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Sunday, December 11, 2011 | 12:04pm
Gingrich King of the Hill after Bloody Debate
Gingrich, Paul and Bachmann have their best night in months
Last night’s Iowa debate will be talked about for years to come. With 23 days until the Iowa caucus, and egged on by hostile moderators, the republican field took the gloves off last night, and spent 90 minutes beating the hell out of each other right there on stage.
First: the moderators. If the rank and file republicans believe that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy in the ‘liberal media elite’, they have no better friend this morning than ABC news and Dianne Sawyer.
As co-moderator of the debate, Sawyer destroyed any image of impartiality that ABC news may have enjoyed. From the first long question, Sawyer spent the night acting as an advocate for President Obama.
At first, I must confess, I was extremely pissed off. The questions were biased, the moderators seemed more interested in attacking Newt Gingrich than holding a fair debate; and, at one point, moderator Sawyer actually started to grade answers on the spot.
But as the debate went on and I started to think about it, I started to see last night as more of an “opposition debate”. Whoever wins the nomination, they will be facing off against the President during later debates, so we might as well find out now who can take a punch.
The big winners last night: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann.
The big losers: Romney and Perry.
Michelle Bachmann – For someone who hasn’t done too well during this pre-primary season, I wasn’t expecting much out of Michelle Bachmann. She hadn’t performed well in prior debates, so I went into this one not expecting much from her.
Boy was I wrong. Last night Michelle gave the debate performance of her career, coining the term ‘Newt-Romney’ to show herself as different from Romney and Gingrich, who she successfully tied together as being essentially the same set of policies.
Later, Bachmann did a good job defending her position on the question of extending the payroll tax cut.
It wasn’t enough to make her a serious contender for the nomination, but it WAS good enough to keep her campaign alive for a few more months.
Ron Paul was… well, Ron Paul. Unchanging in his opinions, he continued to pound the issues of too much debt, too much spending, and too much interference around the world.
Paul, darling of the Tea Party, didn’t disappoint his base; and (finally allowed to talk) he scored some serious points.
But the big winner has to be Newt Gingrich. As the front runner going into the debate, we all knew that he would be the focus of the attacks, but I even I didn’t expect that the moderators of the debate would join in and egg on the attacks.
For example: The moderators asked the candidates to name something wrong with Newt, and then went around the floor asking each candidate to speak their minds as to why newt was a bad man.
Later, they asked the question “does infidelity matter”, an obvious attack on Newt since he’s the only candidate left who has issues with infidelity.
But Newt took it like a man, and even had one of the great moments of the night.
Romney was asked to attack Newt, but he took a pass. Gingrich remained friendly. Then Romney, who appeared weak on his initial response, took the bait and attacked Newt on his space policy and other issues.
And then Newt gave it to Romney with both barrels.
For those of you who missed the debate, the closest way I could describe it is to compare it to watching a Mike Tyson or Mohammed Ali fight. They dance, they eye each other up; but in the back of your mind, you always know that there is that punch waiting to come out.
In taking the bait and attacking Newt, Romney gave Gingrich the opportunity to attack Romney without looking like a bad man.
And in one response, Gingrich destroyed the Romney campaign. It was really something to see, Romney was stunned. And within 5 minutes, conservative blogs were abuzz writing Romney’s obituary.
This was fairly early during the debate. What happened after that moment didn’t matter. At that moment, Gingrich may have very well won the nomination.
And Romney didn’t do himself any favors later on, trying to make a ‘friendly’ $10,000 bet with Rick Perry. Here’s a tip for you: If you are trying to fight the image that you are a rich kid out of touch with the real world, don’t try to make a bet worth 3 months salary on a lark. It just doesn’t play well.
Yep, quite a debate. They’ll be talking about it for years.
If you missed the debate, you can watch it here.
FILED IN Editorials, News
I didn’t watch it and really don’t care to…I did hear Newt Gingrich say that poor Black children shound be cleaning the bathrooms in their schools in order to learn the meaning of working, rather than being pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers…did you hear him say that?
He is done…I don’t see how he can get the Republican nomination after saying what he said (and yes, I heard the whole thing, in context)…
U 4get AmeriKKKa loooooves Newt’s way of thinking when it comes to minorities especially African Americans because AmeriKKKa thinks the XXXact same way he does overall not individually but as a KKKunt…try.
I am debate warn out!!!… There have been so many debates. The most of what i take away from these debates is who can say the most off the wall stuff and still be in the race. The problem i have with all of them is:
Newt: with his overall record( infidelity,taking money from Fanny mae…) and most recent Comments about Palestine being an invented race and the Child welfare issues with school janitorial services i can’t see how this guy hasn’t imploded again!!!
Romeny: Wow they must hate you. He is the only canidate there that has a record that isn’t to bad. Oh wait you really don’t know where he stands because he always changes his position with the wind to see which one gives him the most votes. Not including his healthcare bill that the Republicans hate but Massachusetts loves.
Bachman: well she needs to read more
Perry: like to get drunk and talk at press conferences and Hunt at N*gger’s heads..
Huntsman: He is actually rational and keeps the same message but I wouldn’t vote for him because we disagree with our politics.
everyone else is not even being considered because no one else is considering them. LOL
@ EL…
I didn’t hear him say that, but I’m sure if I listened again, I probably could.
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‘poor’ does not automatically mean ‘black’.
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My father went to Catholic school, which requires tuition. Since his family was poor (who wasn’t during the depression), he had to sweep the floors of 2 classrooms each day to pay part of his tuition. (one room for him, and one for his brother who was too young to work).
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I got my first part-time job when I was 8 years old. I made $2.50 per week. That was almost 40 years ago, but I can still remember what I bought with the money I earned (a pair of walkie-talkies if anyone cares).
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By the time I was 14, I had a full time paper route. For those who have never experienced having a paper route before, here are the highlights:
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7 days a week, no excuses, no being tired, no ‘not feeling like it’. Out on your bike at 5:30 every morning, riding about 5 miles a day delivering to 100 homes. If it’s raining or snowing, so what, you still make your deliveries. Complaining customers, dogs, customers who duck you because they don’t want to pay.
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But on the other side… money in your pocket. Money you’ve EARNED from your own work. The self-discipline that will carry you for a lifetime. Early experience acting on your own and experiencing (good or bad) the results of your actions. The need to budget (you pay for your papers at the end of the week, so if you spend your collection money, you’re screwed).
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I agree with Newt that a work ethic is something that is LEARNED. And yes, I believe that teaching children a work ethic is a GOOD thing.
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When Newt makes this point, you will hear him often say ‘like middle class children’. And there is a point worth discussing.
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My brother (also a former paper route child) owns his own business and is doing well. From time to time, he will ‘hire’ his young daughters to do work for the business (like organizing paperwork, or filing records). They get paid an hourly rate, and (like a real job), they don’t get paid if they don’t do the work.
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He is able to do this because he’s earning enough money to be able to do it.
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But what about children in poor families? Maybe their parents are barely getting by. Should their children be denied the opportunity to earn their own money simply because their parents don’t have the means to do it themselves?
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The reason that poor people don’t work is NOT because they are lazy, it is because they don’t have the opportunity to work.
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So if you believe that the opportunity to work at a young age is a good thing; and if you believe that it is worthwhile to give children (who want it) that opportunity, why WOULDN’T you do something to promote it.
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And if you’re going to promote it, you wouldn’t do it in the rich neighborhoods where they can already afford to do it, you do it in the poor neighborhoods where the only thing preventing it is money.
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I’ve been kind of fuming over the way that some left-leaning media (especially HuffPo) has been intentionally misunderstanding this point. They try to paint the statement to mean that Newt wants poor people to be janitors. But that’s simply not the case.
Malcolm, I think that you often choose to give people the benefit of the doubt, when to me their intentions are crystal clear. As I already said, I heard what he said, and KNOW what he meant. I don’t need a clarification from you, although I appreciate you sharing some of your background. It does nothing to change what he said or meant…I too have been working since before I grew any body hair and my oldest son earned enough money to buy his own bike at age 5 (I gave him a commission on every item he sold)……
Newt associates Poor with Blacks just like most out of touch White people do . Ask any KKKracka with chedda,paper,grip, benjeez, who are “poor people” I bet u at least 90% will say if u had 2 say it racially it would be African Americans .Newt, Perry, Bachmann all Klan-Heads with out the sheets . Listen 2 any RepubliKKKlan talk about politricKKKs and most of the time they will bring up either how Obeezee is the worst President and about his Big Gov spending …Like Hitler-Bush Jr. didn’t get us in, well AmeriKKKa in a war over oil and lies but most will say Obama and his spending has put this Nation in a debt that we , we meaning AmeriKKKa will never recover from or much worse things RepubliKKKlans usually say about President Obama.
@ NTS5…
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Your ‘everyone else’ labeling kind of reminds me of the original opening song of Giligans Island, where the professor and Mary Ann were simply “and the rest”.
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Don’t count Newt out yet.
Hey Hey, I only count out Folks when they count themselves out. Hunger is a dangerous things.
I agree teaching children to work for what they get is a great thing. But when it comes to policy i would love to see whom ever put forth a Working youth pledge and pay businesses or give them tax incentives to higher young folks to help keep them off the street and teach them about work.
Now i could say the other part and say by mentioning taking jobs from the janitors and giving it to the children is bad since you don’t the parents to be without a job and a child with one since the parents are taking care of the children. But I am not media and understand what he is trying to say.
But with all of his history and current lapses in judgement (Invented people) he should be chewed up and spit out.