OH WHAT compelling TV these presidential debates have become. The rise and fall of different heroes; the captivating conflicts; the epic scenes of self-destruction. No wonder the series has gotten such high ratings. The eleventh episode takes place in Washington, and has a national-security plot-line. For the first time Newt Gingrich steps into the starring role, a part that proved too big for Herman Cain and Rick Perry. Mr Gingrich's story arc is perhaps the most surprising, having been written off for dead earlier in the season. Resurrected by his own mouth, he must now face off against the main protagonist, Mitt Romney, who some critics fault for over-acting. But Mr Romney is a steady presence on the screen, while Mr Gingrich has a history of going off-script, so the denouement of the series should be entertaining. And as the episodes tick down to next year's finale (as yet undated), who knows which characters may also see a revival.
(Photo credit: AFP)
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I'll make one prediction. If Romney is the candidate and if he wins, what you'll get is basically exactly what Obama would have tried to do, but Romney will actually get to do it cause his own party will find a reason why its all fine as long as its coming from a Republican.
Candidate Gingrich, the Mouth of the South. Having talked his way to the top of the polls, he will most likely talk his way back down.
G. Hull
Brentwood, TN
I know how to fix the world economy. I have an MBA from Babson College Wellesley, Massachusetts with high distinction majoring in Economics. The problem is that some people don't want to improve the economy. My name is John Gonsalves and I can be reached at 978-664-2112 in North Reading Mass. I would be willing to address this with any Economist in the world. Thanks and great column about our stupid Republicans.
If the British Labour Party’s 1983 election manifesto was “the longest suicide note in history” then the 2012 Republican debates are becoming “the longest assisted suicide performance in history.” In order to win an election in 2012 the GOP has to be able to persuade the mushy undecided middle of the electorate to vote for them, and rally their own supporters vote to get out and vote. Attacking each other for months on end will accomplish neither. They would all do well to remember Ronald Reagan’s advice – “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”
A bunch of mindless clowns, is what the Repugs truly are! My sides hurt from larfing out loud, everytime they open their brain-dead faucets! What a side-splitting, mind-blowing circus!!
I am a Republican and never vote for a Democrat since becoming a U.S. Citizen back in 1970. However, I strongly support Newt on his stand on immigration. It is pure stupidity and a show of total ignorance on the issue for so called "ultra conservative" Republicans to condemn him for his stand. If the Republicans stand firm on rejecting the immigrants and in particular those that have been here for so many years the end result will be in a minority party that is doomed to disappear. God! It is true that the coming general elections is for the Republicans to lose.
For many years not a single one protested about illegal immigration because the economy was in good shape and we all needed the gardeners, the house cleaning ladies, the dishwashers and kitchen helpers, the janitors, the roofers, the workers in the break your back agriculture jobs. If we continue rejecting them, a head of lettuce will cost more than a piece of jewelry from Tiffany’s. You morons wake up to reality and stop using the immigrants as scapegoats. That is why Newt can count on our family vote. Note: we are Cuban Americans, we do not come from Mexico and Central America, we are accepted while they are being discriminated and used for cheap labor with fear of asserting their labor rights. They are humans and no animals to prey on! In addition, we still call ourselves Christians! We are just a bunch of liars and bent on committing political hara-kiri. Sometimes I believe that operatives from the radical left that are manipulating the so-called conservatives with the anti-immigrant stance have infiltrated us. Finally wake up to reality!
Pepe Regalado from Miami the land of the Freedom loving Cubans in the U.S.A.
Mr. Regalado, you have uttered the Truth in pure unvarnished form!\
GHull,Brentwood, TN
Same ol, same ol. Vote for the least-worst choice. It's too bad we can't have a vote of "no-confidence" and toss them all out!
Gingrich should win the GOP nomination. He is clearly the top candidate. He has the character of a good president and says what is needed nothing more. Straight and to the point
I really think that Mitt Romney has the upper hand on most candidates running for the GOP spot. With him making a run in the last presidential election really has helped him with the experience and overall how to handle it all. Newt Gingrich on the other hand is higher in the polls but the experience doesnt seem to be there and in the end that could harm his results.
Presidential debates are so ridiculous. People need to realize that half of what these people say just isn't true. Almost all of the time we have a presidential election candidates talk about change and difference and all this nonsense that really just doesn't change anything. Half the the time everything just changes for the worse. This is no different. Rick and Newt are just ridiculous in their own right and i'm not a huge Obama supporter but at this point, it's the lesser of two evils and i really wish that someday elections didn't have to be between the 1%.
That's more like it, an old white man for front-runner.
I mean, Huntsman would have seemed, on paper, The Economist's ideal candidate once. He does lack charisma on stage, as we've discovered. But barely to break into single digits?
by A.K. 7:47 PM yesterday
Are you aware that there is a signification divergence between the preferred positions of the Economist and those of the Republican faithful?
I'm in love with all the live-bloggers. In love.
You would assume that the USA had their foot in this or something....it does sound like it..
and the could have done a better star spangled banner..
Mr Gingrich, Mr Romney et al are all going through their exercise in futility. The candidate for the Republicans has to be someone who will defeat Mr Obama and Mr Cain is the one and only.
As evidence that no serious Republicans are of the belief that the American economy is something they'd be in a position to fix even if elected, we are treated to the self-promotion-Palooza tour of the pinwheel hat crowd, cynically using the political process to get PACs to fund their launching themselves BIG onto the conservative book signing/lecture circuit tour. It is hard to believe any of them (with the possible exception of Romney) wouldn't reach for the hari kari sword rather before actually allowing themselves to be nominated, then elected, thereby ruin their shot at the goldmine awaiting those with the most outrageous (i.e., most useless) stands and positions expressed. When you hear a political candidate intimate that "if only I could bring a gun with me to Congress" you should begin to doubt how much they love America and its form of government and how much they are really eyeing the six-figure speaker's fees lying just over the rainbow.
Is it somehow significant that both the UK & US currently have problems with the 'idiot right'? (Europhobes and Tea Partiers respectively). Who is aping whom? Or are we all aping Israel?
Israel is indeed exemplary, a pinprick of a nation surrounded by bloodthirsty belligerent Islamic states and occupying power of Arab savages calling themselves Palestinians, and still managed to sustain a stable economy.
Ron Paul says we did a good job with McVeigh?... In what world? Newt on point: McVeigh succeeded!! If the goal is to stop terrorist attacks, we failed in dramatic fashion. What if that was a nuke? Everyone in OKC and the surrounding area is now dead. When the founding fathers said protect liberty at all costs, nuclear weapons, and more generally the technology necessary for a very very small group to kill a comparatively huge numbers of people did not exist. This is a new time and it demands a new approach to national security. References to the wisdom of the founding fathers will not stop an attack. Intelligence will.
Tedius debate.
Only livened up at times with Ron Paul's remarks - and I am not a Ron Paul supporter (still odd to see a respectable looking old man in a suite being like "Let them have marijuana!).
Not big on Wolf Blitzer - wish they had someone else, say maybe George Will.
It seems to an average American, there is nothing beyond America. Even if there is any, they are irrelevant. Most of the Political leaders too share the same view till they sit in the Chair in Washington. Wish they the leave the world as it is. That way at least Americans wont have to share the blame of messing it up.