Van Jones shaking in his boots

Van Jones IS a demagogue. He accused Vivek Ramaswamy of being one.  Here's the lowdown in case you missed it:

"Nazi propaganda." Van Jones

Vivek is speaking facts. Van Jones doesn't like it and is posturing his feelings for effect. Period.

GOP debate fallout for Vivek Ramaswamy

RNC chair goes after Vivek Ramaswamy for his honest appraisal of GOP leadership during the last GOP debate.

Vivek Ramaswamy slays at the GOP debate

Vivek Ramaswamy took it to every at the GOP debate last night, brilliant. He tore into the media, the GOP, and did not hold back. He was the clear winner.  He may end up as VP and that would not be bad.

Florida Republican debate observations

Marco Rubio had the best performance at the debate last night, not because the hometown crowd applause for many of his points, but rather because he made some truly substantive points and sounded more presidential than Ted Cruz (my personal preference).

John Kasich in focus groups appeared to do well but I didn't see it.  He seemed very centrist which I found unappealing but the real problem for him as a candidate was his demeanor.  He seemed tired.  It reminded me of the George W. Bush debate where he was leaning on the podium and looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.  Kasich didn't display it to the same level, it was more subtle.  But it seemed to me that he was just waiting for Ohio be over so he can drop out.  Maybe I'm wrong but that was the impression I got.

Ted Cruz did well but in order for him to move the dial on future results he's got to expand his message to a broader audience.  There's only one way to do that.  Ted - we know you'd govern as a Constitutional conservative, move past it.  The single issue that would move the dial for Cruz would be for him to focus on the economy and jobs and job security.  He's hit on it a few times but he needs to do it more.

Donald Trump looked more presidential (and as I write, his press conference with Ben Carson's endorsement he's seeming it even more).  What I found fascinating was his closing argument about Supreme Court justice appointments over the next four years. v If he meant what he said, that's a powerful argument for those doubting his conservative credentials.  Let's see if he hits on that more going forward.

Overall, I don't think the debate will change any expected results in the next few states.  It may add a few points for Trump and for Rubio, but there is not going to be a paradigm shift out of it.

GOP Debate winners and losers

This debate was an easy one on which to provide post-analysis. Kasich, Bush and Christie did indeed go after Rubio even though they had claimed there was no agreement to do so.  Trump played it safe, protecting his lead.  Rubio did an okay job defending himself against Chris Christie, but not as well as he should have done.  Jeb Bush was not as effective at the Rubio attack as Christie, or the I can govern message as well as either Christie or Kasich.

Ben Carson had some good lines and some humorous answers.  He did not stand out enough though.  

Ted Cruz held his ground, though right now, CNN is claiming he's evil because he's misrepresenting what CNN reported about Ben Carson leaving the race/not leaving the race.

3 hours and that's about the most notable stuff.  The only other point I'd note was that it seemed like there were a lot of Bush supporters in the crowd.

Winners:

Donald Trump - he was smart to play it safe and stay above the fray because the attacks were all focused elsewhere.  He's protecting his lead and did nothing to hurt it. He did nothing outstanding, but he did what he had to do.

Chris Christie - Most effective attacks on Rubio came from Christie.  He'll be more memorable than Bush or Kasich.

Losers:

Marco Rubio - He like Trump, needed to protect his position.  He didn't respond well and came across as needing more time to refine his resume and his skills.  He didn't come off badly, but he needed to better than he did.

Jeb Bush, and Ben Carson - Wallflowers with no memorable moments.

Carly Fiorina - MIA. Not her fault but she didn't make it to the stage.

Meh:

John Kasich and Ted Cruz - For very different reasons. Kasich did better than the losers.  Cruz on the other hand was stilted.  He had some very good moments and some flat ones as well.  He did himself no harm, and New Hampshire is not going to be his state.

GOP Undercard debate - let it be the last one

Here's my impression of the last two hours:

George Pataki:

:

Mike Huckabee:

Rick Santorum:

Lindsey Graham:

Quick thoughts on tonight's GOP debate

I don't expect to see a lot of fireworks at tonight's GOP debate. Donald Trump may be tempted to take on his latest surging rival - Ted Cruz - but with two polls showing an updraft for Trump currently, he may not want to risk an attack any more robust than what he's gone with in previous debates.

However the same may not hold true for Ted Cruz.  He may have learned to take a page from Trump and could be equating feistiness with improving poll numbers.  The fight alone might bring him into prominence, and he may decide to provoke a confrontation with Trump instead of the media this time.  In fact with time running low, he may not have a choice.  If he goads Trump into a tit-for-tat war, all bets are off.  It will become a wild card situation.

Where does that leave others in the debate?  Many have already been left in the dust - they just don't know it yet. Bush, Kasich will be marginalized completely unless they step up at this debate.  Bush has shown he can't, and Kasich has shown he can't do it the right way.  

Fiorina has paled over the last two months and I don't see how she gets her mojo back.  She doesn't need to hit a home run, but she's getting closer to needing one.  She needs a really solid performance here or she also could become an afterthought.

Two contenders I think may still have a chance are Rubio, who can play on his polling head-to-head versus Clinton, and Ben Carson, who having faded, also needs a solid performance, particularly on foreign affairs and showing some fortitude and hunger to win.

That's just some quick thoughts.  The debates will be an interesting watch. I'd remind candidates that anything they say can and will be used by Democrats come the general election, so don't get too much blood on your hands.

Full Fox Business GOP debate

It says something about Fox Business channel that I found the entire debate more easily on Youtube than on their channel website.  In any case, here is the entire debate from a Youtube playlist I found, starting with the under card debate, which I partially posted earlier.

Switching sources, the entire Main Debate in a single video:

Fox Business GOP under card debate

Lat night the GOP debates continued on Fox Business channel.  Like many people, the channel is not available from my cable provider.  I'm sharing them here for those who were not able to watch.

This is the under card debate.

Obama's false comparison on the CNBC GOP debate

President Obama recently jabbed the Republican candidates saying that if they couldn't handle the CNBC moderators then how could they be expected to handle Russia's president Putin.  That's disingenuous and a patently false comparison. here's why.

D-bag says what?

The CNBC moderator of the GOP debate took a swipe at Republicans after the debate according to The Hill.

CNBC anchor John Harwood took a shot at Republicans who accused him of asking unfair questions at the GOP’s third presidential debate on Wednesday night.

Harwood said in a tweet on Thursday that co-moderating the unruly debate gave him an appreciation for Republican leadership in the House trying to maintain party unity in a divided caucus.

Pretending to be the adult in the room is an absolute fail when anyone who watched that debate could not fail to see Ted Cruz's point that the moderators were anything but impartial. Shame on you John Harwood for trying to defend the indefensible by attacking yet again.

Just a note that if I'm not mistaken this is the first time I've ever resorted to an insult, which I've done in the title. I hereby retract the insult because it does not add anything to the discourse.  However, I will not retract the sentiment behind it.

CNBC anchor lied about Trump during GOP debate

CNBC anchor lied about Donald Trump negotiating the length of the CNBC debate.

But this from The liberal Huffington Post on October 16th, prior to the debate, states otherwise:

Looks like Donald Trump is getting his way.

Trump and fellow Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson sent a letter to CNBC on Thursday threatening to not participate in the next GOP debate if it exceeded 120 minutes, including commercial breaks. In a tweet Thursday, Trump claimed CNBC had agreed to limit the debate to two hours.

Both Politico and CNN reported Trump's claims were true, saying the Republican National Committee began calling campaigns Friday morning to inform them the debate would be restricted to 120 minutes.

The business mogul also took to Twitter to make his disdain for a long debate known.

Okay tinfoil hat time - that's so easy to check.  It's too easy to expose the lie.  So why do it? Are the liberal media now attempting to generate sympathy for Trump candidacy in the hopes  he becomes the nominee and can be decimated in the general election by Hillary Clinton? I wonder.

Post Debate quick thoughts

The debate was long.  It was short on details probably because there were a lot of candidates on stage.  No one flamed out.  No one performed above expectations.  There were a number of good moments, but none great. The most engaging perhaps were Ben Carson's closing comments. But I don't think anybody won, or lost. I think the quality of discussion and debate got better as the night went along.  I don't think there was a clear cut winner.

BUT,

While I respect the Fox moderators as news commentators,  I think they were a bit too familial and not as professional as they could have been.  Sadly, particularly Megyn Kelly looked more like she was hosting her show than being a moderator or panelist.  She's talented and I hate to say it, but it was not her best night. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't as professional as I'd expected.

South Carolina GOP Debate #1

Some random observations from the first GOP debate tonight.

I'm not sure the GOP debate will have done much to alter opinions nationally, but I think people in South Carolina who were paying the most attention will probably drift away from Mitt Romney to some degree, and will end up amongst the others, but probably not much support.

Rick Santorum answered a lot of questions well, but was grating in the way he turned answers about his opinion turned into attacks on others like Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich.  I'm not sure that it's appealing to go after 

Newt Gingrich started weak on Bain Capital re: Mitt Romney, but got a lot of applause and a lot of positive tweets on the occasions he talked about the economy and poverty.

Fox News was running a tweet-in on their live web coverage where people could tweet their opinion on whether each response to a question by a candidate was an answer or a dodge. Gingrich did well, Santorum mediocre and Romney poorly after the first hour.  I'm not convinced the general public sees the debates through the same lens as hardcore politically junkies who are tweeting in their feedback.

Mitt Romney attacked McCain Feingold campaign finance reform laws - rightly - as being a disaster.  I wonder how his recent endorser, John McCain feels about that.

Overall, I think Gingrich won, but I'm not sure it was by much. Santorum was decent, Perry did pretty well and Ron Paul was Ron Paul.

Debate without a winner?

A bit of a yawner.

As we get further into the GOP presidential debates, the GOP primary candidates all seem to be hitting their strides in the debate venues - no big mistakes, get the talking points out, and differentiate yourself from the other candidates.  They all seem to be getting there - albeit a different rates of speed.  Perry for example spoke better but still had a pause or two that was a couple of seconds too long.  Given that emerging dynamic, and the fact that there are fewer and fewer areas of new ground to go over, is it possible for anyone to win?

Romney's comment: It's not a gaffe, but it's not good.

Via ABC, Mitt Romney in last night's debate offered up his second not-ready-for-prime-time moment by  offering to make a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry.  He was just trying to make a point about his conviction on his  point about his health care position.  But after his previous faux pas in an earlier debate (regarding his lawn care company hiring an illegal alien, and him being concerned because he was running for office), this doesn't help Mitt.

Offering to bet isn't a smart thing to do during a presidential debate.  It's not a gaffe in the sense that he's done something illegal (some would say it's immoral), especially since it's pretty easy to argue he was using it to make a point and wasn't serious about betting.  But it's playground politics.  My dad can beat up your dad.  It's not presidential timbre.

Michele Bachmann's camp jumped all over it and pointed out the other reason it was not a good move - it can come across (if you don't buy Romney's defense) as being out of touch with regular people:

“For someone to go and throw around a $10,000 bet, just goes to show even more that he’s not the same level as the people of Iowa or the country,” said Michele Bachmann’s spokeswoman Alice Stewart.

One concern it raises for me is the debating skills. Previously I felt that Romney would fare pretty well in a debate against Obama.  Mitt's not my choice but I felt that if he were the nominee, he'd hold his own in a head-to-head debate versus Obama.  Now I'm less sure, and if you take away Romney's claim to being most electable, what's he left with?

EXIT QUESTION: Did anyone else think this?

Latest Debate Winner: No one

The latest GOP debate on CNN didn't really have a winner.  Everyone did pretty much as expected and there was no real gotcha moment, so not a lot of minds are going to be changed by this.  Except...

What to look for in CNN's GOP debate tonight

CNN is hosting another in a series of seemingly endless GOP primary debates tonight.  The topic: foreign policy and national security.  This will be the second foreign policy debate, and it provides candidates one more opportunity to make an impression on voters for better or worse.  There's two things I'd expect to see in the debate tonight.

GOP Nevada Debate Winner: Gingrich?

Surprise.

There were some interesting developments in the debate tonight. There were losers and winners and some twists and turns in the running battle between Romney and Perry, something CNN clearly still believes constitute the two front runners in this race.

Romney-Perry main event fizzles

The gloves are off. Almost.

It's not exactly an exploding fireball of death for Rick Perry, but last night he did himself no favors.  Then again neither did Mitt Romney in a night that seemed just a little bit disjointed.  Instead of one debate I saw two distinct scenarios.  It was a like a boxing match with an under card.