ABC GOP Debate in Iowa

For some reason, our local ABC station showed the first seven minutes of some Primetime America special, and then suddenly it went live to the debate.

RON PAUL - "-you can't get back to economic growth again." He's talking about debt and TARP, but I'm going to have to play catch-up here. He concludes he's going to cut one trillion from the budget next year.

RICK PERRY - I'm going to do a flat tax of 20%. Talks about drawing a diagram of how we got into this problem and says there's a direct line between Washington and Wall Street, mentions the $7 trillion we didn't know the Fed was giving the banks.

MICHELLE BACHMANN - Plugs Cain by saying we can have a "Win, win, win" plan. Wants to make the bottom 47% pay taxes.

RICK SANTORUM - Starts by showing off the names of building and cities he's visited in Iowa, and he ties it to his plan to revitalize manufacturing.

Diane Sawyer points out Mitt Romney's the only one who committed to a number on how many jobs he's create during his first term. Anyone else want to do that? Santorum says we can't really give a number, all we can do is lower taxes, less regulation, a litigation environment that makes us competitive, etc., etc.

What the heck happened to Diane's left eye?

Question on the payroll tax which will go up in 2012. Bachmann says they never should have cut it, she fought against it. (Whiplash...) Romney says he doesn't want to raise taxes on the middle class, but let's recognize it's just a band-aid.

Split-screen with Perry, and Perry's looking at Romney like he's learning something. "Wow, that's how the economy works?"

Santorum wants the payroll tax cut to expire because it'll pay for Social Security. Paul says quitting the spending will save Social Security, then complains about our embassy in Baghdad as something that can be cut.

George Stephanopoulos beings up the question of electability. He quotes Newt saying he was the most electable, which Mitt laughs at, then he goes off on his private-sector experience. Says there are many areas where they disagree, and George asks him to name some. There's about five seconds where Mitt teeters on the tightrope, but then he's able to rattle off he disagrees with Newt's desire for a lunar colony (brilliant!), child labor laws (brilliant!), and he has some more, but that was effective. Newt's response?

"The only reason you didn't become a career politician is becuz you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994." Some cheers and boos from the audience. Newt says he grew up in a generation when NASA was real, when young Americans could dream, he wants the space program to be privatized and revitalized. On to child labor: let the poor kids work part-time; they could use the money. Rips on greedy NY janitor union.

Mitt says it's true he may have been a career politician if he'd beat Ted Kennedy. He also says if he'd gone to the NFL like he wanted to as a kid, he'd have been a career football star. (Good line.) Says losing to Teddy was great becuz it gave him mroe years of prvate-sector experience.

George brings up Ron Paul's "serial hypocrisy" ad. Paul rattles off single-payer system for health care, his TARP support, his money he got from Freddie Mac. Says anyone would have trouble competing with him on consistency.

Newt says you said the economy was due to artificial interest rates, and I'm with you on auditing the Fed. As to Freddie Mac, I wasn't a lobbyist. I was advising them, I was in the private sector, which earns a laugh.

Bachmann complains about Newt's office being on K Street, says he's the epitome of establishment. She says she's the real constitutional conservative. She's 55 years old; she's spent 50 years in the real world as a businesswoman. (um...) She slams Newt and Mitt for individual mandate. She calls them Newt Romney six times.

Newt says in a lot of ways, what she said isn't true. She says Newt Romney has too much in common with Obama; she's the polar opposite of Obama on everything. Mitt says I know Newt Gingrich, Newt Gingrich is a friend of mine, and I promise you we are not clones. Mitt invokes the Tenth Amendment in how he'd deal with ObamaCare.

Perry says Michelle hit the nail on the head, says Mitt and Newt were for individual mandates. Perry says he can stand on the stage and call ObamaCare an abomination. Mitt demonstrates his masterful ability of counterpunching. By the time he's done explaining the differences between what Massachusetts did and what ObamaCare does, Perry looks like he regrets picking the fight, and THEN Mitt rubs it in Rick's face he had a "mandate" in Texas for all 12-year-olds to get vaccines. Rick says he read Mitt's book and he was for a mandate. Mitt bets $10,000 that is not in there, and Rick says he's not a betting man. Mitt says "Well, there you go."

You can tell Mitt likes Newt more than Rick.

Bachmann says do we really believe either of these two will repeal ObamaCare? ("Yep!" "Yep!") Laughs from audience. Santorum says he agrees with Bachmann, but she fought and lost. He fought and won when he was in Congress. Bachmann says she'll make sure she gets 13 more Republican senators elected.

Commercials! One of them is Fred Thompson for reverse mortgages. Rick Perry will be doing that commercial in four years.

George S. asks if marital fidelity should be considered. Perry says he made a vow to his wife and a vow to God. Says if you cheat on your wife, you'll cheat on your business partner. Hammers Newt on it w/o directly saying Newt. Santorum says it's not a disqualifier but it should be a factor. Paul says you shouldn't have to talk about it, been married for 54 years, but if marriage vows are important, what about your oath of office?

George asks why Mitt's first Iowa ad was on his family, and Mitt said it was in response to an Obama PAC ad. Mentions he has 16 grandkids. Bachmann said the founders only looked at "what's the measure of a man?" Or woman in my case. Very interesting that Newt's the last one allowed to answer this.

Newt says it's a real issue. "People have to render judgment." But he says he's gone to God for forgiveness, but now I'm a 68-year-old grandfather.

Diane wants to talk about immigration but spends 20 seconds stipulating that all the candidates agree they need to secure the borders. Newt wants to make it easier to learn English. Then he and Diane quibble over how long a person's been here, if they can get around illegal immigration laws.

Why isn't Jake Tapper help moderate this?

Mitt blasts amnesty in all forms; no favoritism.

Perry's next. (My wife sits next to me, sees Perry and says, "Oh, he hasn't dropped out yet?") Diane asks him about illegal immigrants in our military. Perry says securing the border is the key. Perry says we already have enough immigration laws on the books, says we need to simply enforce.

Paul gets a question about Palestine. He tows his non-intervention line, says we need to stop being the policemen of the world. Newt says Palestine launches rockets into Israel every day but Obama's trying to pressure them into peace. Newt sounds pro-World War III, the US and Israel vs. the world. Mitt sounds about the same, stand with the Israeli people! Newt and Mitt quibble here about speaking for Israel. Mitt underlines how Newt can say incendiary things. Newt compares himself to Reagan, when Reagan told the truth, calling the USSR the evil empire.

Bachmann first visited Israel in 1974. Tells a rather longwinded story about how Palestinian schools teach their kids that Jews are swine and descend from apes. Santorum says you have to speak the truth but with prudence. [We're now interrupted by five seconds of a Papa John's commercial.]

Perry calls it a minor issue, then blasts Obama for taking the worst of the two choices, actually he had three. Says the president is the problem, not what Newt said. (During applause Perry seems to ask Santorum about the difference between two and three.)

Commercials!

Perry gets to talk about his upbringing. Grew up dirt poor. Says as a "27-year-old boy... well, I was a grown man by then."

Romney says yeah, I didn't grow up poor, but my dad grew up poor and he made sure we understood the value of money.

Paul says his family was poor but he didn't know it. Says he worked his way through college.

Santorum says he was blessed to have a mother and a father, had a sense of security, uses it to segue-way to how the American family is breaking down.

Bachmann takes on the bank bailouts and TARP, then mentions she was born in Iowa, but her parents got divorced, so she gets the plight of single moms.

George S. wants to bring this back to the federal mandate for health care. Mitt says let states do what they want to do. Newt says we need to "fundamentally" change health care, it's getting more and more expensive.

Diane S. goes on about health-care, and I should mention that anytime Daine Sawyer speaks, she seems to think this is all about her. George S. is doing much better at just getting the questions out.

Paul says we need to stop looking to government to take care of everything.

Perry says people are sick of Washington DC, says we should go to part-time Congress, cut their pay in half. (How would he actually accomplish that?)

Commercials!

George's last question: what have you learned from one of your opponents?

Santorum said he listened to Newt's tapes and it inspired him. (Wife points out here there's something Nicolas Cage-y about Santorum.) Points out all the elections he's won and leaves out the big one he's lost.

Perry said Paul intrigued him about auditing the Federal Reserve, but he doesn't miss this opportunity to personally address some Iowa poiliticians.

Romney says each displays leadership qualities but notices he only sees the Ron Paul signs when they come to these.

Gingrich says he's inspired by the current Iowa governor. He also plugs Rick Perry's tenth amendment views and Rick Santorum's courage on Iran. (Name two candidates Newt's not worried about surging.)

Paul says never give up on your opposition and he's delighted Perry's come around on the Fed. (Big laughs.)

Bachmann panders for Herman Cain votes.

Debate's over. Cut to Jake Tapper and company pointing out that Mitt was right but acting like Victorian women clutching their pearls that Mitt would dare bet $10,000 that he's right. "We should point out that $10,000 is 3 months salary for the average Iowan." Are you freaking kidding me? Perry's a millionaire. He can handle it. And he was WRONG! That's the point. Matt Dowd says Mitt lost and Newt won, and Michelle Bachmann drew blood. Leslie Sanchez wisely points out it's not a winner for Bachmann to keep bringing up Cain.

Okay, enough of them. What did I see?

7. DIANE SAWYER - Droned on and on, taking other people's airtime.

6. RICK PERRY - I didn't see anything that would make Iowans turn back to him.

5. RICK SANTORUM - Didn't whine about he doesn't get questions. So, there's that.

4. MICHELLE BACHMANN - Her Newt Romney moniker was cute, but yeah, why is she fighting so hard for Cain voters?

3. MITT ROMNEY - I thought he did pretty good, but they're going to make a big deal out of that $10,000 bet. The problem with these debates is most people didn't watch it, they just watch what the news says about it, and so for that, he never should have offered the bet. I thought his best dig at Newt when he referred to himself as not being a bomb-thrower, figuratively or literally.

2. NEWT GINGRICH - When other candidates have been in the NotRomney front-runner slot, they've crumbled. Rick Perry, Herman Cain... and while the potential was there to score points, most of them didn't seem to sink into the room. It's obscene that Newt keeps insisting he wasn't a lobbyist but when you look at what he did for Freddie Mac and ethanol and the health-care industry... I can't help but notice the word "ethanol" never came up. But when the adultery question came up, Santorum oversold and by the time it got to Newt, he'd won the moment.

1. RON PAUL - Jovial, predictable. Still could easily steal Iowa.