Today has me flying from Los Angeles to Charleston, South Carolina for some presidential politics. I will be speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) and soaking in the atmosphere of witnessing South Carolinians pick the next president.
So there is no time for well thought out ideas. In the last 24 hours Jon Huntsman dropped out of the presidential race, the Golden Globes happened, and a Fox News debate with the Wall Street Journal happened. Due to time constraints and lack of significance, the first two stories will not be covered. They came, they went, and I shrugged.
As for the debate, forget well fleshed out analysis. Here are my notes. Enjoy my incoherence.
MLK WSJ DEBATE
Brett Baier
Rick Perry
Rick Santorum
Mitt Romney
Newt Gingrich
Ron Paul
Juan Wiliams
Kelly Evans
Jerry Seib
Baier: Why are you going negative?
NG: He started it in Iowa. I created millions of jobs while Speaker. Questioning his record is legit. Whoever we nominate must be able to stand up to Obama.
MR: Invested in well over 100 different businesses. I have experiences turning around tough situations, Olympics, etc. Left MA with 4.7% unemployment. My record is out there.
Baier: What regs would you put in place to curb vulture capitalism?
RP: My income tax have been out every year. Mitt, release yours. Get rid of Dodd-Frank.
MR: China cheated, dumped steel, 40 steel mills closed. Halt all Obama regs.
Gerald Seib: One bad deal.
MR: 2 plants consolidated, all employees had a chance to join new company. Obama in office 3 years and does not have a jobs plan yet.
KE: Huntsman complained about negativity. You have been particularly negative.
RP: Exposing voting record quite proper. I wish I had thrown in more.
RS: Paul is quoting Soros and other left-wing backed organizations. I am not perfect. I voted for NCLB. I shouldn’t have. I hope it is repealed. I represented PA, it’s not a right-to-work state. I support RTW, but I did what was best for PA.
JW: Romney guilty of lies and hypocrisy. Negativity?
RS: Should felons be given the right to vote?
MR: Super Pacs are independent.
RS: Should voting rights be restored once their sentences are over?
MR: Do not restore the rights.
RS: You as Gov supported a more liberal position giving them rights while still on parole.
MR: I had an 85% Dem legislature.
RP: Great example of insiders. DC needs to leave states alone.
Baier: Huntsman insults, flip-flopping.
MR: Clarified his abortion position, an embryo situation.
JW: Voter ID?
RP: Texas is under assault. States rights. This administration is at war with organized religion.
RB: Extending unemployment benefits?
RS: 99 weeks too long, makes it harder to find work when you come back. Give states flexibility.
RB: Max length?
NG: Better way to think about it. All unemployment comp should be tied to job training. 99 weeks is an associate degree. Difference between Obama and 5 of us, we think work is good.
KE: How far would you go to keep fin system functioning?
MR: No pres should have blank check for slush fund. Don’t think how much we can get gov’t in economy, but get it out. This pres has opened up no new markets in 3 years while China has opened up 44.
GS: Closing mil bases hurts SC econ and nat’l security.
RP: Build more bases here and remove them overseas. MIL spending vs defense spending. Building fancy embassies are not def spending, they are waste.
BB: > Fed inc tax
RP: 10%
RS: 10, 28
MR: 25
NG: 15%
Paul: 0% until 1913. Inflation tax 0.
KE: Release your tax records?
MR: Open to doing it in April.
JW: Dream act, are you alienating Latinos?
MR: No favors for illegals. I love legal immigration.
JW: Special treatment for blacks based on past injustices?
RS: Work, high school grad, marriage before children…according to Brookings, only 2% of those end up in poverty. Obama does not allow promoting marriage to young girls or abstinence education. Neutrality ends in poverty.
JW: Racial disparities in drug sentencing?
RP: Yes. Rich white people don’t get death penalty very often.
JW: Poor kids working as janitors? Isn’t this insulting?
NG: No. I don’t see that. My daughter’s 1st job at age 13 was a janitor. 30 kids for price of one NY janitor due to unions. Only the elites despise earning money.
JW: Are you belittling minorities?
NG: Fact is, more people put on food stamps by Obama than anyone. I know it is politically incorrect to use facts that make people uncomfortable. Every American of every background has a chance…It bothers liberals but I will help every person get a job, get a better job, find way to own the job.
BB: You were against killing of Bin Laden?
RP: I did not say that. I voted for authority to go after him. Respect sovereignty of other nations or face the consequences. They could have done it a more proper way like with KSM.
BB: To the left of Obama?
RP: We can capture him in different ways. We captured and tried Saddam? Why can’t you capture people? Eichmann was given a trial.
BB: Unilateral action?
NG: Bin Laden was not a Chinese dissident. Analogy Paul used was utterly irrational. Dissident not a terrorist. Andrew Jackson had a pretty good idea about America’s enemies. Kill them.
RP: Golden Rule in foreign policy. Not to warmongering.
BB: Negotiate with Taliban?
MR: Of course not. We go anywhere they are and we kill them. The right thing for Bin Laden was the bullet in the head he received. You don’t negotiate from weakness like Obama has done. We are at war with Radical violent Jihadists.
BB: Cited Mitchell Rice, advisor to Romney.
MR: Rice is wrong.
BB: Syria?
RS: Obama has dealt with it as badly as possible. Setting up embassy terrible move. No to military option of removing Assad.
BB: Murder of women of Turkey skyrocketing under new regime. Should Turkey still in NATO?
RP: Turkey ruled by Islamic terrorist. Foreign aid to NATO should be 0. Regarding Ron Paul, the noise you were looking for was a gong. Panetta called soldiers who urinated on Taliban corpses utterly despicable. Utterly despicable is cutting Danny Pearl’s head off and showing it on video.
RP: Al Queda want to kill us here, Taliban just want foreigners off their land.
KE: Would you have signed Nat’l Defense ACT?
MR: Yes. The right to protest is not the right to kill Americans. That is treason. We have the right to jail those people. Al Qaeda not entitled to due process.
RS: US Citizens detained should have right to federal court to determine whether you could have counsel and continue being held.
RP: Patriot Act has eliminated 4th Amendment.
KE: Housing market?
RP: Cut taxes. Simplify system, even Timothy Geithner can get his taxes in on time. Make Congress part-time. Get gov’t out of housing market.
GS: Raise retirement age, eligibility age for medicare, or reduce benefits?
MR: For those 55 and over, nothing changes. Liberals show videos of seniors being thrown over cliffs, yet Obama cut Medicare 500 bil. Add a year or 2 to retirement age to SS. Send Medicaid back to states, repeal Obamacare.
GS: Gov’t making up difference if mkt return less than gov’t?
NG: Private plan is voluntary. In Chile, not one gov’t check has been written. You have a universal investing nation.
GS: Eliminating corp inc tax for manufacturing as opposed to others, isn’t that picking winners and losers?
RS: Romney not bold, Newt irresponsible. His plan leads to hundreds of millions of dollars in increased debt. Doing it now is fiscal insanity.
NG: We pay for it by taking 185 bureaucracies and creating single block grant. I balanced budgets for 4 years.
RM: In private sector you overborrow you go out of business.
Superpacs: MR: We all would like to see Superpacs disappear. Abolish McCain-Feingold.
KE: Spend less on border security?
RP: America is at 40 year low thanks to Obama.
BB: is NCLF good or bad?
NG: It’s a failure. Reduce dep’t education.
That concludes my incoherence. I did not have time to turn this into anything worthwhile. Oh, and in case nobody cares, Jon Huntsman is still out of the race and the Golden Globes are still almost as worhtless as the Oscars.
eric