the feat by removing all of the donor's cells from the vein and replacing them with the girl's own stem cells.

Cyborgs and Robotics

5. We're one step closer to brain implants, as a team from MIT has invented a fuel cell to convert glucose in the brain into electricity that can be used by implants or prosthetics. (ht MR)

6. Picking up different kinds of objects is difficult and expensive for robots, especially when the shape of the object may not be known in advance. In an amazing example of the simplicity of innovation, a team at Cornell has found a solution using a balloon and ground coffee.



Economics

7. I've mentioned before on this blog that world income is higher than ever before and steadily increasing. Matt Ridley shares a graph showing that not only is world income higher, it's also more equitable.

8. Great news for free-traders: Both Mexico and Canada have now joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The TPP, originally an agreement between New Zealand, Chile, Brunei and Singapore, is now being expanded to include the three NAFTA countries, the US, Canada and Mexico, as well as Japan, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia. If an agreement is reached between all these countries, the TPP would become the largest free trade area in the world, comprising a full third of world GDP.

Civil Liberties and Crime

9. The Canadian government has backed down from their plan to record private conversations at border crossings and airports. What makes this even more encouraging is that this rapid about-face came in a non-election year, with the Conservatives' majority solidly in place until 2015. And it may not be just the Canadian government-- the US Department of State has withdrawn a request for bids to develop a system to monitor social media.

10. New Yorkers are striking back against that city's "stop and frisk" policy with a new app that allows New Yorkers to easily record and share video of police encounters and report them to the NYCLU. This is a small example of advancing technology being used to protect civil liberties.

11. Crime is down across-the-board. Violent crime fell by 4% from 2010 to 2011, the fifth year in a row it's fallen. That's true across the country, with every region except the Northeast seeing a drop of 4.5% or more. Property crimes were also down for the ninth year in a row, down 0.8% from 2010.

Everything Else

12. NASA scientists say there is little to no threat of a civilization-ending asteroid strike. Lindley Johnson of the Near Earth Object Observation Program says, "We know everything out there that is that big, and there is just nothing right now that's in an orbit that's any threat toward the Earth."

13. Ed Krayewski at Reason lists the "top 5 pieces of good news in the bad news." Some of his reasoning is a bit strained, but it's nevertheless an interesting list.

14. For even more optimism, check out these "21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity." Among the obligatory pictures of people rescuing animals, there's a Subway restaurant giving free food to the homeless, a dry cleaner's offering free cleaning for the unemployed for job interviews, and the story of the Japanese seniors who volunteered to clean the radiation at Fukushima so the young wouldn't have to.

Romney, Obama and the Big Diversion

Apparently, Romney's latest talking point is that Obama "knowingly" slowed the economic recovery by focusing on passing health care reform rather than improving the economy. Sigh. Never mind whether this is true or not. If you believe half the rhetoric that comes out of the Romney camp on what should be done about the economy, you should be happy that Obama set his sights on health care instead!

Look at what Obama did when he actually was focused on the economy. There were the auto and bank bailouts, then the $800 billion "stimulus" that ended up as mostly just a bailout for state and local governments. Then there was Cash for Clunkers. Once health care reform was done, there was Dodd-Frank, plus talk of a second stimulus that never got anywhere. And since 2010, Obama's economic plan has primarily consisted of taxing the rich and insisting the stimulus worked.

To be fair, part of that stimulus included tax cuts, and there is the payroll tax cut. I suppose it's possible that, if Obama had focused on the economy instead of health care, he would have passed more tax cuts instead of more spending, more bailouts, pushing Dodd-Frank through a few months earlier or even raising taxes. It's possible, sure, if you believe it. But the reality is, if Obama actually had focused on the economy more, we just would have seen more of the same policies that conservatives never wanted in the first place. If you believe conservative ideas are what the economy really needs to recover, you should be happy Obama got distracted by health care!

Is this a sign that Romney doesn't really believe conservative ideas are what the economy needs? Perhaps, but that's probably reading too much into it. More likely, Romney is just appealing to the old idea that government should just do something, no matter what it is, and that being seen to be doing something is more important than what you're actually doing. Romney sees an opportunity to attack Obama for looking like he didn't do enough, even though what he would have done would have made things worse. Hopefully Romney loses that old idea before he moves into the White House and starts to actually govern.

Recent Reasons for Optimism Reloaded

I know "Reloaded" was the second movie, and this is my third Recent Reasons for Optimism entry, but... yeah, I don't have a good reason, so on to the optimism! Space news dominated the week, but there are also reasons to be optimistic about agriculture, health and the economy.

1. For starters, Joshua at PostLibertarian has his own list of reasons for optimism, including SpaceX's success with the Falcon 9, Cubify's new 3D printer and the lowering of legal hurdles for driverless cars. Also check out his previous reasons for optimism, including lower child mortality and improving technologies, among others.

2 Speaking of space, SpaceX has also just signed their first commercial contract for the Falcon Heavy rocket. The Falcon Heavy is basically three Falcon 9's strapped together. When completed, it will be able to take 58.5 tons into orbit, more than double the shuttle's 26.8 tons at less than a quarter of the cost.

3. SpaceX isn't the only good news in space. A company in the UK has announced plans (ht One Per Cent) to launch nanosatellites that, once in orbit, can dock with each other in novel configurations. One of the benefits would be easier in-orbit upgrades to satellites equipped with the technology. In a perfect example of the Matt Ridley quote in the sidebar here, the nanosatellites would use Kinect cameras to sense each other and make docking possible. "The more we invent, the more inventions become possible."

4. Just one more about space: Virgin Galactic has been granted an FAA permit for the first rocket-powered tests of SpaceShipTwo, which will eventually carry tourists into space. They plan to begin those tests this year, with an eye to actual tourist flights starting in 2013-2014.

5. The Free Exchange blog at The Economist reviews two recent books, one painting a picture of an America in decline, the other the opposite. In blogger R.A.'s words, "To spin a story of decline, one has to demonstrate that policies are considerably worse than they used to be, and that they're unlikely to improve. It's actually quite difficult to do this." While there are looming problems, R.A. says, "these issues, and other worries as well, are not being ignored or greeted with complacency," and "American innovation is proving as impressive as ever."

6. Two studies covered at World Climate Report (ht @mattwridley) portend good news for crop yields. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide helps rice out-compete weeds and encourages more photosynthesis in wheat. Higher temperatures also improve wheat water use efficiency. The scientists predicted that by 2050, global warming would raise wheat yields by about 5.8% in lower altitudes and more than 10% in higher altitudes.

7. A ten-year-old girl, Sammie Hicks, was until recently only able to hear with a hearing aid. In April, she was given a cochlear implant and recorded for Youtube the moment it was finally turned on in May. She jumps as the sounds come in, and adjusts to hearing herself breathe for the first time. In the video, she starts crying, and later said, "It was overwhelming. But the reason I really cried? I couldn’t believe all the stuff I was missing." In a later video, she talks about hearing pencils writing at school, and the wind on her way home.

8. Paralyzed rats with "severe spinal injuries" were effectively cured of their paralysis, regaining the ability to walk after 2-3 weeks and achieving "100% recuperation" after 5-6 weeks of treatment, including a special stimulating device and the ratty equivalent of physical therapy. A similar treatment for humans could be available within just a year or two.

9. The plural of anecdotes is not data. However, anecdotally, in my little corner of the world, the economy seems to be improving. People I know who have been unemployed, some for a very long time, over the last few weeks have been finding jobs. Walking down the street this past week, I've seen "Now Hiring" signs in the windows of local businesses. There are fresh faces working at businesses I frequent, and even the local mall is expanding.

10. With Friday's disappointing employment numbers from the establishment survey, you'd be forgiven for thinking the economic data is all doom and gloom. However, the household survey told a different story. While the establishment survey measured only 69k new jobs, the more-accurate household survey picked up 422k.  Even the establishment survey looks better when you look at the private sector, which is where we want the growth to happen anyway. And while the unemployment rate ticked up from 8.1% to 8.2%, this was because the labor force grew by 642k as the long-term non-employed start looking for work again. That's not a bad thing!

11. Finally, a note on optimism itself. The CultureLab blog at New Scientist interviews Elaine Fox, author of the book Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. Fox believes that we can retrain our brains to become more optimistic. She also cites research on the benefits of optimism, saying, "The research shows that, as long as they are realists too, people who have an optimistic mindset and feel like they are able to cope when things do go wrong benefit in all sorts of ways. The evidence is also quite strong now that an optimistic mindset is beneficial for our health. People with optimistic mindsets are also more successful in business, and seem to live longer."

Gary Johnson on the Issues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mitt Romney on Economic Policy

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

1: Taxes

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

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

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

2: Regulations

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

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

3: Trade

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

4: Energy

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

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

5: Rule of Law

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6: Education

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

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

7: Fiscal Responsibility

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

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

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

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

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

Other Economic Policies

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

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

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

Pro-Market Quotes

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

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

Anti-Market Quotes

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

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

Ninth Republican Primary Debate (MI)

Both the ninth and tenth Republican debates were held last week. This entry covers the ninth debate, hosted by CNBC in Michigan. This debate returned to the regular cast of eight candidates-- Huntsman is back and Johnson is still out. Although the full video was available on Youtube, apparently it no longer is, as CNBC has pulled those versions due to copyright. The official CNBC version can be seen in three parts here. A transcript can be found here.

Before watching this debate, I had a somewhat positive view of Herman Cain, somewhat negative views of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, and fairly negative views of Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman.

As always, I've summarized all the answers for each candidate below, along with my gut reactions. Since the "summaries" can be quite long, you may want to skip to the conclusion at the bottom.

Rick Santorum

• Asked to defend his manufacturing-only corporate tax cut, he doesn't really. He just attacks Obama and talks a bit about energy. He doesn't seem to get the moderator's point that cutting taxes only on manufacturers is exactly the kind of economic distortion that the rest of the candidates rightly want to move away from. (-1)
• North Dakotans want "federal help" to deal with the oil rush there (apparently that makes sense in whatever alternate reality Jim Cramer comes from). Santorum rightly says no, they shouldn't get it. (+1)
• Santorum goes on to say that the unemployment rate for those without a college education is in the double digits, while for those with a college education it's 4-5%, and that's why he supports a manufacturing-only tax cut. Apparently, no one with a college degree works in manufacturing, and everyone in agriculture or the service sector has a college degree. (-1)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? He says he supports health savings accounts and block grants for Medicaid, and led on those issues as a Senator in the 90s before any of the other candidates. (+1)
• He says one of the reasons he's proposed his manufacturing-only tax cut is because he knows Democrats will get behind it too. He also says he understands "that the Wall Street Journal won't like that I'm picking one sector over another. I don't care." Well, that settles it, I guess. (-1)
• When the moderator asks if any candidate opposes the Social Security payroll tax cut, Santorum raises his hand along with Cain and Perry. (-1)

Michele Bachmann

• Since the 1980s, the worldwide average corporate tax rate has fallen dramatically but the US corporate tax rate has not. She wants to lower that rate, repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, "legalize American energy" whatever that means and build a border fence (somehow building a border fence is now a job-creator). (0)
• Why is Romney wrong on the progressive-vs-flat tax question? She would rather say Obama is wrong for something about Axelrod. She then repeats her claim from the last debate that everyone should pay some taxes and doesn't mention Romney once. The Romney-Bachmann dynamic continues to be interesting. Considering her poll numbers, she may well realize that her best shot at getting into the White House at this point is as part of a Romney administration. (0)
• The moderators again try to pit her against Romney, pointing out the inconsistency between Romney's "let the markets work" approach to housing and her "hang in there moms" speech from the last debate. Again she sidesteps the question and instead talks about Fannie and Freddie asking for bailouts. It sounds like she now agrees with Romney, which is good, but an interesting flip from the last debate. (0)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? She would eliminate state health insurance barriers, and allow Americans in any state to buy health insurance from anywhere in the US. It's great to hear someone say this, because these state barriers absolutely need to be torn down. Of course, this begs the question of why we would stop at the US border-- we can buy food, clothing and many other things that come from outside the US, so why can't we buy health insurance that comes from outside the US? Like the other candidates, Bachmann also wants to eliminate the tax on individually-purchased insurance and she wants tort reform. (+1)
• She opposes the Social Security payroll tax cut because it causes that program to go into the red "six years ahead of time." (-1) 
• She's worried about what our reliance on Chinese goods means for national security, and says that the interest we pay on our debt to China essentially built their aircraft carrier. Presumably, she means this one. She does say, however, that the way to solve the problem is to stop spending so much, which I like to hear. (0)

Newt Gingrich

• Asked why Republicans support tax reform to create jobs, and if there are any other paths to job creation, Newt would rather bash Bernanke for awhile, then throw in some feel-good stuff about Reagan and the Contract with America and top it off by bashing Obama. (-1)
• Can companies both be profitable and create jobs? "Obviously," he says, but the media, academics and Occupiers don't "have a clue about history." He cites Henry Ford who apparently built his first car in his garage at home and Bill Gates who dropped out of college to found Microsoft, and asks were they in the 99% or the 1%? It's great rhetoric, but I could do with less anti-media ranting. (0)
• Newt says Romney is right to let the market work in housing and to not prevent foreclosures. He also says there's two things we have to do to fix the housing market-- repeal Dodd-Frank and fix the rest of the economy. (+1)
• Asked about the work his firm did for Freddie Mac in 2006, he says it was not lobbying, but it was advising, and he says he advised them to not give loans to people without credit histories, but they did anyway. This is the first I've heard of Newt and Freddie Mac, so I don't know how much of this is true or not. (0)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? That's an "absurd question," apparently, and he'd rather talk about Lincoln-Douglas debates. (-1)
• Pressed on what he would replace Obamacare with, he dodges for a bit, then finally answers the question. He would go back to the doctor-patient relationship like Ron Paul and Mitt Romney said, give Medicaid to the states like Rick Perry and Mitt Romney said, and give out lots of subsidies to brain research, because subsidies are great when they're for things that he supports. (-1)
• Given that Social Security is now in the red, does he support extending the payroll tax cut? He does, and says we need to deal with Social Security separately from the rest of the budget. He says we should give workers the option to switch to a Galveston- or Chilean-style personal retirements account system, and that "the Social Security actuary" has said such a reform would stabilize the program. (+1)
• "We are at the end of the welfare state era." He cites the College of the Ozarks as a model for the future of education. He says, "You cannot apply to it unless you need student aid, and they have no student aid." Students are required to work 20 hours a week in the school year and 40 hours over the summer, and 92% graduate owing no debt. (+1) 
• Interestingly, he says he'd defer to Huntsman on questions about China. He says we need to address our taxation, regulation and attitudes that make American labor more costly than Chinese labor. He also says that he doesn't think anyone has a good strategic answer to what to do about China (and isn't offering one himself). For someone who is usually as meticulous and well-read as Newt Gingrich, this is a pretty surprising answer. (0)

Mitt Romney

• Europe is big enough to solve their own problems, and we should not bail out European banks or governments. He's "happy" participating in the IMF and other global institutions like the World Bank, but he doesn't want "a TARP-like program" aimed at Italy. (+1)
• The moderator says Romney was for the automaker bailout before he was against it before he was for it again, and Romney says now he's against it again. He says they should have gone through a "private bankruptcy" process, and he brushes aside his flip-flopping with some fluff about how great Detroit is. (-1)
• Pressed on his flip-flopping, he says he's "a man of steadiness and constancy" and that people who know him know that. But he has a great quote: "I've been married to the same woman for 25 -- excuse me, I'll get in trouble, for 42 years" as the camera pans out to show Newt Gingrich standing next to him. (0)
• The moderator says that while at Bain Capital, Romney had the authority to fire or keep CEOs of companies they bought. He asks if Romney would keep Herman Cain as CEO given the recent harassment accusations, to which the crowd loudly boos. Romney says that it's up to Cain to respond to the accusations, and the American people can make that decision for themselves. (+1)
• Do corporations exist only to maximize profit, or do they have a social responsibility to create jobs? Romney says the two go together. Profits are used to grow businesses, so a profitable business will be a growing business, and a growing business creates jobs. Although that's a bit simplistic, it's still a great feel-good answer. (+1)
• He wants a "flatter" tax code but not an actual flat tax. He says he'd like to lower taxes for everybody, but right now he wants to focus on the middle class, because they're the ones who have been hurt by "the Obama economy." (0)
• Why doesn't his 59-point plan address housing? Because "it's not a housing plan, it's a jobs plan." He also agrees with what Newt said about housing. (0)
• Pressed about letting housing prices fall, he says the reason we have a crisis in housing is because government "played too heavy a role" in the housing market. He says that when the problem is caused by government, the solution isn't more government. If Romney talked like this all the time, I'd like him a lot more. (+1)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? Send Medicaid to the states, treat individually-purchased insurance the same as employer-purchased insurance, encourage health savings accounts like Ron Paul said and institute tort reform. Once again, if Romney talked like this all the time, I'd like him a lot more. This is the answer that he needs to give every time someone brings up Romneycare. The fact that in seven debates he's only said this twice, and spent the rest of the time defending Romneycare, makes me question whether this is what he actually believes. Still, I like it, and I hope I hear it more often. (+1)
• The governor who passed Romneycare says the problem with health care in America is that "government is playing too heavy a role." Again, if he hadn't spent so much time in the past defending Romneycare's heavy role for government, this would be a lot more believeable. But it's still nice to hear it. (+1)
• Asked directly about Romneycare and the individual mandate and what that means in relation to his previous comments, he pretty much falls apart. Then deflects to talk about Medicaid. (-1)
• Asked whether Republican primary voters should be nervous about Romney's history of compromising with Democrats, he says when he was governor, the legislature was 85% Democrat. He had to compromise with them "to get anything done." (+1) 
• He doesn't want to raise any taxes, including the payroll tax. He wants to cut spending by cutting programs like Obamacare, cutting the federal government workforce by 10% and linking public employee compensation to private compensation. (+1) 
• China is cheating on trade, therefore the US should cheat too. In one sentence he says "I love free trade" and also that he would slap tariffs on China. Protectionism for everyone, yay! (-2)
• China's currency policy is equivalent to predatory pricing. Apparently he hasn't seen this graph, which shows that the value of the yuan in US dollars has fallen by about a fifth since 2007. (-1)

Herman Cain

• How do we prevent Italy's collapse from affecting the US? Focus on the domestic economy; get our own economy growing again with sound money and less government spending. Italy is beyond the "point of return" and there's "not a lot" we can do for them at this point. (0)
• Asked about the sexual harassment accusations, he says, "The American people deserve better than someone being tried in the court of public opinion based on unfounded accusations." Hmm, that could be taken more than one way. He then says, "the voters have voted with their dollars," alluding to his apparent fundraising success since the Politico article. (0)
• Asked about 999 not being a progressive tax, he says it's simple, transparent and fair, because "it treats everyone the same." (+1)
• Why souldn't 999 become 19-19-19? "Tax codes do not raise taxes, politicians do." The tax rate under 999 would be obvious, and politicians trying to raise it would be "very visible," which would allow people to "hold the politicians' feet to the fire" and prevent them from raising it. (+1)
• What's his solution for housing? First, switch to 999. Second, eliminate harmful regulations (he alludes to Dodd-Frank but doesn't mention it by name). Third, eliminate uncertainty by... switching to 999 and eliminating harmful regulations. Not the most eloquent answer ever, but I think it's good policy. (+1)
• What specifically would he do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Turn them into "private entities" and get the government out of the housing market. (+1)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? HR 3000, and here we apparently have one of Cain's practiced phrases (apples and oranges, anyone?), as he says "the legislation has already been written" three times in 30 seconds. Still, from what I can tell, HR 3000 is a good piece of legislation. (+1)
• Boeing should "absolutely not" have to shut down its plant in South Carolina. Asked about Santorum's manufacturing-only tax cut, he says 999 "makes every sector grow." Then he says "bold" several times. (+1)
• When the moderator asks if any candidate opposes the Social Security payroll tax cut, Cain raises his hand along with Santorum and Perry. (-1) 
• Asked about California hiring a Chinese company to build a bridge, he says, "There's something wrong with that." Given that the Chinese company was the less expensive option, and considering California's widely-publicized budget woes, there's something wrong with Cain's answer. He also says that 999 contains provisions to discourage imports, in apparent violation of WTO rules. (-2)
• The volatility in the stock market is driven by uncertainty in the business environment. I'm not sure how much that's actually true or not. Then he says there are three big problems with Dodd-Frank. The first problem is that it doesn't do anything about Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.The second and third problems with Dodd-Frank are Dodd and Frank. That's a nice applause line for the base. (0)

Rick Perry

• Does Romney's apparently flip-flopping really just show a flexibility that's needed to govern? This was really a softball question and the moderator pretty much gave him the answer by saying "you are running as a politician with strong convictions," but Perry instead responds to the previous round of questions about bailouts of Italy and the automakers. He says, "if you are too big to fail, you are too big." (+1)
• Can companies both be profitable and create jobs? "They better be," whatever that means, and then mentions his tax plan- a 20% flat personal tax and a 20% corporate tax. I'd like to hear more about that but he doesn't get the time to get into it. (0)
• The moderator says GDP figures lately have been negative for housing, and Perry says not in Texas. How would he translate that to the country as a whole? Get rid of regulations that kill jobs, whether it's the EPA, Dodd-Frank, Obamacare or any other regulation passed since 2008. (+1)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? On Medicare he wants to give people "a menu of options" but doesn't say what those options would be, and on Medicaid he wants to give it to the states, presumably through some sort of block-grant system although he doesn't get into specifics. (0)
• He says his flat tax will balance the budget by 2020 (that is, the last year of his second term). Then comes his shining moment of the night: "I will tell you, it's three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone. Commerce, Education, and the uh, what's the third one there...?" There's lots of laughter, and the moderator tries to get him to say the third one. Repeating the list, he starts with Education, and then seems to have trouble even remembering Commerce, and finally he says, "I can't. The third one, I can't, I'm sorry. Oops." So much ink has already been spilt on this answer that there's not really anything I can add. (-1)
• When the moderator asks if any candidate opposes the Social Security payroll tax cut, Perry raises his hand along with Cain and Santorum. (-1) 
• He says the Department of Energy is the third one he would cut that he couldn't remember before. He twice ignores the moderator's question about cutting defense in favor of talking about reforming Social Security. His preferred reform is apparently to "blend price and wages," presumably in the cost-of-living adjustments? He's not really clear at all here. (-1)
• He wants to "force these universities to be efficient," and he wants governors to take more direct roles in education, apparently dictating what graduation rates and tuition will be. "You have to have control," he says. (-1)
• He says regulators have "cozy relationships" with the lobbyists of the corporations they're supposed to be regulating. When people break laws or "are pushing the bounds," they either need to be prosecuted or removed from their jobs. Presumably, he's talking about people in government, but he doesn't actually make that distinction, leaving open the possibility that he wants the government to remove private individuals from their private sector jobs for "pushing the bounds." (0)

Ron Paul

• "You have let it liquidate," and by "it" he means Italy. If we keep bailing people out and propping up bad debt, we'll end up like Japan. (0)
• In the first year, he would cut a trillion dollars from the federal budget. He mentions five departments, but it's not clear just from this answer whether that trillion would involve eliminating those five departments or simply cutting a trillion from those five departments. (+1 for cutting a trillion, even if it's less than what Gary Johnson would cut)
• Then he gets into monetary policy, and says that interest rates are too low, and "one person" (Bernanke) shouldn't get to decide what the money supply is (never mind that the Board of Governors usually makes decisions by consensus). He thinks interest rates should be set by the market, a position that for me has always raised more questions than answers. (-1)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? Return power to the doctor-patient relationship with medical savings accounts that can be deducted from your taxes just like current employer-purchased insurance. Ron Paul is exactly right on this issue. (+2)
• He eventually wants to "move [Medicaid] back into the economy," although I'm not sure what exactly he means by that. He does say that he would not do that in his first year. (0)
• He says the problem with housing is price-fixing, and Fannie and Freddie are fixing the price of mortgages too high. He would either get rid of them completely or sell them off to the private sector. (+1)
• The moderators play a clip of some students saying how bad the cost of college is, and Paul very nicely turns it around and says, "I think you've proved the policy of student loans is a total failure." He makes a good point that in markets with competition, like cell phones and computers, quality keeps going up while prices come down. At the same time, in markets with government intervention, like education, health care and housing, we end up with bubbles. In his mind, it all comes down to the Fed, which we should audit, and then end. He's spot on for most of this answer, but I think his conclusion does not follow from his premise. (0) 
• "There's a lot of crony capitalism," but he says he doesn't know enough about Perry to say one way or another whether Perry is a crony capitalist. Considering Perry is Ron Paul's governor, and has been for almost 11 years, you'd think he would know a bit more about the man. Since, in my opinion, this is potentially one of the most dangerous aspects of the Perry candidacy, Paul's answer is worse than a cop-out. (-1)

Jon Huntsman

• What would he do about Italy? He'd rather talk about our domestic situation and how we might end up looking like Italy if we don't get our own spending under control. He also wants to "get back" to having "properly-sized" banks so that none of them are "too big to fail." (+1)
• "I want to be the President of the 99%. I also want to be the President of the 1%." So... what does that mean? He doesn't agree with the Occupiers' "anti-capitalism messages" but he does agree that we shouldn't bail out corporations. (0 because his first quote confuses me)
• What would he do about banks that are "too big to fail"? He's asked several times point-blank whether he would break them up and dodges every time, so apparently the answer is no. But he would support a tax on "too big to fail" banks. (-1)
• If we repeal Obamacare, what do we replace it with? Sit down with the 50 governors and figure it out. He also wants to harmonize medical records and somehow "close the gap on the uninsured" but without a mandate. Just a lot of fluff. (-1) 
• The government still owns stock in GM, is behind 90% of mortgage origination and the Federal Reserve has greatly expanded the money supply. What would he do about this? He says, "I would clean up the balance sheet," and then bashes Obama for awhile. Then he brags about being the only one on stage who has actually instituted a flat tax (in Utah). Since as far as I know, his national plan is not a flat tax, I'm not sure why that's relevant. (-1) 
• He thinks the policy of throwing tariffs at China is "pandering," but pressed, doesn't want to say that Romney himself is pandering for proposing that policy. He's against tariffs, and rightly points out that when we accuse China of having an overvalued currency, they'll point to quantitative easing and say so do we. (+1)

Conclusion
For the most part, this was another nice, generic debate. There were no fireworks, and the moderators mostly stuck to questions about the economy. The questioning was definitely better in this debate than in most of the others. These moderators clearly knew something about the subject material, often more the candidates. There were some good philosophical questions, like the profit-vs-jobs question, but there were also questions that got down to specifics, like what to do after Obamacare is repealed.

Adding up the scores I gave each candidate shows some narrower results than usual. The Ricks, Perry and Santorum bring up the rear with -2 each, with Huntsman at -1. Bachmann and Gingrich tied at 0, while Ron Paul scored +2, the first debate where he's actually scored positive. Romney and Cain tied for first with +3 each.

Rick Santorum spent the debate defending (or not) his manufacturing-only tax cut, and it was very nice to see the problems with that idea addressed, even if he doesn't really stand a chance at this point. Jon Huntsman's answers had a lot of fluff and several were just confusing as he seemed to try to appeal to everyone.

Michele Bachmann was very much a non-entity this time, twice turning down opportunities to go after Romney. Her best answer was on health care, where she said she wants to eliminate interstate insurance barriers, something I haven't heard any of the other candidates address. Ron Paul had a lot of very good answers this time, and for the most part stayed away from the zaniness for which he is so well known. He kept the ranting to a minimum, and only once said to end the Fed (and that at the end of a long answer that was really good in every other way).

After the debate, everyone was talking about Rick Perry's flub, where he said he wanted to eliminate three federal departments and couldn't remember what the third one was. This is far more than a stylistic error. For Perry, departments to be eliminated are just words on a list to be remembered. Combined with his "you have to have control" quote, this debate raised some serious issues about Perry's actual beliefs. He is running as "an authentic conservative," but the philosophy underlying some of his answers seems to indicate otherwise.

Newt Gingrich seems to have had an off-night. He had a few good answers, but was mostly more general than he usually is, and pretty much said we should listen to Huntsman on China right before contradicting Huntsman on China. He did not at all come across as the new anti-Romney that many are painting him as. Herman Cain, on the other hand, had a pretty good night, with the crowd booing the question when he was asked about the sexual harassment accusations. Even so, he continued to showcase his lack of foreign policy experience, seeming to misunderstand the questions about Italy and China.

In a lot of ways, this was Mitt Romney's debate. Not only did he seem to get more questions than anyone else, but he had great answers for the most part. He had solid conservative/libertarian answers on health care, supporting health savings accounts and other conservative solutions. His worst part of the night was his insistence to carry on with his recent anti-China rhetoric, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it.

Seventh Republican Primary Debate (NH)

The seventh Republican primary debate was held Tuesday night in New Hampshire. Bloomberg has provided the full video of the debate here. It's also on YouTube here and here. This debate had the same candidates as the fourth and fifth debates, meaning no Gary Johnson. This was the first debate to focus on a single issue, the economy, and also the first debate to allow the candidates to sit down.

Before watching this debate, I had a fairly positive view of Herman Cain, and somewhat positive views of Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. I had somewhat negative views of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney. I had very negative views of Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul.

Just as I did in the other six debates, I've summarized and responded to each candidate's positions below, and I've scored each position positive, zero or negative based on my gut reaction to it.  Since these "summaries" can get quite long, you may want to skip to the conclusion at the bottom.

Jon Huntsman

•  "Washington DC is the gas capital of the country." He opens with a joke and the rest of his answer is mostly fluff with just a passing mention about how taxes and regulation are bad. (-1)
• He would appoint entrepreneurs like his father to advise him, he likes manufacturing and he instituted a flat tax in Utah. He also wants to complain about "the background checks, the financial disclosures and everything else" that people have to go through to become government employees. Right, because what we really need is to know less about people who work for government! (-1)
• He says he first thought 999 was the price of a pizza, and instead of 999 we need "something that's doable-doable-doable." He would decrease the corporate tax to 25% and eliminate all the tax loopholes and deductions for individual and corporate taxes. (+1)
• He doesn't want a trade war, and if we criticize China's yuan policy too much, they're going to point to QE1 & QE2 and say we're doing the same thing. It's hard to argue with that logic. (+1)
• The "ruinous" part of Obamacare is the individual mandate, and that won't go away with waivers. Romney and Santorum both interrupt him to say they'll repeal it completely. (0)
• Huntsman addresses his question to Mitt Romney. He criticizes Romney for his history at Bain Capital as "someone who breaks down businesses, destroys jobs" and for Massachusetts under Romney being 47th in the country (presumably in job creation) when Utah was first under Huntsman. I've always thought criticism of Romney along Bain Capital lines was unfair, even if that portrayal of what he did is completely true (Romney says it's not). There are times for every business where they have to cut labor in order to stay in business. Eliminating some jobs in order to make a company profitable again so that everyone else can keep their jobs is not something to be ashamed of. (-1)
• When he was governor, Utah had an unemployment rate of 2.4%, he says, and he understands "what it means to have the dignity of a job." That rate was true from January to April 2007. With the recession, Utah's unemployment rate has gone up just like the rest of the country. It peaked at 8.0% and is now 7.6%. (0)

Michele Bachmann

•  Is it right "that no Wall Street executives have gone to jail" for the recession? "You can trace it [the economic meltdown] right back to the federal government." She specifically blames government-pushed subprime loans, the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. It's a question straight from Occupy Wall Street and largely irrelevant for a President, but Bachmann handles it well. (+1)
• What can we do to reform Medicare? She'd rather talk about how bad Obamacare is. (-1)
• She was "a lone voice" in saying not to raise the debt ceiling, because she didn't want to give Obama a "$2.4 trillion blank check." Well, if the check is for $2.4 trillion, it's not blank... Also, how long is she going to keep bragging about being on the losing side of the debt ceiling debate? (-1)
• "The 999 plan isn't a jobs plan, it is a tax plan." She says "the last thing you would do is give Congress another pipeline of a revenue stream." It's not the most eloquent way of saying it, but this is easily the most important criticism of 999, that it creates the infrastructure for an extra tax that, even if it's low today, could be raised by future politicians. It's also a criticism that Cain has been weak in defending against. But then Bachmann ends her point by saying, "When you take the 999 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil is in the details." (+1 for the revenue stream criticism, -1 for stooping to a devil joke)
• Bachmann addresses her question to Rick Perry, criticizing him for supporting Al Gore once-upon-a-time and for raising Texas' spending and debt. She asks how we could trust him "to not go down the Obama way." I wonder what her questioning of Perry reveals about her strategy. Prior to the debate, Perry was solidly in third place and falling fast. Is she aiming for the VP spot and trying not to anger the two leaders? Or is she just hoping to get support from ex-Perriers, almost all of whom have so far gone to Cain and Gingrich? (0)
• Responding to Romney's question, she plugs her website and talks mostly about easing the regulatory burden, especially Obamacare. Since her very vocal opposition to Obamacare would be one of the biggest reasons for Romney to make her his VP, her answer, which doesn't criticize Romneycare at all, could easily be seen as confirmation for Romney that she is willing to play that role for him. (+1, for her talk about the regulatory burden, not for my own VP speculation)
• "Dodd-Frank is the Jobs and Housing Destruction Act," and it has caused the new $5 debit card fee some banks are putting in place. She also doesn't like that Senator Durbin "had former staffers that came to lobby him on behalf of retailers." I like what she says about Dodd-Frank, but her populist appeal against lobbyists makes me wary. (0)
• She's had 23 foster children, and if more people "reach out as individuals to help" we wouldn't need big government. (0)

Rick Perry

• He's the governor of the second-largest state. He would help the economy by encouraging jobs in the energy industry. "It's time for another American Declaration of Independence. It's time for energy independence." This might be good, but the "energy independence" rhetoric can also be dangerous. He doesn't give any details yet. (0)
• What is his specific economic plan? "Pull back regulations" on domestic energy, and also Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, but especially on the energy industry. (+1)
• What does he think of the clip where Reagan agreed to tax increases? He says we live in different times, and while Reagan traded tax increases for spending cuts, he never actually saw the spending cuts. Perry would support a balanced budget amendment. There's nothing inherently wrong with this answer, but he doesn't quite say what I think he should. He also seems like he's falling asleep while giving the answer. (0)
• "What we need to be focused on in this country today is not whether or not we are going to have this policy or that policy." And then he repeats his policy for encouraging the energy industry. (-1)
• He once supported Al Gore because he grew up a Democrat, but when he turned Republican, he was younger than Reagan was when he turned Republican. No explanations for why he switched or why his beliefs are trustworthy, just that's how he grew up. (-1)
• He also says that under his governorship, Texas has gone from the sixth-lowest debt-per-capita state to the second-lowest debt-per-capita state. That probably says more about Texas' population growth than Perry's debt management. (0)
• Perry addresses his question to Mitt Romney. Since Romneycare is the same as Obamacare, how does Romney defend his record? (+1)
• Asked about health care for some reason in the economics debate, Perry says his solutions in Texas were tort reform and something called Healthy Texas which he says "expands the private sector insurance," whatever that means. He also wants Medicaid converted to block grants for the states. (+1 for that last point)
• The federal government should not be involved in subsidizing "emerging technologies" (green energy), but for some reason states should, and Texas under Perry has. Cognitive dissonance much? (-1)
• Why are there more people in poverty today than ever before even though the rich are still wealthy, and what would he do to close the gap? "We have got a president of the United States who is a job-killer." Small businesses are "over-taxed" and "over-regulated" and the best thing we can do for them is vote out Obama. While I like the things Perry says in this question, his response is not at all an answer to the questions asked, and only tangentially addresses inequality. I would love to see a candidate bring up just one of the points raised at PostLibertarian, from what the poverty line actually means to problems in comparing poverty rates over time. Or, since the question is phrased in terms of the number of poor rather than the rate, a mention of population growth would've been nice. But Perry doesn't say any of those things, he just accepts the question's premise and uses it to bash Obama. (0)
• He's the governor of the second-largest state and used to be in the military. He also used to be a CEO. (0)

Herman Cain

•  For the first question of the night, what would he do specifically to "end the paralysis in Washington"? "Two things"-- the 999 plan and "get serious" about the debt by making sure that "revenues equals spending" in his first fiscal year. The question and its context make it clear that Charlie Rose is talking about political paralysis in DC, but Cain interprets it as economic paralysis in the nation as a whole. Even though I think Cain's answer would be good for the economy, if anything it would aggravate the problem of political paralysis, since Democrats are going to fight both of those issues tooth and nail the entire way. (0)
• "999 will pass and it is not the price of a pizza." He wants to get rid of the current tax code and start over with 999, and he says we won't have economic recovery by "continuing to pivot off the current tax code." (+1)
• Asked who his advisers are, he names Rich Lowrie (apparently this guy) and won't name anybody else. (0)
• In 2008, he agreed with the Wall Street bailout "in concept" but not in implementation. "They were discretionary in which institutions they were going to save, rather than apply it equitably, which is what most of us thought was going to be done." Which raises the question, how do you "equitably" bailout some institutions but not others? Or if you bailout everybody, who foots the bill? (-1)
• Cain says the 999 plan would be revenue neutral, but Bloomberg's analysis says that current revenues are $2.2 trillion while 999 revenues would be only $2.0 trillion. Cain says, "the problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect." He says Bloomberg has started with incorrect assumptions, and that by broadening the tax base, 999 is able to be revenue neutral with the lower rate. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of 999, this is really just he-said-she-said. (0)
• The politicians in the race are proposing plans they think can get passed, rather than plans that we need. He says 999 is "bold" and that's what Americans want. The plan has definitely helped Cain's campaign, but this almost sounds like a tacit admission that it won't pass. He also says "bold" three times in six seconds. (-1)
• Cain addresses his question to Mitt Romney. The 999 plan is "simple, transparent, efficient, fair and neutral." Can Romney say the same about his 59-point, 160-page plan? While it would be nice if 999 was more detailed, the Obamacare bill and Dodd-Frank, as I recall, were both over 2000 pages long. While Americans want thoroughness, they also want transparency, which is a point Cain understands that Romney doesn't seem to. (+1)
• After Ron Paul criticizes him for saying that those who want to audit the Fed are "ignorant," Cain says he never said that, and he tells Paul, "You've got to be careful of the stuff that you get off the Internet." He also says he disagrees with what Bernanke is doing now, and that when he served on the Kansas Fed, they didn't do any of the things that the current Fed is doing. He then says he doesn't have a problem with auditing the Fed, but it's not his top priority. "My top priority is 999, jobs, jobs, jobs!" (+1)
• He lists three reasons why 999 won't become 20-20-20. First, he'll require a two-thirds majority to change the 9% rates (which at first sounds meaningless, but as the debt ceiling debacle showed, such rules can have real effects). Second, the transparency and simplicity of 999 will allow Americans to oppose tax increases more easily than they can now and "hold Congress' feet to the fire." (This is actually a good point. Most Americans don't even know their marginal tax rate off the top of their head, let alone their overall effective tax rate or any of the many tiny taxes scattered throughout the tax code. Simplicity makes raising taxes more visible, and therefore more difficult.) Third, as President he would veto any rate increase (which is good for four to eight years, but of course not beyond that). Overall, this is a pretty good answer. At first, while streaming the debate on Tuesday, I was disappointed by this answer. But the more I think about it, the better it sounds. (+1)
• Which Fed chairman over the last 40 years would "serve as a model" for replacing Bernanke? Alan Greenspan, because what he did "worked fine back in the early 1990s." I've seen a lot of people who don't like this answer, pointing to Greenspan's "I was wrong" moment in 2008. I think that's an oversimplification of Greenspan's 18 years as chairman, and that for the vast majority of those years, most of the things Greenspan did were entirely appropriate. (+1)
• Repealing Dodd-Frank is good, but if you want to help small businesses, we need to get rid of the capital gains tax, which is "a big wall between people with ideas and people with money." "...And we know which plan gets rid of the capital gains tax." (+1) 
• Asked about his statement, "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself," he says he was not directing that at the "14 million people who are out of work for no reason of their own other than this economy is not growing" but rather at the Occupiers. (+1) 
• "I was po' before I was poor." He also says the word "bold" a few more times. (0)

Mitt Romney

•  He promises he'd "be a leader" then bashes Obama for awhile. He somehow misses the irony that Obama also thinks all he has to do is "be a leader" and everything will be solved. (-1)
• Juliana Goldman asks Romney what he would do if it was 2013 and the European crisis has spread to America and the global financial system is on the verge of collapse. He says that's "a scenario that's obviously very difficult to imagine." Goldman says, "But it's not a hypothetical" to which Romney replies, "I'm afraid it is a hypothetical" and asks her to explain why she thinks it isn't. She says it's not a hypothetical because lots of people think it might happen. I'm tempted to give Romney a point just for putting up with Goldman, but then he gets to his actual answer... (0)
• His actual answer is that he would "take action" to prevent the collapse, but doesn't say what that means. He's "not interested" in bailouts of "individual institutions" but he is interested in "making sure we preserve our financial system, our currency, the banks across the entire country." And he would do that without bailouts how, exactly? I'm not sure if he's getting at some kind of monetary policy action, or just trying to say that he'd give bailouts without actually saying that he'd give bailouts. (-1)
• Would he rather compromise by raising taxes or cutting defense? Well, he'd rather answer Perry's question (about the Reagan clip), and he does a lot better than Perry. He says the problem with tax increases is that government continues to grow as a percentage of the economy, and agreeing to tax increases is agreeing to allow it to keep growing. He would rather cut, cap and balance. (+1)
• Pressed on raising taxes versus "draconian" cuts to defense, he says both are terrible, and the supercommittee needs to reform entitlements. (0)
• We buy a lot more from China than they buy from us, so he says they don't want a trade war. We have the negotiating advantage. He says, "Day One, I will issue an executive order identifying China as a currency manipulator" and will take action against them at the WTO. Yeah, going after our second-largest trading partner is gonna do wonders to turn around the economy. (-2)
• He agrees with Santorum that granting Obamacare waivers is not enough. He would grant the waivers on "day one" and would repeal it on "day two" using the same reconciliation procedure that was used to pass it in the first place and that Santorum supports. As much criticism as Republicans heaped on Democrats for using reconciliation in the first place, I don't like Romney and Santorum campaigning to use it again. If we have to use it to get rid of Obamacare, that's a parliamentary decision to be made by Republicans in the Senate at the time, not by Republican presidential candidates today. (-1)
• Simple plans are "very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate" and we need more than just a tax policy or an energy policy to get the economy going again. Nice swipe at both Cain and Perry. He also repeats five of the "seven major pillars" that he introduced back in the third debate. (+1)
• He wants to cut taxes on the middle class because they're the ones hurt by "the Obama economy." That's good rhetoric, but Newt had asked why Romney's capital gains tax cut would apply only to the middle class. Romney's answer basically accepts the class warfare foundation Newt is accusing him of having; he says he's not worried about the rich because they're "doing just fine," and he's not worried about the poor because they've got the safety net. It's very much a classist answer, and he doesn't even try to address Newt's point that a capital gains tax cut is most effective when given to those who actually have capital gains. (-1)
• He says his background is "quite different" than Jon Huntsman says it is, and that "net-net" Bain Capital created tens of thousands of jobs. He also says they started Staples, and a few companies I don't recognize. (+1)
• Perry asks how he defends Romneycare. Romney replies that he's "proud of the fact that we took on a major problem" in Massachusetts, and it's all about the kids. He says there were 8% uninsured and 92% insured, and Romneycare addressed only the 8% while Obamacare takes over health care for 100% of Americans. He ignores Perry's point that Romneycare actually has raised premiums for 100% of Massachusites. (-1)
• Romney addresses his question to Michele Bachmann. That in itself is interesting. She's in sixth place according to the polls, with a fifth of the support Romney himself has. Earlier I speculated that her choice to address her question to Perry may have been to play nice to the two frontrunners in hopes of getting the VP spot. Is Romney's choice to address his question to Bachmann a signal that he's vetting her for VP? He compliments her positions, isn't critical about anything, and then gives her a softball, open-ended question. Considering the pressure any white male candidate will face to choose a non-white-male for VP, I think Mitt's eyeing Bachmann. Plus, she's been possibly the strongest anti-Obamacare voice in the race, and having her on his ticket would go a long way towards reassuring the Republican base. (0)
• Big banks have hundreds of lawyers to deal with Dodd-Frank, but small, community banks can't deal with the extra regulation. I don't know enough about Dodd-Frank to know how true or not that is, but it sounds good. (+1)
• "The right course for America is not to keep spending money on stimulus bills, but instead to make permanent changes to the tax code." Temporary changes like the payroll tax holiday don't work because employers know that they're temporary. (+1) 
• We have an economic crisis, but we also have another crisis-- and it's all about the kids. And leadership. And being strong... or something. (0)

Ron Paul

• He brings up the "partial audit" of the Fed passed under Dodd-Frank, throws out some big numbers with no context and raves about Austrian economics for a bit. "You can't cure the disease if you don't know the cause of it, and the cause is the booms." That's right, the real problem with the economy is that sometimes it's actually growing. (-1)
• He would get government out of housing, then he plugs Austrian economics for awhile and says he wants to get rid of the Fed. I agree with getting the federal government out of housing, but not with eliminating the Fed. (-1)
• Paul directs his question to Herman Cain and says the Fed "creates the business cycle" and "produces our recessions and our depressions" (which is why there were no such things prior to 1913). Since he says Cain has in the past opposed auditing the Fed, does he still oppose it? (-1 for the Fed-creates-the-business-cycle nonsense)
• "Alan Greenspan was a disaster." Yeah, 1987-2006 were some of the worst years economically we've ever seen... Then he says Bernanke is "inflating twice as fast as Greenspan was." Really, because we have actual records about that. Under Greenspan, the CPI increased from 114.4 in August 1987 to 198.3 in January 2006, or 3.0% per year. Under Bernanke, the CPI has increased from 198.3 in January 2006 to 226.5 in August 2011, or 2.4% per year. But yeah, if you ignore reality, Bernanke is totally inflating twice as fast as Greenspan was. (-2) 
• Dodd-Frank is bad, but Sarbanes-Oxley is also bad. Repeal both of them. I don't know enough about Sarbanes-Oxley to have an opinion on this. (0) 
• He wants to restore "the cause of liberty" and says free markets and "sound money" are the "humanitarian" option. He would get a point if I didn't know that by "sound money" he really meant "End the Fed." (0)

Newt Gingrich

• Occupy Wall Street is made of two groups: "left-wing agitators" who will protest anything and "sincere middle-class people" who are "very close to the Tea Party." He would fire both Bernanke and Geithner, and says, "if you want to put people in jail... you ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd." Then he goes off on the media for awhile. I've never liked Gingrich's anti-media/anti-moderator rants, but this one was deserved. (+1)
• What should be done about the large cost of end-of-life care under Medicare? He opposes bureaucrats intervening in health care and "class action decision[s]." He agrees with Palin's term "death panels" and disagrees with the recent prostate test ruling. What he says is good as far as it goes, but he doesn't actually answer the question. (0)
• Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner "didn't have a clue" and he wants the Fed to release "every decision document" from 2008-2010. That in itself is probably a good thing. More open government is always a good thing, but Newt doesn't say what he wants to do with those documents, or what changes he thinks that would lead to. (0)
• The supercommittee is "truly stupid," and all the requirements facing the supercommittee are acts of Congress which can be reversed by acts of Congress so they're meaningless anyway. (0)
• Gingrich addresses his question to Mitt Romney. He says Obama's "class warfare approach" has often been to draw a line between those making more and those making less than $250,000. Romney would cut the capital gains tax on those making less than $200,000, drawing the class warfare line even lower than Obama. Newt asks what was his rationale? (+1)
• Asked about home ownership in America, Newt fully embraces his "mother hen" role, complimenting in a row the plans of every other candidate. He brings it all together and says, "the Chinese couldn't compete with us in 100 years if we got our act together in this country and we got back to doing the right things in this country." It's a great feel-good moment, and in this circle of people who would be the leader of the free world, Newt somehow manages to look like their leader, their shepherd almost. I've been strongly critical of Newt in the past, but this was a great moment for him. (+2)
• He grew up as an "Army brat," he says, and "every person at this table" would be better at solving the country's problems than Obama. (0)

Rick Santorum

• He would eliminate the corporate tax for "manufacturers and processors." He would also "repeal every regulation" that Obama has made. Who counts as a processor, I wonder? Also, what does he have against the service sector? Or agriculture for that matter? (0)
• This plan "would pass tomorrow" unlike the 999 plan. He's right to criticize 999's possibility of passing, but I think he overstates his own plan's chances. I don't see Democrats agreeing to eliminating the corporate tax for anybody. (0)
• "I don't want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business." So doesn't want a "trade war" but he does want a regular war? I'm sure that's not what he meant, but I can't figure out what he did mean. (-2)
• In the same answer, he criticizes Cain on 999, saying it won't pass and no one wants it. He gets the audience to hold up their hands if they want a national sales tax or if they think the income tax would stay at 9%, and basically no one holds up their hands. (+1)
• His time runs up, but he says, "I am not done yet. I've only been able to answer one question, unlike everybody else here, so let me just finish what I'm saying." While that's kind of true (before this he had one actual question and one follow-up), it's whiny to point that out during the debate. (-1)
• Continuing his marathon answer over Charlie Rose's insistence that, "You see the red light," Santorum then criticizes Romney for wanting to use waivers to get rid of Obamacare, and we need to repeal it using reconciliation. Why would we have to use reconciliation after Republicans spilled so much ink criticizing Democrats for using it in the first place? (-1)
• Santorum directs his question to Herman Cain. He says Romney, Cain, Perry and Huntsman all supported TARP, which has been used by politicians to restrict our freedom. He says Cain's 999 plan introduces another tool to restrict our freedom (the sales tax) and asks, because of Cain's inexperience, how can we trust that he won't give politicians even more tools to restrict our freedom? That right there are the two single biggest problems that Cain has, his inexperience and the sales tax portion of 999, and Santorum hits the nail right on the head. (+1)
• "The biggest problem with poverty in America... is the break down of the American family." He wants to encourage more marriage. I used to find this kind of language really appealing. But then I realized "encouraging marriage" really just means subsidizing the married, usually through tax breaks, by raising taxes on the unmarried. When half of all marriages are already mistakes (given that they end in divorce), is it really a good idea to be subsidizing more? Most conservatives agree with this logic when you replace "marriage" with "green energy startups" and "divorce" with "bankruptcy," yet somehow reject it when it's about marriage. (-1)
• Income mobility from the bottom two quintiles to the middle quintile is higher in Europe than America, he says, and he would fix that with manufacturing subsidies. I don't like his love affair with manufacturing, but that's an interesting statistic if it's true. As it turns out, it's only half true. That is, it's true for intergenerational mobility (a son's income compared to his father's), but not at all true for individual mobility (my income today compared to my income ten years from now). (-1)

Conclusion
I usually list the candidates in the order that they're standing on stage, but I couldn't do that this time. Instead, they're listed in clockwise order, starting from where the moderators are sitting. Speaking of whom, this was not a good night for the moderators or production staff. Juliana Goldman showed she didn't know what "hypothetical" means, and Charlie Rose said LinkedIn has 120 billion users. Also, after Santorum's marathon answer (during which Rose became visibly flustered), Rose gave Cain a response but the camera panned out and they started playing commercial break music for several seconds before the producers realized their mistake.

Summing my gut reactions, Cain got +5 and Gingrich got +4. Bachmann and Perry tied with 0 each, right in front of Huntsman with -1 and Romney with -2. Bringing up the rear, Santorum had -4 and Paul had -5.

This debate was all about Herman Cain and 999. He is without a doubt Sarah Palin's "flavor of the week," and he faced his first real challenge in this debate with everyone except Perry attacking 999. Overall, I think he handled the debate well. It took him awhile to find his feet, and he definitely had his strongest moments in the second half. Most importantly, he defended 999 quite ably (even if he took to repeating the words "bold" and "pivot off the current tax code" too many times). On the other hand, he also had several times where he said things that are already getting him in trouble. That includes his support for Greenspan and his decision to not reveal his advisers yet. Both of those are entirely reasonable, but they're definitely not going to play well.

Newt Gingrich really surprised me this time. I have very strongly criticized him in previous debates, and he has always ranked near or at the bottom for me. This time, he took second place, just one point behind Cain. Part of that, I'm sure, was the moderator's fault. Newt loves to debate the moderators of any debate, and this time they actually deserved it. He also had a great moment near the end where it felt like he was rivaling Cain for the title of "most optimistic candidate."

Rick Perry utterly failed to impress this time. Having fallen in the polls, he wasn't at all in the spotlight, and he did nothing to bring the spotlight back to him. I get the impression that Perry was never really that into running, and was only convinced to get in because polls showed him possibly winning. Now that the polls have collapsed for him, he's left wondering why he was doing this at all.

There are some issues that Michele Bachmann strongly believes in, and when she focuses on those issues, she does well. Unfortunately for her, she can't build her entire campaign on Obamacare. She had some good points in the debate, especially on 999, but she also had her fair share of slips.

Jon Huntsman was mostly clueless about everything except China. I would like to take Huntsman's stance on China, graft it on to the rest of the candidates, and then throw away everything else. Mitt Romney confirmed that his good performance in the fifth debate was a fluke. He continues to insist that Romneycare was great, just misunderstood. He also talks a lot about being a leader, like that will fix everything.

Rick Santorum needs to drop out of the race before he has an aneurysm. The worse he does in the polls and the less debate time he gets, the angrier he gets, and he's horrible at hiding it. Americans are not going to elect the Angry Candidate. Finally, Ron Paul was Ron Paul. Factually inaccurate, Austrian to a fault and incoherent the rest of the time. I will say, however, that I don't remember him bringing up the wars or the military on an unrelated question a single time.