getting Newt and Mitt to pick on each other
Terry Schaivo
sugar beets
space
english as official language

Who’s still standing
Fear Factor at 9pm
Rock Center at 10pm

Debate????

audience to begin with? Had I been in the audience, I would have ignored Brian’s invitation to withhold applause. I’m betting most conservatives would have done the same. We don’t particularly like being told what to do, especially by the media.

Newt gets historic standing ovations at debates, so the possibility of standing ovations will now be eliminated.

I like the old Newt…this one seemed phony. He made Romney look strong. Shudder.

And anyway, I think people are responding to Newt like they do to Christie…the tell it like it is, take no prisoners guy. Only Christie is NOT a consevative!!

As Rush says, Newt articulates conservatism…and I say,please God let him be one! govern like one…

But Newt didn’t seem to want to or able to attack back and was clearly flustered, either from Mitt’s crazy throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks attack, that he didn’t want to seem like the “Angry Newt” now that he has won South Carolina.

It was surreal and scary watching Mitt get this animated, I half expected him to throw a chair and then punch Newt in the face. That must have been some programming they uploaded into his database!

Worst of all, I really hated not getting audience participation in this, there were several moments where the candidates had some really good things to say, even Mitt when he rebooted into normal Mitt 2.0. His comment on the Taliban was great.

Overall, I think this doesn’t change anything in Florida right now, Newt has a lot of momentum.

Even though Gingrich is calling Romney a liar because “I’m not a lobbyist” and he wasnt, here’s what Gingrich did:
- he got paid by a medical association to ‘advise’
- and he visited with congressional members
- and those members are on the record on it

It sure walks like a duck.

to intervene and warn Brian they were going to ban him for interfering in intraparty affairs! A conservative can dream, can’t she?

The guy knows when to go for the throat and when to back off.

…particularly when Williams gave him only 30-seconds to reply to a litany of attacks. The Newt said something like “Wait a minute” and then classified this entire effort as comparable to Mitt’s prior pungent behavior.

Curiously, Politico.com suggests that The Newt committed an unforced-error when he said he invoked a lobbyist/consultant to ensure he wasn’t lobbying/consulting; perhaps I’m missing something, but that’s OK with me, for he seemed to be ensuring he was acting properly in not having registered as a lobbyist…as per a consultant’s input.

For the first time, probably @ the bidding of the GOP-Establishment, the plan was indeed manifest to invoke the nuclear-option [see prior RS-title] to kill-off the threat to its power [noting that the Perry-component had been absorbed by The Newt].

Ironically, the absence of substance during much of the predictable portion of the questioning served to hurt those who would want to learn the most about the candidates’ stances on the issues…although perhaps Mitt preferred to become aligned with the MSM/LSM/ELM in an effort to stop The Newt.

This must be viewed as a sad development, surely to become probed by Rush and others who would want conservatism to survive this grueling experience. It may be anticipated that the event on Thursday will be raucous, if for no other reason that The Newt will want to land a few zingers upon Mitt…based on what he has learned from the [Iowa] electorate.

Makes for a real lack of energy, it reminds me when you see a debate for a congressional or senatorial primary and its held in some Television studio, very dull and boring.

If he can’t beat Newt, the Establishment is going to conclude Romney can’t be Obama. They’ll force someone to go in and someone will. All you need for a brokered convention is that no one gets 50% of the delegates.

What a lot of people don’t know is the later states are winner take all, the early ones proportionate. So not being on the ballot of some doesn’t kill you as much. All you need to do is deny Romney the delegates, not get to 50% yourself.

I like Newt, but he does have heavy negatives. But a vote for Newt is also a vote against Romney. It denies him those delegates. I want someone else. And the chance that there may be someone else is far beyond just the realm of wishful thinking anymore.

There are too many serious people talking about it.

yes, Gingrich will shred Obama on job-killing details of Dodd-Frank and EPA, and somehow reveal Obama’s bff is Turkey’s PM Erdogan.

Newt is the Churchill who will have Obama’s Neville Chamberlain begging Newt to take the job. I am not kidding.

Obama only likes the adulation.

Just hope Newt closed that account at Tiffany’s.

I was sitting in a room with my in-laws, most of whom vote but do not follow politics like I do. They ALL said Romney looked like desperate and willing to say anything to get voters to like him…and these people usually can’t agree on whether we serve light or dark turkey on Thanksgiving.

I think Newt has taken this race into a new dimension…leaving behind the air of inevitability that Romney would win this thing going away. Romney clearly wasn’t prepared for such a possibility…and it shows. I’d expect to see that reality reflected in his impending loss in FL a week from today (even left-wing polling predictor Nate Silver says Newt has a 66% chance of taking FL as of today).

That Newt didn’t support it as a whole.
He only supported the part that he said was no different than if you lived in another country but wanted to sign up to be in the US military and fight for our country and signed up to apply for citizenship.
He also stipulated that you had been brought here as a child and no fault of your own.

and/or Clear Channel. He has been trying so hard to distance himself from Bain…now that we know he is still a major holder and that Bain bought CC in ’08…well it set him up nicely to control, OK affect, the media in a big way.

Now, PP, that would be big. His return is 2500 pages long! There is something in there he does not want seen!

and Newt explained why:
The special interests will get their way. They are powerful.

They will get it in the spending bills and Romney/Newt will sign it.

“I think he just says stuff that he thinks people want to hear.”

Romney does that, but Newt does too, and Newt is better at it. Newt is pivoting to praise Ron Paul because he knows Ron Paul is not running in Florida and he wants to pick up his supporters’ votes.

I am more referring to narrative dynamics. A quick look at Drudge or the front pages of major information hubs shows that Mitt has steered the conversation away from territory that absolutely crushed him and has people exploring the attack lines he’s opened against Newt.

Nevertheless, the irony of what initiated Perry’s downslide should not be lost.

Not citizenship but legality. I’m not sure what exactly is meant by that, I assume he means permanent residence status but doesn’t come out and state that.

for Santorum?? and with that depressing thought, nite, nite.

I’m not saying the absence of that “laugh track” makes Gingrich seem worse than he really is; I’m saying the presence of a “laugh track” makes him seem better than he really is.

[meant to put this as a reply in the first place, but accidentally put separate comment below]

I’ve never been able to watch much of the SOTU because I can only handle so much grandstanding (and that’s been true no matter which party held the WH). I hate the waiting for applause, I hate the people standing and applauding, and I hate the people purposely sitting down while other people applaud; I can’t stand any of it. We get it. We know what party you’re in. You like this, you don’t like that. Swell. Now can you shut up and let me hear the speech?

How’s that koolade tasting? You cant spin RIGHT WING SOCIAL ENGINEERING. Once you’re in the tank you’re in the tank. I just want people to admit that he’s got some serious problems.