Republican debate in Iowa: A viewer's guide

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T-Paw lost the debate. He really had to hit the ball out of the park tonight and he didn’t do it.

Romney since he was the front runner just had to not get hurt, and he didn’t so he did OK.

Newt was surprisingly (or maybe not that surprisingly) good tonight. When he is on his game he is fascinating to listen to. He is unpredictable and he is unelectable.

Speaking of unelectable Ron Paul was his old self tonight. Nice to see. He will do well in the Iowa straw poll and the Iowa caucuses and poorly in every primary election, as always.

Jon Huntsman showed himself as an inside the beltway candidate tonight. He won’t move up to the 1st tier unless he does something special.

Bachmann had to shine tonight to outshine Perry on Saturday. Although she did well, with some tough questions, I don’t know if she did what was necessary. But for her there will be other opportunities.
 
I’m not an American so I can’t vote since I’m Canadian but I caught about half the debate on FOX in between building an igloo for my family in the backyard to withstand the Canadian winter.

My word; Byron York I think asked some pretty direct questions during the cultural/religious section of the debate which I guess goes to show that FOX isn’t entirely in the GOP’s pocket. His question to Michelle Bachmann for one.

Just one criticism. Couldn’t FOX say there shall be no applauding or booing during the course of the debate. I mean it got quite boisterous and for people wishing to learn as much as possible about the numerous candidates’ positions in the limited time frame of under two hours with so many candidates, a noisy crowd just turns it into sloganeering and wait for applause. For instance, why even bother having Fox’s anchor go through the ridiculous task of taking 5 seconds of everyone’s time to tell a candidate you have 15 seconds to respond. 15 seconds !? You can’t be serious. If you want to play by those rules, then the crowds should stay quiet, in my opinion.

Other than that, quite interesting. And I still can’t see who will lead the GOP against Obama or who has the best chance and “votibility” and program. 🤷
 
Byron York is not from Fox. He is a writer with the Washington Examiner and the National Review.

Personally I enjoyed the crowd noise. That is how the Lincoln v Douglas debates worked. And they didn’t have microphones to speak above the crowd.
 
gilliam said:
Byron York is not from Fox. He is a writer with the Washington Examiner and the National Review.

Personally I enjoyed the crowd noise. That is how the Lincoln v Douglas debates worked. And they didn’t have microphones to speak above the crowd.
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Yes, I know Byron York is with NR. Still remember when he started writing there.

Still Lincoln v. Douglas was two people; this was quite a bit more.

Let me ask you gilliam, who do you think of the candidates up there tonight right now has the best chance of beating Obama; not whom you would choose personally or approve of most but realistically who among them would make the strongest opponent against Obama (meaning getting independents too I assume) to win 2012. I think it’s Romney right now.
 
KyivAndrew said:
Let me ask you gilliam, who do you think of the candidates up there tonight right now has the best chance of beating Obama; not whom you would choose personally or approve of most but realistically who among them would make the strongest opponent against Obama (meaning getting independents too I assume) to win 2012. I think it’s Romney right now.
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I agree of those up there it is Romney. Of those up there and who might enter the race, it is Romney and Perry.
 
KyivAndrew said:
Couldn’t FOX say there shall be no applauding or booing during the course of the debate.
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They did tell the crowd to please not respond ( can’t remember the exact wording now) at the begining of the debate because it would eat into the question and answer time.
 
Okay, now that I’ve gotten a chance to review the debate and pay some particular attention to responses, I thought Huntsman, Pawlenty, and Santorum were the clear loosers of the debate. They did absolutely nothing to raise their standing or appeal to voters. Santorum was great on the life issue (expectedly), but he jsut has no voter appeal. Pawlenty is too vanilla and Hunstman seems too…limp. Gingrich was very good. I think he may be hanging out with Donald Trump the way he was telling the moderators to “stop it with the gotcha questions”. I liked how Michele’s responded to the “submissive wife” question. Romney was the poster boy for the typical status quo GOP nominee. Since I disfavor the status quo Republican as much as I disfavor the Democrats, I wasn’t impressed with his clean and polished, out of the box, consultant approved answers. Of course I liked Ron Paul, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. But it is nice to see that the rest of the Republican field is beginning to agree with him on the Federal Reserve and sound money policy.
 
What I liked about the debate was “conservative” and “helping business succeed” were liberally used and were not dirty words.
 
From what I observed, the loudest and most sustained applause were for Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich.
 
JMJSHJ said:
From what I observed, the loudest and most sustained applause were for Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich.
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Ron Paul has a very dedicated fan base that follows him around the country and mobilizes their forces to be at these events, straw polls, online polls, online forums, and caucuses. Although he did OK last night, he didn’t say anything new. Last few national elections he received 7% of the Republican vote in the primaries. I expect about the same, or maybe slightly better in 2012. He is currently polling an average of 8.9%. You don’t become the nominee with those numbers. His foreign policy is outside the Republican mainstream. His domestic economic stances are really outside the Republican mainstream. IMHO, he really is a Libertarian and should be running in that party.

Republicans like to listen to Newt. They just don’t vote for him, too much baggage. He is polling at 4.6% currently.
 
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