You want to see Bush clearing brush so it feels like he’s a good hardworking rancher. But you want him to clear brush like for 20 minutes once a year and actually do the hard work of governing the rest of the time.

You want to see Clinton stop by a McDonalds and kiss a baby so it feels like he’s a simple man just working as hard as possible to do good for his family. But you don’t want him to literally eat at McDonalds every day (while kissing babies).

Even those crazy (staged) pictures of Putin help give his nation a sense of identity; a rugged, manly, no fear identity. But you don’t want him to run around doing everything shirtless.

____

So here’s the Perry problem: he isn’t a personification. He is the real thing. He is a good ol’ Texas boy who went to the school that Texans joke about being the school for people that can’t get into any other school, who got horrible grades at that easy school, who was on the cheer squad instead of any academic clubs, whose idea of a fun weekend is shooting guns, who actually once killed a coyote with a laser sighted pistol while out on a jog, who wins (state) elections by holding as few debates as possible and by using character assaults on his opponents at the few he actually goes to instead of talking in depth about policy ideas and issues, who likes to talk about succession and treason and legitimately seems to think that the federal government is the root of all problems that anyone in the country faces about anything on any given day, and who, as we are beginning to see, has made it as far as he has made it mostly by relying on his looks and vocal tone (and political party/advisors) rather than smarts or intellectual curiosity.

The Perry Problem is that the nation (and moreover Republicans) want a Ronald Reagan in the sense that we want someone that knows how to play a cowboy and awaken that instinct we all have inside to be wild and free and live exciting lives. But the nation doesn’t actually want a cowboy President. They want a fake cowboy that can take the job of being President 200% seriously at the end of the day.

We want a President that we would enjoy having a beer with. But we don’t want to literally drink beer with the President every night. The President should, you know, be on the phone with other heads of state or his/her generals and have the desire and energy to spend 16+ hour long days doing that for every day for four years straight (with a little vacation mixed in, of course).

In Rick Perry, we may have seen the first candidate to truly not understand the distinction between these two sides of the coin.

Watching GOP debates has now become a kind of abdominal contraction drinking game, with cringes replacing shots at each seemingly inevitable moment when members of the audience embarrass their candidates with some outburst or another.

Via TPM

How do you have a sensible policy debate with people who reject basic facts? It’s like trying to debate members of a cargo cult- the modern GOP carry the crosses but have no idea what it means to be christian. They talk about free markets, but have no understanding of economics. Just say deregulate and tax cuts a lot, and MAGIC WILL HAPPEN. Evolution? LIES! Climate change? LIES! Modern Medicine and vaccines? LIES!

What comes next is Palin’s decision.

If she’s been withholding a decision just to fuck around with everyone and not run, then what happened tonight doesn’t matter.

If, as I’ve posited, she’s been waiting as long as possible in order to allow the current candidates time to self-immolate, then she just saw Perry light up Palin’s path to front-runner status.

There has been speculation about Palin running as an independent candidate. As amusing as that would be, I really can’t see it happening unless she is intent on starting a new political party. With Perry’s serious stumble in tonight’s debate, there is no reason to go full rogue. If Palin enters, it automatically becomes a Palin/Perry/Romney race, with Palin stealing a lot of Perry’s thunder (and supporters) and portraying him as a corrupt lifetime politician while (easily) showing that she is ten buckets more charismatic than Romney.

I don’t know if the votes are there for Palin if she enters. But the stage is set, and this play still needs a clear leading actor/actress.

With a bit of trepidation, I’m still leaning towards thinking she’ll get in the race. Like $50 bet sure. Gonna be a hell of a race if she enters.

Back in 2006, he says, when it came time to look for an internship as part of his high school’s “SIS” (Seniors take the last month or two of the school year to work on a project of some sort. It can be research, and internship, the creation of art of some kind, and other types of things) he had no trouble finding a place in New York City willing to take on an intern at a reasonable, but not horrible, wage. He ended up working on and off, during summers home from college, at the company for three years.

Now, college is complete, but there are just about no jobs to be found. No one is hiring, not even intern/entry pay level jobs. His best opportunity so far has been a job interview at a company that make products for pregnant women. The interview went well, but he has no desire to work in the field.

He thinks the universe has conspired against the class of ’10. I find it hard to disagree, seeing as I’m in the same “looking for employment” boat. I have barely any job experience and there really just aren’t any (college grad) entry level jobs around. He has 3 years and experience at another company as well, and he can barely find anything. The Huffington Post is blasting a headline right this moment saying that youth unemployment is higher than it has ever been since WW2.

This is all a long way of saying that I’m applying to both law and graduate school programs for next fall to hopefully boost my future chances at gainful (or any) employment while hoping that things get a bit better during the two or three years I’m hitting the books.

The best part about this is that the Senate could have appointed her to run the Consumer Protection Agency, but Senate Republicans blocked her nomination from coming to a vote (well, they’ve blocked any and all nominations by Obama of people to run the agency). So instead, she’ll most likely cause those same Republicans to lose a seat next November, a seat that will be crucial if the GOP hopes to re-gain a majority in the Senate.

Unintended consequences can be fun

Table of Contents

1) Issues with several alternatives to the EC

2) Explanation of central tenets

3) Brainstorm

____

1) Issues with several alternatives to the EC

No one really likes the Electoral College. It is antiquated. It doesn’t work the way that it was intended to. It reeks of unnecessary political elitism in both its name and in the fact most elections are either blowouts or come down to a small handful of states, leaving most people feeling as though their vote matters little or not at all.

However, the standard alternatives are much worse options, both at different extremes of the spectrum.

Moving to a national popular vote is a favorite many, especially those who still hold resentment about the 2000 general election. A national popular vote can make sense in small nations. We use it in every state and congressional district, for example, without any serious issues of disenfranchisement. But it won’t work nationally in the United States.

One reason is simple history. We have a state based nation that has striven to protect the balance between state power and national power. To eliminate a state-centric approach in favor of a wide open system would be a gross bastardization of our nation’s history. The small state of Wyoming has about 544k residents and 3 electoral votes. The state of California has about 36.961M residents and 55 electoral votes. One way to parse this is that in the electoral college system California is about 18.3 times more important/powerful than Wyoming. A switch to a popular vote model with make California about 67.9 times more powerful than Wyoming.

Some would say “Well, who cares? It should be that way.” And many people want to feel like their vote matters, instead of being constrained by living in states that potentially vote the same way nearly every election.

They have legitimate concerns. A national popular vote is not the answer though.

With a national popular vote, elections would turn into hyper-partisan turn out exercises. This may sound like a bad joke to those that think we already have such a system, but we really don’t. Right now we have battles over swing states. These states, like Ohio or Florida or Pennsylvania, are at the very least marginally representative of the national as a whole. Candidates must hone their message to appeal to as many people as possibly, especially towards the middle-ground independent voters. Compartmentalizing the election in this manner is not great for enfranchisement, but it does ensure a healthy level of political moderation from candidates. A national popular vote would do the opposite. It would encourage Democrats to put nearly all organizational resources into urban areas and the coasts. The GOP would focus on the South and Mid-West and on suburban or rural areas. Partisanship as a whole would increase, but far worse than that is partisanship based on geographic location (and therefore race, eventually) would grow sharply. It would not be healthy. It would encourage increased voting fraud as well as disenfranchisement tactics. And if pre-election polls suggest that one candidate is going to win, for example, 55% to 45% or greater the incentive to vote may decrease dramatically. This would hurt local and state level democracy. To be fair, this issue of disincentivization is equally weak or worse in the current EC system.

Ok. Now the district by district method.

In this system, each Congressional district would cast an electoral vote based on which candidates wins the district (by plurality). Presumably, each state would cast 2 electoral votes based on their statewide winner as well.

The problem in this system is that many urban districts are (as a result of the Civil Right Act, though I forget which one) gerrymandered in a way that extremely favor Democrats. Some rural districts are the opposite, in favor of the GOP. So what would happen is the inverse of the national popular vote system: swing districts (mostly suburban or rural areas) would be the focus on attention for candidates. Urban districts (and therefore urban issues) would be at the very least less important, at most neglected entirely and taken for granted as voting for the Democratic candidate. Same for certain rural areas, especially the large land states in the central northwest that have only one or two districts for very big swaths of land. We would be replacing swing states, and their mix of urban, rural, and suburban and racially diverse concerns, with swing districts, which would in all likelihood put a disproportionate focus on white suburban concerns.

Not to mention, the redistricting process would become even more of a political nightmare.

I prefer the Electoral College to either of those options because it fits in a good middle ground. It encourages moderation. It mildly encourages suffrage without encouraging too much disenfranchisement tactics. For example: If the state of New York drastically reduced voting ability in New York City in a national popular vote system (let’s say they, unrealistically, do this by eliminating 90% of polling locations so lines are too long for people to bother voting) they could change an entire election. If the same thing happened in the current EC, New York state might flip but the rest of the nation would be unaffected. This compartmentalization is a good thing in terms of protecting against such tactics, though it is not ideal for incentivizing voting in the first place.

There must be a better system than all three.

____

2) Explanation of central tenets

As mentioned in my previous post, here are the three central tenets than any new system must adhere to:

– Must encourage suffrage (voting).

Any new system must seek to incentivize voting as much as possible while guarding against giving new reasons for politicians to desire disenfranchising voters (as in the national popular vote scenario).

The best way to go about this is the make the system complex enough that one has no idea how much their vote matters until after all have been counted. They must also feel as those their vote will matter no matter the outcome of their particular region. This leads will to point two.

2) Must be simple enough to explain to an 8th grader.

It is entirely possible to make an exceedingly complex plan that balances all geographic, racial, and political concerns when it comes to electing a President.

But if the plan is too complex it will have an opposite effect on incentivization and decrease turnout. It has to make sense to and 8th grader or else there is no point in using it.

8th graders are capable of understanding plenty, thankfully, so I’ll still have a lot of room to be creative in my solution.

3) Must retain a sense of “American-ism”

This umbrella term covers a few things. First, some specific things like ranked or multi-candidate voting will be excluded from any final plan. So will multi-round (run-offs, both automatic or real) voting. Second, the intangible aspect of the plan must feel “American” in terms of respecting the individual power of states and our style of federalism as well as the notion of “one person one vote”. The latter will have to be fudged slightly, but not in a way that is worse than the electoral college and not in a way that encourages any voting fraud. Lastly, it must be written in a way that could be added to the Constitution as an amendment. This does not mean it has to necessarily be simple or short, but it cannot be a five page rule book either. My ideas have to be condensed into clear and concise language at the end of things.

____

3) Brainstorm

At the moment, I am envisioning a sort of super-hybrid electoral system in which the national vote, statewide vote, and per-district vote all are taken into account. In addition, some level of that must include an allocation of electoral votes based on percentage to provide increased incentivization for both individuals (to vote) and for parties/groups (to register voters and get as many to the polls as possible, everywhere).

The electoral “votes” must be tied to the number of Congress seats somehow (as opposed to picking a random number like 500 or 1,000), so that it is scalable in the event that new states are added to the union.

It must provide language guaranteeing electoral votes as opposed to the current Electoral College where electors (the people we elect to cast the final ballots) are technically free to cast their vote for anyone they please. The tradition of having “electors” may be continued, potentially.

There must be built-in recourse in the case of certain unforeseen events (death of President-elect between election day and certification of results, virtual ties, no candidate achieves a certain threshold of votes, etc).

The system should not favor “glamor” candidacies (ie a billionaire that spends his/her way into a third party victory [or, more accurately, multiple billionaires running and diluting the vote so that no candidates in the entire race receives more that 20% or 30% of the national vote]). However, it should not be built to favor a two party system either. The easy solution to this is a run-off election, but I have ruled this out.

It should (possibly) provide a standardized way of getting onto the national ballot, as opposed to the state-by-state system at the moment (some require signatures, some require payments, some both). Some sort of threshold and candidate limit would have to be set. I may not include anything on this subject. It’s a tricky one.

Ok. Going to keep thinking about this overnight and possibly for a few days before putting together a plan. Stay tuned!

A few things first: I am a fan of the Electoral College compared to most of the “simple” alternatives (ie national popular vote or vote per congressional district). There are many reasons for this, most of which stem from the fact that most alternatives end up replacing the disenfranchisement inherent in the EC by introducing worse disenfranchisement. I’ll delve into this a bit in my next post.

As a way to guide this quixotic task, I am setting up a few ground rules or “tenets” of any new system.

Central Tenets:

1) Must encourage suffrage (voting).

2) Must be simple enough to explain to an 8th grader.

3) Must retain a sense of “American-ism”

I’ll expand on these tenets in my next post as well.

Any story about Dems or the White House freaking out is a either made up or  is a story about over paid staffers/pundits. The election will come down to Florida, Ohio, and Iowa/New Hampshire/Colorado (the troika are mostly likely to end up shifting the same direction as each other).

Everything else is irrelevant. If Romney get the nomination you portray him as stiff. If Perry does you portray his as extreme. If Palin does you enjoy the bloodbath. If Huntsman does you emphasize the things him and the President agree on so the conservatards freak out about him being a RINO/closet Dem.

There is no Reagan.

Even though Obama’s approval numbers are tanking and he isn’t really campaigning and the GOP has all the attention, Obama is still winning head to heads against both Perry and Romney, and his numbers against Perry have been getting better and better each week as Perry says more and more wild stuff.

Obama could pull a Weiner (or Clinton/Lewinsky) and still have a good enough shot at things. The crazy thing is that there hasn’t even been one true scandal yet.

The last guy started a war with false justification. The guy before him slept around. Both were re-elected. This guy kept it in his pants, killed Bin Laden, helped oust Gaddifi, and (hopefully) fought to improve the job situation in a global economic downturn.

It’s going to be a long campaign.

If you value your sanity you should just turn off all political news until next August. Not much will change in between now and then.

Poll numbers here: http://thepage.time.com/2011/09/14/poll-obama-leads-gop-12ers/

1) Palin has an even bigger opening to get into this race. Long ago my belief was that her overall strategy was to let each front runner or media sensation implode on their own (and release her own oppo research to help accomplish this) so that she could enter late into a damaged field. If I was right, she just watched the last giant (Perry) wound himself enough that Palin could announce as the front runner.

2) Perry probably won’t lose supporters because of last night, but his momentum is likely stopped dead in its tracks. I suspect he’ll hover around 25% to 35% in national GOP primary polls for a little while without much change until Palin decides whether to enter the race or not.

3) Romney and Bachman have new life. Huntsman probably has a better chance in New Hampshire the more Perry says crazy things.

8:16 Romney says ponzi scheme rhetoric is dangerous and starts hitting Perry about his book. Maybe this debate will be fun, at least for a half hour or so.

8:17 Romney is smacking Perry around about SocSec. Hard.

8:19 Crowd very pro-Perry. Romney holding his own with Perry even though Perry getting the applause lines so far.

8:20 Wolf seeks to elevate the debate by bringing in Cain to the discussion about SocSec. >mfw

8:22 Huntsman does a good two-step to cast both Romney and Perry as the crazies

8:22 Gingrich blames Obama for ruining the world and stuff. Crowd goes wild.

8:23 Apparently Huntsman referenced Kurt Cobain. I missed it.

8:25 Santorum spoke. No one listened. Did it happen?

8:25 Question about budget. GET READY FOR BALANCE BUDGET AMENDMENT HOOOORAHHHHHS

8:28 Santorum spoke again. No one listened. Did it happen?

8:39 Officially bored. Thus endeth the live blog.

9:30 Just posting to say Santorum’s freudian slip about “illegals…I mean latinos” was wild.

The rest

More

2) Another debate will take place in 10 days, on Fox News. The network asked very tough questions last time around, and Chris Wallace will be moderating again so that should be interesting.

3) What I expect to see from each candidate:

Bachmann – Must revive campaign by either hitting Perry from the right or launching a surprise SocSec defense from the middle (before Romney has the chance to [clearly] stake his own ground on the issue). Probably should hit from the right on immigration.

Gingrich – Must show he can go one debate without complaining about the moderators ~_~

Paul – Must not come off as a crazy person again.

Cain – Must make sure to wear pants. As long as he does, his performance scarcely matters.

Santorum – Must hit hard about foreign policy and domestic policy (no social issues) and must do so with controlled assertiveness instead of his usual pseudo-whining.

Huntsman – Must continue to inject himself into the debate as the (ex) governor with the best jobs record of not only those on the stage but in the entire nation. Every time he brings this up it’s not only good to brag about but it effortlessly contrasts him against Romney/Perry and elevates him to their level. In short: Must continue to gain relevance.

Romney – Must be able to both keep his cool and counter Perry’s attacks. It’s not an easy tightrope to walk. He’ll have to prove he can do it if he wants to prove that he’ll be able to effectively take on Obama.

Perry – Must not screw up. Must provide enough soundbites to continue to be the topic of conversation over the next 10 days. Must also prove that he can be aggressive without being brash. Another tough tightrope to walk.

Overall – The Perry v. Romney dynamic again will dominate the debate and discussion of. Hopefully Huntsman or Bachmann or even Santorum breaks through the static, but I doubt it. If Romney and Perry start seriously punching each other then there is an avenue for Huntsman to appear like the best last man standing at the end of the night.

4) Tweet from David Corn “More fun to watch the CNN director pumping up the crowd on live feed than CNN’s pregame analysis on network.”

Pretty much. Debate starting in a few seconds. Prepare for some horrible moderation and questions.

And see what happens:

[A]s GOP consultant Alex Castellanos put it: “Perry has not won elections in Texas because he is loved. He has won because he sticks a fork in his opponent’s eyeballs.”

There’s nothing at all wrong with having a reputation for hitting hard. However, if I were advising one of his main opponent, Mitt Romney, I’d start trying to test Perry to see just how far he takes it. Can he be baited? If so, his aggressiveness might be very easily turned against him. That is, at some point, an attack-everything candidate isn’t really aggressive, but recklessly reactive.

I made this point in a post before the last debate. Perry debates by being extremely aggressive. Last debate he pulled a “Romney was worse than Dukakis” rabbit out of his hat, minutes into the debate, and strong armed Ron Paul during a commercial break, just to name a few.

He verged on reckless a few times. If I make any prediction tonight it will be that Perry cools his jets a bit, simply to prove that he can cool off. There were stirrings after last debate that Romney looked more presidential than Perry. If Perry keeps up the (rabid) attack dog act tonight, that conventional wisdom about Romney v. Perry could stick.

There is a beautiful post from the Daily Dish today to commemorate the day and reflect upon the idea of forgiveness: Deep Forgiveness

Here is a snip (from a quote):

Dom Christian enunciated the deepest meaning of forgiveness.  We forgive not only because God asks it of us, not only because we must find released from the burdens of hatred and revenge, but because we recognize that we are not innocent, that we, too, as Dom Christian wrote, are accomplices “of the evil that seems to prevail in the world around.”

It worked.

2) The Obama jobs plan is political genius. However, I suspect virtually none of it will ever be enacted, at least not without a European collapse to force Congress to act.

That is the political brilliance of it all. The economy is likely to get worse (or stay as bad as it is) no matter what, at least for the next few years. So here are the scenarios:

a) Congress rejects the bill completely. Economy remains stagnant. Obama and Democrats blame House Republicans.

b) Congress rejects bill completely. Europe collapses. American economy begins to dive. Obama says that if Congress had passed his bill we would not be in such a free fall.

c) Congress passes only some portions of the bill. Obama vetos and tells them to send the whole thing. House refuses. Obama blames Congress when economy stays stagnant or gets worse.

d) Congress passes the whole thing. Economy stagnates, or gets worse, or gets better. Obama can campaign on passing a jobs bill. Republicans can try to say it didn’t work like the stimulus didn’t work, only this time it will be much harder to argue against it, especially since many will have to vote in favor in order for it to have passed.

There isn’t really a way for Republicans to get a political victory on this. You could see the displeasure of many House leaders during the speech. You could see that they knew they were being backed into a corner and were (justifiably, I suppose) a bit pissed.

3) The effect might not last long, but Obama woke up his base with the speech. It satisfied in three ways: it was a clear and direct enumeration of the Obama/liberal platform on jobs, it was moderately confrontation and showed Obama still has what it takes for campaign season, and (most importantly) it was a smart political move and it was obvious to anyone watching that he was smartly cornering GOP.

His base has been waiting for him to pull a move like that for a long long time.

4) Ezra Klein is changing up his blog. Jon Chait is leaving TNR. SO MANY CHANGES!

5) Bachmann is triangulating a bit on Social Security, calling Rick Perry out for using the language that he uses. The most interesting fights brewing (aka still developing) in the GOP race so far are:

#1 Ron Paul v. Rick Perry (The Paullites are livid after this event at the debate)

#2 Huntsman v. Romney (not that big right now, but growing and will continue to grow as New Hampshire comes into focus)

#3 Bachmann v. Perry (she needs to hit him hard to gain ground and become relevant again)

#4 Romney v Perry (I’m bored of this already, to be honest, but there are no other scuffles of interest beyond this)

6) The Yankees could have been up 4.5 games on the Red Sox if the Yanks hadn’t blown two late leads in the last two games. Conversely, the Red Sox could have been only a game an a half behind the Yankees if the Sox had won their last two games. Both are probably happy with the current 2.5 game spread compared to what could have been.

7) There is another GOP debate on Monday. Prepare your livers.

Next milestones will be turning one month old and reaching 1000 total hits, in that order probably.

Happy Thursday

Doesn’t mean she’ll run. But if she legitimately is waiting to make decision (presumably waiting to see if Perry trips up and opens up a Sarah Palin size gap) then tonight pushed her needle in the “yes” direction.

Why? Perry’s ponzi scheme stuff may be so far out there as to make him unelectable in a general. Plus he tripped up a bunch of times. He doesn’t hide his extremism very well.

The debate in five days will matter even more if Palin is still deciding though. Perry will either win or stumble. I still think tonight proved that he doesn’t know when to hold his tongue. And that is a big long term liability.

My instinct (contrary to previous beliefs) is that Palin will not run. However, when it comes to Palin I have come to learn to trust the opposite of my instinct. Which is to say no one fucking knows if she’ll run. But big conservatives are starting to get pissed about waiting.

Like Barack Obama, Sarah Palin is just a mortal politician, just a human of the same sinful flesh as the rest of us passing through this place on her way to eternity just like you and me.

We should not set Palin on a pedestal so high she shatters if she falls off, but that’s what her most ardent fans have done. Thanks to Palin’s own conduct, if she does shatter by either not running or running and losing the nomination, the Palin Fan Cult gives me and many others the strong impression they’d rather shatter all the other candidates than have anyone but Palin herself win.

In the process, these people have overshadowed the efforts and desires of many reasonable Palin supporters who are just ready to either vote for Palin or be told of her decision not to run so they can go support someone else.

Enough is enough.

There are far more critical sections of the article, but I can’t quote it all.

9.57 pm. My take-away? Perry has proved himself an extreme, inarticulate, incurious W clone. He doubled down on the vicious attacks on social security; and his rhetoric was off-key. Huntsman emerged as an actual candidate; Romney kicked ass. Bachmann is wearing thinner and thinner. Paul is Paul. Santorum is a Vatican crank. Gingrich is an angry old man. Cain has no business being up there. Perry’s poor performance gives Palin an opening. And an actual argument that people can understand about economic policy did not emerge.

My thoughts exactly, although I think Perry did better rhetorically (at least among Republican voters) than Andrew portrays.

Verdict: Wrong. There was some serious bitch-offs, most initiated by Rick Perry though.

2) Santorum will use one of these words tonight: “sodomy” “polygamy” “finger-banging” or “taxes”

Verdict: Correct. I’ll let you guess which word it was.

3) Perry’s criticism (desire to cut its budget) of FEMA will be brought up to contrast with his willingness to take FEMA assistance for the Texas wildfires. He will pivot well and come off as a strong leader.

Verdict: Wrong. Didn’t come up.

4a) Romney will land at least one respectable punch on Perry during the debate. Failure to do so would have the entire media labeling him a Pawlenty-light-weight tomorrow.

Verdict: True. He won’t be looked at as a light weight tomorrow.

4b) Romney can “win” by holding his own against Perry.

Verdict: Sort of. He held his own, but he is being looked at as doing a “strong second” instead of “winning” or “losing”.

4c) The entire discussion tomorrow will be about whether Perry or Romney appeared more Presidential/strong/relaxed/good looking/confident/etc.

Verdict: Yea, kind of. It will be more about Perry v. Perry. The Perry that makes conservatives cum their pants, and the Perry that makes everyone else shit theirs.

5) Huntsman does better than expected.

Verdict: Correct. Most think he did well. Maddow actually said Huntsman lost ground. That’s crazy. Huntsman didn’t win the debate or do crazy well, but he did better than expected and will get some good press about this. Must do well (read: even better) in Orlando in five days too.

7:51 Making turkey burgers. Hopefully will be finished by start time.

7:54 The vodka-cokes begin now. Take a sip every time someone says Reagan! #wontbeconsciousin10minutes

7:55 The Ron Paul ad about Rick Perry is airing now

7:57 Twitter is atwitter about the debate

7:59 Chris Matthews ends his debate intro with the word “balls” #professionallivebloggingnotahead

8:00 Brian Williams will be moderating? There is nobody better in this time and age. Props.

8:01 No opening or closing statements. Hm.

8:02 First question will go to Perry. He is making a funny face. Like a constipated school boy. OH BOY HERE COMES THE EMPTY RHETORIC.

8:03 Perry is tripping up a little. Just early nerves. Can tell he is going to settle down.

8:04 Romney is looking at Perry. Question to him. Lets see what happens…

8:05 Romney: “rabble rabble rabble not going to engage Perry from the start rabble rabble rabble not as good at pandering as Perry”

I suspect the rest of the debate will go like this. Romney isn’t pivoting at all. He is accepting the premise of Williams’s questions. Booooooooring. And bad strategy.

8:07 Perry already starting to attack Romney. WOO. This will be fun. The Perry from past debates is here.

8:08 Romney gets in very funny line about Al Gore and the internet. It insulted Perry somehow.

8:08 Perry says something about Dukakis. What is this, 1988?

8:09 Santorum is now speaking. Time for a bathroom break.

8:10 Cain now speaking. Very fast. He must have taken Ron Paul’s pep pills from the previous debate.

8:10 Cain: “If 10% is good enough for god, then 9% ought to be good enough for the government” Good line. Drew applause. He really is speaking too fast though. It makes me feel anxious and clouds his message.

8:12 HUNTSMAN TIME. He is given a question about China inre: Romney. Starts talking about the “core” of America. Says to Romney “now is not the time to start a trade war”.

Also pokes Perry then Romney again. Huntsman is prepared. Dunno if it will matter though. He doesn’t connect in the Republican way.

8:13 Bachmann time. She is given a shitty question about regulations. HERE COMES “DEATH TO OBAMACARE”.

8:14 I’d rather eat a boca burger than this turkey shit

8:14 There is a disturbing lack of Reagan love so far.

8:14 Bachmann pretends to care about unemployed black and hispanic kids. Moving along to Ron Paul

8:15 Paul given a question about libertarianism. COLOR ME SHOCKED. His answer about regulation is underwhelming. State by state regulations the way he would want is fucking insane. He sounds like the crazy uncle tonight. More than usual. He is rambling. Should have just talked about the wars or something.

8:17 Oh yea, Gingrich is here.

8:17 Gingrich tells a good joke. Perry gives a thumbs up and still looks like a constipated school boy.

8:18 Shabu Shabu going all REAGAN REAGAN REGAN

8:19 Gingrich accuses Obama of class warfare and socialism. #stale

8:20 John Harris adding to the chaos theory

8:20 Perry speaks out against Massachusetts. Perry is really hurling fireballs tonight. I don’t know how smart that is. Certainly didn’t expect it. No substance so far, which could be a liability in post-debate coverage.

Perry wins debates by attacking, not proposing ideas. I’m surprised he hasn’t yet tried to counteract that CW.

8:22 Perry: “FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BAD. EVERYTHING ELSE….GOOD. MAN MAKE FIRE.”

8:23 Perry blames uninsured levels in Texas on federal government

8:24 Huntsman gets to join in the Perry/Romney spat. Draws a very good contrast. Should not talk so long. He gets boring by the end. But he is lucky to be able to inserting himself into that duo.

8:25 Bachmann: “dubwubwubdub Obamacare is a giant slimy monster taking over the world dubdubdwubdub repeal and hitler and god and the bible”

8:26 Gingrich blames the moderator. This seems to be his go to move in debates. The ~Gingrich Crossover~

8:28 Twitter is having a field day about Newt’s predictable stupidity. Even conservatives.

8:28 Cain complains about “Rumney care” and is rambling about who knows what but is using great hand gestures so people will enjoy it. Lots of applause.

8:29 Santorum about to be asked about religion. COLOR ME SHOCKED.

8:30 Time to make a new drink while Santorum finishes talking about how gays are ruining life for people in the closet.

8:32 Perry time. “FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BAD. EVERYTHING ELSE….GOOD. MAN MAKE FIRE.”

8:32 Perry quotes JFK at Reagan Library. Doesn’t really get much applause.

8:33 John Harris is a shitty moderator. Question about Bachmann’s gas promise now. Bachmann is getting  about 10% of the attention that she did last time. #sucksforher

8:35 Someone on Twitter is calling Perry’s facial expressions the “#TexasSquint”

8:35 Huntsman says Bachmann’s gas idea is “dictating prices”. Good line for him. Also makes a joke about teleprompters. Also speaking too long again.

8:37 Ron Paul attacks Perry about the Hillarycare letter

8:37 From Twitter “NOBODY ACCOMPLISHES ANYTHING ON THEIR FIRST DAY AS PRESIDENT EXCEPT GETTING COLD AND GOING TO PARTIES. ARRGH.” lol

8:37 Paul promises gas for a dime a gallon.

8:38 lol….a silver dime worth $3 and something cents

8:39 Perry cannot help himself. Attacks Paul about Reagan stuff. Grinning like a jackass while Paul responds. Stupid to engage with Paul.

8:40 Commercial time. Also know as GET ME MY MAKEUP PERSON NOW time by Michelle Bachmann.

8:43 STUFF FROM TWITTER

“Rick Perry attacking Ron Paul is like arguing with blog commenters”

“rick perry doesn’t give a shit. he’ll attack the janitor if he questions his conservative bonafides”

“Hey @JacobWe, can we start getting paid in silver dimes?” from Dave Weigel

“I don’t think he’s hurt his candidacy, but Perry’s performance has been surprisingly weak to the halfway point.” from Erica Grieder

“Bachmann. Glad we got that over with.” Pat Ruffini (GOP operative)

“Surprised to see Ron Paul ditch the gold standard in favor of Bryan-style silver coins.” Yglesias having some fun

8:46 Nancy Reagan is such a sweet looking woman. Reminds me of my Grandmother, may she rest in peace.

8:47 Ok, seconds after that we transition to “is social security unconstitutional” #buzzkill

8:48 Perry calls Social Security a ponzi scheme. No applause. Harris says Cheney said it is not a ponzi scheme. Pushing for an answer from Perry. Perry stands his ground. Romney now hitting Perry about it.

8:51 Prince Fielder has missed one game in the last 3 seasons #thisdebateisstartingtogetboring

8:51 Perry….quadrupling down about SocSec being a ponzi scheme. Not good for him, in my opinion.

8:53 It’s getting to that point where one must drink much faster in order to keep this debate from becoming either depressing or boring or infuriating. The first 45 minutes is always best.

8:54 Nate Silver on twitter: “Perry has that Brett Favre quality about him: lots of touchdowns, lots of interceptions. Just threw a pick 6 on Social Security.”

8:54 Everyone is bashing Perry about the HPV thing. I am bashing vodka cokes.

8:56 To be honest, Palin could probably get in and be the best “Tea Party candidate not to call SocSec a ponzi scheme” and have a real chance at gaining ground right now. Her inner circle is probably loving this debate so far.

8:58 Romney gets in a good applause line about Obama. Then Gingrich is about to get asked a question and says he wants to talk about national security first. #buzzkill

8:59 Ron Paul: private airlines should take care of airport security. fuck the TSA.

Jeebus, Paul is bringing on the crazy today. He should, again, just talk about getting us out of wars. That is an INSANE answer.

9:04 Huntsman again starts out strong then talks too long.

9:07 Losing track of all conception of time. Is this 1983?

9:07 OH GOD A BROWN PERSON ON STAGE #Bachmannthoughts

9:08 Immigration stuff now. Perry gets first question. Talks about securing the border. That won’t get boring over the next 14 months~

9:09 Romney says build a fence. ~_~

9:10 Perry has a boy scout pin on his jacket. Yes, I’m bored. These things suck so hard after an hour.

9:11 Newt talks about English as official language. Gets immediate applause.

9:12 Bachmann has not spoken since the commercial, as far as I know.

9:12 The brown guys says “What do you do with the 11 million illegals here?” and Santorum is all like “ehhhhhh dont want to answer that one”. Bachmann time. What would she do….?

9:13 Bachmann starts talking about narco-terrorists and ignores question. I wonder if the questioner will bother saying…please answer the question.

9:15 He did. She didn’t really answer.

9:17 Huntsman talking too long again.

9:17 Paul uses immigration questions to talk about drug decriminalization. Also says the fence doesn’t just keep people out but keeps us in. Which is a new way to look at it, at least with so many people listening.

9:19 Cillizza thinks Huntsman is doing well. Yglesias liked his immigration answer. It is possible (though unlikely) that the story coming out of this debate is that the 3 way race isn’t Perry-Romney-Bachmann but instead is Perry-Romney-Huntsman. #dreamsofhuntsman

9:21 commercial break

9:22 Holy balls, the Air Force One jet in there is directly over the crowd.

9:23 LIGHTNING ROUND

9:23 From David Frum on twitter “One of our FrumForum commenters: “Perry looks like a high school jock who took a wrong turn into a debate team practice.”” Yea, pretty much. His head is too small for his suit or too big for his body or something. Something is off.

9:25 Huntsman has a good line about pledge. STOP TALKING THERE DUMBASS.

9:27 funny from Larry Sabato on Twitter (he’s a prof) “Gov. Huntsman, you’re going to make a great college professor.”

9:28 Perry asked about his shitty foreign policy plan. Pivots to Obama and jobs. wtf?

9:31 Twitter having fun about Perry’s non-answer while Bachmann speaks. Nobody is interested in her anymore.

9:33 This is getting more boring. I’m just watching Twitter and waiting for Chris Matthews to get back on TV and say silly things.

9:35 Huntsman defending global warming and evolution. Sweet!

9:37 Perry doing a crazy man jig about global warming. Other candidates looking bemused and pleased.

9:39 Best tweet of the night (from Weigel) “”Look, we need to drown at least three or four witches before we make a scientific decision.” #reagandebate”

9:39 Gingrich calls Bernanke the worst whatever ever and says he made problems worse. How bizarre. Bernanke was nominated by Bush.

9:43 Brian William notes the Texas execution record. Before he finishes the question the crowd roars with applause.

9:50 Well that was interesting. Someone on Twitter say Perry both won and lost the debate. Won Republicans. Lost….everyone else because of SocSec ponzi scheme quadruple down. I buy it. Hope Huntsman gets deserved props.

Thats all folks

9:53 One more. Tweet from Erica Grieder:

EricaGrieder The Republicans have three candidates (Perry, Romney, and Huntsman) who could plausibly beat Obama in the general. 9/7/11 9:53 PM

Maybe I was right about that one.

But he’s never debated someone like Bachmann or Ron Paul, and I suspect that if Perry tries to use his favored tactics against either of them tonight then he will be interrupted and parried (pun alert) quite well.

I suspect Perry won’t go on the attack at all tonight though. He’ll focus on his own record and his personal background/narrative. Maybe he’ll attack Romney once or twice. He’s the easiest target.

I’ll be live blogging the debate tonight. This shit better be interesting.

The following are my predictions

1) With another debate occurring five days from now (a CNN debate in Orlando), this debate will not be the smackdown that pundits believe will (and want to) happen. There will be nothing like the Bachmann-Pawlenty bitch-off in the last debate. In fact, if the non-Perry candidates collude to lay off Perry tonight, they could let him “win” the debate on purpose so that expectations for him in five days would be insurmountably high. Then they’d pounce and draw blood.

2) Santorum will use one of these words tonight: “sodomy” “polygamy” “finger-banging” or “taxes”

3) Perry’s criticism (desire to cut its budget) of FEMA will be brought up to contrast with his willingness to take FEMA assistance for the Texas wildfires. He will pivot well and come off as a strong leader.

4a) Romney will land at least one respectable punch on Perry during the debate. Failure to do so would have the entire media labeling him a Pawlenty-light-weight tomorrow.

4b) Romney can “win” by holding his own against Perry.

4c) The entire discussion tomorrow will be about whether Perry or Romney appeared more Presidential/strong/relaxed/good looking/confident/etc.

5) Huntsman does better than expected.