Deficit Fix - Phase 1

The mind is a funny thing.  As powerful as it is, using it forces of logic and reason to solve some of the World’s most difficult questions, it often finds misstep with one of our most basic units of measure:  Time.  I am sure, like me, you have all found yourself at some point daydreaming about a time that invoked great emotion, positive or negative, feeling like it was a recent occurrence only to quickly realize how long it’s really been since it happened.  So, if it feels to you like the Financial Crisis that crippled our great nation only just happened recently, you’re not alone.  It feels like only yesterday that Lehman Brothers self destructed faster than Lindsay Lohan, beginning an economic meltdown of epic proportions, spreading across the globe, and successfully fulfilling its role as the first domino to fall in the chain reaction that has led us to where we are today.  In fact, it has been nearly 3 full years since those events unfolded, and the rest has been a blur.  Since that time, Lebron left Cleveland for Miami, Charlie Sheen left earth for Mars, and Maria left Arnold for anyone who won’t father an illegitimate love child with the housekeeper.  Additionally, we have seen a number of historic programs come and go, and with a price tag unmatched in American History.  As a result, we find ourselves in our most contentious political battle in recent memory—a battle over budgets and deficits, taxing and spending, and free markets and monetary policy. 

So where do we go from here?  Ultimately it will be for the politicians end economists to decide, but nothings to stop Emancipation of the Mind (and its readers) from weighing in.  Clearly, going forward with a deficit of $14+ trillion and continuing to spend more than we earn is not the answer.  Just ask Frank and Jamie McCourt.  Most of us learned that Personal Finance lesson when we balanced our first checkbook in our teenage years.  But, the programs that make this nation great cost money, and no matter how much Republicans play Nip/Tuck with the economy, something important will suffer.  It might affect you personally, or your family, friends, or neighbors; or it might not effect you at all.  In all likelihood, this is how you will vote: how does it affect me or someone I know?  And, if spending cuts are not the answer, it’s likely that you aren’t feeling any rosier about forking more of your personal monetary gains over to Uncle Sam.  So, what should we do?  Emancipation of the Mind does not pretend to have all the answers, but offers this sample strategy: Start with the low hanging fruits.

1. Fort Knox Fire Sale – If you’re like most people in America today, you might have heard of Ron Paul, you might find him entertaining or you might be a member of his cult following, but most of all, you just wonder who would win in a death match between him and Dennis Kucinich.  But, lost in Paul’s antics and demeanor are some pretty bright thoughts and plans.  One of these plans includes his assault on Fort Knox.  O.K—so calling for a bar by bar inventory audit of the Fort Knox gold supply might be going a little far.  After all, it was just audited by the Treasury, and fully accounted for.  Besides, Mr. Paul’s brick by brick audit would cost a cool $15 million and provide little (if any) benefit.  But what of those 5,000 tons of bullion?  This country abandoned the gold standard 40 years ago, and since then the gold has served little purpose.  Last time I checked, the market for Gold was surging and the world is ripe with potential buyers.  The estimated total profit from the Fort Knox Fire Sale?  Approximately $400 billion.
2. Common Cents – Anyone who knows me is well aware of my disdain for the coin.  Coins are inconvenient to carry and usually wind up accumulating in strange places like your couch cushions, cup holders, and your washer/dryer.  Of course, sheer annoyance isn’t reason enough to wipe anything from the face of the planet (see Palin, Sarah, Cook, Dane, and France, Country of).  But what about the cost?  The penny is made of two commodities: Zinc and Copper.  By year end 2008, the price of Copper had tripled while the price of Zinc had quadrupled.  By May 2010 it cost nearly TWO CENTS to produce ONE PENNY, and NINE CENTS to produce ONE NICKEL!?  In fact, it’s been over six years since the penny was a cost effective currency creation.  So what does it all mean?  Well, simple math tells us that with the current pace of annual creation of pennies and nickels, America is losing between $40 million and $100 million annually.  To be sure, there are many traditional, conservative citizens that would be lost without the penny and nickel, but in reality the arguments against elimination are thin.  From a pricing perspective, most economic studies have already proven that there would be little to no impact economically.  In fact, the only real argument against elimination of the penny is political in nature, based on the irrational emotional attachment most voters have to the coin. 
3. Joint Venture – Pop Quiz!  What federal law lasted only 13 years, cost the country over $11 billion in revenues, and cost the country over $300 million in administration expenses?  Remember Prohibition?  For 13 years this country enforced the law that criminalized alcohol at a staggering cost to this nation (remember-those dollar amounts were from the 20’s and 30’s!).  Fast forward to current times and we see a glaring example of how we fail to learn from our history.  It’s the same reason Hollywood keeps making bad sequels.  Prohibition didn’t work, it wasn’t necessary, and it was really, really expensive.  Today, we find ourselves in another prohibition of sorts, only it has lasted a lot longer than 13 years.  Marijuana remains illegal to sell and consume, with the exception of medical distribution in some states.  However, as we saw in Prohibition, the black market for Marijuana has risen into an important industry despite the law’s best efforts.  Today it is estimated that the underground Marijuana industry is valued at nearly $100 billion—untaxed, and unregulated.  Prohibition taught us that the lost revenue was costly, that lack of regulation leads to unsafe use and increased injury and death, and that crime goes up (especially homicide) any time a black market economy emerges.  Legalization of marijuana would actually improve safety across the board.  After all, scientists have proven that Marijuana is no more harmful (and likely even less harmful) than alcohol itself.  In addition, it would now be subject to excise taxes similar to those placed on tobacco.  Today, the Federal government profits about 20% off of the sales on tobacco, while state governments profit about 8% off of the sales.  What does this mean to us?  Approximately $20 billion in Federal tax revenues and $8 billion amongst the states.
4. Local Lift – Of course, one of the most contentious subjects with regards to closing the deficit is that around taxation.  Historically, citizens will fight harder to pay fewer taxes than they will for anything else.  Of course, the benefit of lower taxes to the individual are behind this behavioral norm, but the costs of tax reductions to the whole are often not felt for several years into the future.  On a local level, promises of cuts in the local tax rates are a popular platform for election, and one we have seen play out time and time again over the past 40 years, and especially over the past 5 years.  While State tax rates are separate from Federal tax rates, they do impact the Federal budget.  However, at the local level, states have been cutting taxes in a big way, and have been for some time.  Yet they continue to refuse the idea of tax increases, in lieu of job cuts, benefit cuts, and near bankruptcy.  Several states stand out including Ohio, who has cut local taxes by over 20% since 2005, and Arizona, who has cut local taxes for the past 15 years.  Additionally, states like Texas and Louisiana reduced property tax rates in 2005 which resulted in lost revenue of over $20 billion combined.  In fact, 40 years ago state and local taxes accounted for over 13% of Personal Income.  Today that figure is below 11%.  Even more dramatic are the figures on state corporate taxes, where revenues have fallen from 10% to 5% in that same time frame.  Take a look at your last local tax statement and tell me it doesn’t look a little light.  Would we not all be willing to pay a little more on that bill to avoid the devastating cuts to our local police, fire, and education professionals?  We need the tax rate paid by Archie Bunker, not Michael Scott.  Of course, tallying up the impact of this would be dependent on how far the states go, and which states go, but a rise in local tax rates could easily accomplish an additional $100 billion in revenues. 
5. Federal Fix – While we are on taxes, let’s shift to the Federal Government.  Tax cuts to the wealthy continue in place despite our economic struggles and the unhealthy growing wealth gap.  Corporate Tax rates appear high on paper, but low on actual billed revenue, and loopholes throughout the system continue to allow certain subsets of citizens to shelter their money from taxation.  The result is dwindling tax revenues coupled by increased spending, and in turn, the deficit.  Spending needs to be scrutinized and cut where it makes sense and can be afforded by the country.  But there are two sides to every coin and spending cuts alone won’t get us to a balanced budget.  Read my lips: No New Taxes means Large Deficit.  We’ve addressed the local municipalities above, but big brother needs a talking to as well.  Now before all the conservatives in the house start throwing the Earl Grey overboard, let’s think about this critically.  With all the loopholes that exist for the everyday taxpayer and for corporations, we could conceivably lower the Federal tax rates while raising revenue.  Today the U.S. Corporate Tax rate is listed amongst the highest in the world.  Of course, this appears on paper to discourage business and enterprise in our country.  General Electric begs to differ, as they effectively paid a Corporate Tax rate of 0% in 2010.  In fact, hardly any U.S. corporations actually pay the published tax rate because of the many loopholes that exists where they can hide their profits.  During the 1950’s, corporate taxes made up 32% of our Federal Tax revenues.  Today?  Less than 13%.  To a lesser extent, similar loopholes can even be found for individual citizens and individual earnings.  The bottom line is, we don’t collect the published rate on taxes.  So, wouldn’t it make sense to close the loop holes so that everyone is fairly paying into the system?  And, with the extra revenue we generate from corralling the non-compliant, couldn’t we afford to lower taxes slightly across the board, while still adding new revenue to our bottom line?  The estimated savings from closing the loopholes is over $100 billion per year.  Even if we gave a third of it back to the masses through baseline tax cuts, our savings would be close to $400 billion annually.

This list represents the low hanging fruit; the easy fixes that add revenue to our bottom line and have limited adverse impact on American citizens.  This is the kind of thinking that needs to infiltrate our representatives today: How can we generate revenue and cut costs, with the least adverse impact to our citizens?   Of course, this gets us over $1 trillion in budget balance, albeit with $13 trillion to go.  Phase two would be more difficult, and would inevitably have to address things like immigration, defense spending, and welfare.  But remember your local firefighters, policeman, teachers, and neighbor who have lost their job.  Should they be the victims of the budget crisis?  Face it; starting simple is always the way to go. 

GOP New Hampshire Debate - Running Diary

It’s that time again--That time where we begin preparation for the next Presidential election all too early.  It’s that time where a circus of wide eyed Presidential hopefuls takes the stage to beat one another over the head with their past transgressions, misstatements, and mistakes. Most of these candidates will fade fast and never be heard from again; while others yet to join the fray will still have their time to shine.  However, if history has told us anything, it’s that there is a high likelihood that one of these early entrants will stand in the limelight and challenge the incumbent administration for the highest office in the world—the Presidency of the United States. 

Tonight’s debate features the challengers representing the GOP, a proud party rich in tradition and identity, but also in transition and facing a divide.  It brings with it new faces with new attitudes; each eager to find their own identity and take their party, and their world, by storm.

What better place for our introductory post for Emancipation of the Mind than New Hampshire’s opening GOP debate?  And what better way to start than with a running diary of this momentous evening?  Here they come…..let’s get started!

1:00 

We are asking the candidates to introduce themselves with one short sentence about themselves…is there a better start to the running diary than this??

Rick Santorum – He’s first on stage, and with a good intro.  He was short and to the point, with a little business and a little personal.  I’d call him the early leader. The VERY early leader. 

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann – 5 children plus 23 foster kids, and a great Sarah Palin impression?  E network is drooling.  This brings me to an early point.  Why hasn’t some network run with the success of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” for politicians and primaries?  You wouldn’t tune in to see what’s going on behind the scenes of the Bachmann camp?

Newt Gingrich – Gingrich goes with a corny tag line as though he’s taping furniture commercial.  (Cut to former member’s of his staff with high fives and fist bumps.)

Mitt Romney – Romney looks rough.  Last election he was looking like a Kennedy.  His looks were one of the biggest things he had going for him.  Now he looks like he’s aged more in the past 3 years than Obama himself.

Ron Paul – As a former doctor, he’s delivered 4,000 babies.  No truth to the rumor that they were all adopted by the Bachmann family.

Tim Pawlenty – Our second candidate from Minnesota!!??  The state that elected both Stuart Smalley and Jesse “The Body” Ventura are bringing two Presidential Candidates to the dance!!  With a track record like that,  these people can’t be trusted.  The Mall of America is your ceiling Minnesota.  Accept it.  But hey, you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and gosh darn it—people like you!

Hermann Cain – He is this years “Problem Solver” candidate with no political experience.  Let’s see how much he plays that up as we go forward. 

5:00

The question here is about Jobs and the Economy.  This is not at all predictable. 

Pawlenty predicts 5% plus growth annually for the next 10 years, which hasn’t been done since….well…..never, and compares the United States (a fully developed nation) to China and Brazil (still developing nations) in terms of growth potential.  Santorum declines to make the same unreasonable predictions.  This is another good move for the steel city candidate.  In other news, Romney just used the phrase “wheelhouse”.  He’s hip.

11:00

Michelle Bachman is asked a question directly about the Dodd-Frank Act. 

Her answer: "I WANT TO ANNOUNCE HERE ON CNN TONIGHT THAT I HAVE FILED MY PAPERWORK TO SEEK THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!!"  (Dodd-Frank?  Anyone?  Buehler?) 

13:00

We are now into the health care topic, on a question from Sylvia Smith who looks like my second grade teacher crossed with Janis Joplin. Seriously, where do they find these audience participants?

The answers start off great, with Michelle Bachmann and  a canned response “I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I REPEAL OBAMACARE.  TAKE IT TO THE BANK!”  At this point she seems like a doll w/ a pull string that has 5 programmed phrases.  I keep expecting the camera to accidentally catch Sarah Palin behind the curtain voicing Bachmann’s answers, or for her to turn around and show us the Teddy Ruxpin tape deck that’s implanted in her back, playing Sarah Palin's greatest hits on loop.  Now it’s time for Romney vs. Pawlenty on his “Obomneycare” comment…this should be interesting.  Romney was ready for it and defends his Massachusetts plan well.  Pawlenty is put on the spot and tries to weasel out of it but Jon King won’t allow it.  After all, he works for CNN.  Pawlenty isn’t prepared to dodge this gracefully, which is an early indication that he’s just not prepared to win this thing.  Everyone knew this question was coming, except apparently Pawlenty himself.  This exchange is more awkward than Anthony Weiner’s Twitter feed.   Meanwhile, Romney asks Obama to give him a call.  I doubt he’s in Barak’s “five”. (Cut to Hillary Clinton’s campaign commercial saying Romney isn’t ready to take that call).  Gingrich gives New Hampshire and America a lesson on politics and passing a bill.  He’s a great technician.  In related news, voters don’t care. 

20:00

Here is a question from an old school, mainstream Republican who is worried about the party getting along and working together, since the Tea Party has burst onto the scene. 

This is an important topic. The emergence of the Tea Party has changed the landscape of this election and this party in a very significant way.  Traditional Republicans have no choice but to move towards the Tea Party ideology if they want to win this thing.  Bachmann’s Tea Party showed that not only can they steal votes from disengaged Democrats and Independents, but they can steal them from disengaged Republicans.  In fact, they steal MORE votes from traditional Republicans than anywhere else.  So, while the Tea Party has forced Republicans to adopt a new and more consistent identity (sorely needed), it is also likely to cost the Republicans the election.  Only a pure Tea Party candidate is going to be able to pull this off for the win.  That narrows the field considerably. 

Back to the question! Santorum tosses out Paul Ryan’s name.  Watch for how many times that comes up tonight.  Bachmann wants us to know that she’s running the Tea Party, and that it’s made up of a “wide swath” of American’s.  Wide swath?? She then hits play on her tape deck: “I WANT TO ANNOUNCE TONIGHT…PRESIDENT OBAMA IS A ONE TERM PRESIDENT. WE WILL WIN. TAKE IT TO THE BANK!!”  She spends so much time taking things to the bank it’s no wonder she couldn’t answer the Dodd-Frank banking question.

25:00

How do we get manufacturing jobs back to the US?

Ron Paul gives a 2 minute answer where all we hear is “KILL THE FED. KILL THE FED”.  (Cut to Ben Bernanke’s head spinning.)  Over/Under on number of times “Obamacare” is tossed out as a real word tonight: 400.  Bet the over.  Bachmann takes a random swipe at the EPA, renaming them “The Job Killing Organization of America”.  That acronym would be much less convenient. In other news, Rick Santorum actually tries to answer the question, and he wants the Corporate Tax rate to 0%. 

Here’s what gets me.  Republican candidates continue to focus on cutting taxes, targeting their cuts on corporations and higher income individuals.  Their argument is that we have one of the higher corporate tax rates in the global economy.  This argument holds water if we go by the published corporate tax rate, true.  Unfortunately, thanks to all of the gaping holes in our tax code, this published tax rate is not our actual realized tax revenue.  Most companies pay much lower tax rates than the published rate, and some even pay zero (Ladies and Gentlemen, General Electric!).  Any plan that involves cutting the corporate tax rate must also include comprehensive tax reforms that close those loopholes, and so far no candidate has proposed that piece of it.  They just want to cut, cut, cut. 

This just in -- CNN has decided that in addition to real world political questions, we need to know some personal information about our candidates.  Santorum chooses Leno over Conan, but watches neither, and looks sick that someone would actually think he watches late night television.  He may be having a good debate, but I don’t think he’d be much fun to hang out with.   Michelle Bachmann has Christmas w/ Elvis on her I Pod (This year’s “I can see Russia from my house!”).  Talk about fun to hang out with….Christmas w/ Elvis!? 

37:00

Audience member asks Ron Paul about government involvement in private enterprise. 

That’s like asking Cheech and Chong if we should legalize pot.  Now that that is out of the way TARP takes center stage.  Hermann Cain, businessman, advises that he supported TARP in the beginning but later soured.  He doesn’t believe in too big to fail because the Free Market will pick up the pieces.  Romney and Santorum follow suit.  Michelle Bachmann wants us to know that she was at the forefront of this debate and behind closed doors with Henry Paulsen.  Has a candidate ever patted his or herself on the back so often without ever really answering a question? 

45:00

Audience question on fixing the Housing Market

Pawlenty calls out Mr. Obama, calling his policies too slow, and failures.  The candidates continue to circle back to reference TARP as a failure.  Ron Paul wants free market to prevail and for housing prices to continue to fall fast, in order to clear the market. 

The candidates continue to lay into the administrations economic policies because they haven’t worked and move to slowly.  They are counting on the fact that voters won’t realize that there is no economic policy in existence that could have brought us to a speedy recovery.  We are talking about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, exasperated by the fact that it’s a global meltdown in a highly global economy.  You basically have two school’s of thought here:  Keynesian economics, and Free Market economics.  We went w/ Keynesian policies.  Let’s take a closer look at the Free Market option, since the candidates seem to like that approach.  In a Free Market approach we would have done nothing at all, and allowed Adam Smith’s invisible hand to move the markets at their leisure, and fix the crisis.  For true Free Market economists proposing this method, I would not argue its potential for success long term, and with a lower price tag on the administrations balance sheet.  But most of the people proposing this method are not true Free Market economists, and don’t understand the implications of that approach.  How many more businesses would have gone under?  How many more unemployed?  How much more of a slide in the stock market?  We would be staring 15-20% unemployment in the face and a much bigger expense to the American people in their personal incomes.  So the question isn’t whether or not the Free Market approach works – it does.  The question is whether or not the people clamoring for that approach really understand the costs involved with it and the fact that it would move even slower than the current approach.  Remember, when TARP was passed on October 8, 2008, unemployment was on an unprecedented slide and six months after passage it stabilized and started a slow recovery.  In fact, the employment figures continued to slowly improve, right up until the Republicans won their mid term elections, took control of Congress, and started cutting public sector jobs.  The private sector continues to grow jobs.  By the way, 99% of the TARP funds have been recovered, and the early estimate is that the United States will profit $20 billion off of the interest payments from TARP loans. 

Back to the debate!  Screw politics and policy, we want more personal information!!  Newt Gingrich is an American Idol fan.  He’s wearing a Scotty McCreery shirt under his jacket right now.  Ron Paul uses a Blackberry instead of an IPhone.  Steve Jobs thinks Ron Paul is a prick.  Riveting stuff. 

54:00

Medicare question from a local doctor in the audience.

Pawlenty references Paul Ryan—his second shout out of the night.  Gingrich references Paul Ryan.  Santorum references Ryan again and tries to hitch his wagon to Mr. Ryan.  Ryan is officially a rock star within his own party, and he’s not even here to enjoy it.  Meanwhile, Gingrich, who is faltering like no other, has his first grasp at improvement, taking the role of the people’s president.  No one is inspired.  (Cut to his former staff grinning slyly.)  Hermann Cain disagrees—and circles back to none other than Paul Ryan!

62:00

We are back to the spending issue, this time focused on the debt ceiling.  We haven’t heard from Bachmann in 20 minutes.  Her people are panicking. 

65:00

I spoke too soon.  Bachmann enters the fray.  Her first sly political move of the night—quoting President Obama from his campaign that raising the debt ceiling is not an answer.  Maybe she’s been sandbagging all along?    

69:00

These are the first real fireworks of the night, with a question on American Muslims.  Hermann Cain, the conservative minority candidate, throws out the first racial barb—no Muslims will serve in his cabinet.  In a sad moment for Americans, the audience members are actually nodding approvingly.  Meanwhile Mitt Romney runs as fast as he can from Cain’s remarks, which is a very smart move by the current perceived front runner.  But, not Newt!  Gingrich joins in with a story of Muslims building car bombs in America and a shout out to Senator Joe McCarthy!  Newt touts McCarthyism as a successful program in American history.  Cut to Newt’s former staff looking horrified.  Chris Farley would be proud (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6soITTTRVs&feature=share )

Hermann Cain loves Deep Dish pizza (“DEEP DISH” is his new campaign slogan).  Romney gets excited over spicy barbecue sauce, and also lets us know he’s been checking the Boston Bruins score on his smart phone instead of paying attention to the debate.  Score one for Mitt. 

78:00

Gay Marriage is on the agenda…and Michelle Bachmann is looking on disgusted, but is forced to answer.  Congresswoman Bachmann reminds us she has adopted 23 children.  Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look on disapprovingly.  They own the market on adoption savants, and Bachmann is just paying rent.  Predictably, no one supports gay marriage, or the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, except Ron Paul.  Mitt Romney continues to backpedal effectively.  Michelle Bachmann doesn’t understand the question. Segue to abortion, as Michelle Bachmann quotes the scripture.  Pawlenty continues to sound aggressive, angry, and emotional in all of his responses.  He might be the next Howard Dean. 

87:00

The second question of the night from a foreign resident, this time appropriately on immigration.  She’s from Minnesota and she voted for Al Franken.  Pawlenty and Bachmann stare blankly into the camera.

Ron Paul continues to focus his annoyance towards military spending.  His passion is admirable, his brain is sharp, and his approach is frightening.  Cain tries to recover from his Muslim remarks, saying we should care for illegal immigrants who have to go to the hospital.  That is, unless, of course, they happen to be Muslim.  Pawlenty is angry again.  How long until he knocks Ron Paul off his podium and stands on top of it yelling “WERE GOING TO IOWA!!!”  He also tells the country that he will be using a completely biased approach towards appointing Supreme Court Justices, appointing only highly conservative judges.  At least he’s up front about his partisanship.  Gingrich throws the political elites under the bus, which includes most of his friends.  His wife just cancelled their Washington Party schedule for the year. 

More personal info!  Pawlenty drinks Coke.  Howard Dean drinks Coke.  Is this a coincidence?  I think not!   

101:00

 It’s taken nearly two hours, but we’ve got the obligatory “parent of active soldiers” question on war/foreign policy.  Romney inadvertently calls Afghanistan “The Taliban”…whoops!  No one has slipped yet and called Obama, Osama.  The rest of the candidates give their standard “thank you to our military and their families” speech, and we learn nothing on their foreign policy plans.  Pawlenty has actually physically morphed into Howard Dean at this point.  Technical Difficulties save the day.  Michelle Bachmann, with her second top notch political play of the day, denounces our Libya actions and cites Defense Secretary Gates own words.  She’s becoming more and more viable.  I just lost feeling in my legs.  Gingrich throws the CIA under the bus, which is always a good idea for the next leader of the free world.  This field is weak.  I just finished my first bottle of wine!

Back to Bachmann—you’re starting to feel more and more like she can win this Republican nomination.  We already know her approach works on voters (see Palin, Sarah).  We already know she can raise a ton of money.  And we already know that it needs to be a true Tea Partier to carry this election.  Plus, she looks like someone you’d hit on at the airport bar!  She just needs to show that she can really answer the difficult questions instead of giving canned rah-rah responses.  Nearly two hours into the debate, she’s starting to show it’s possible. 

The world’s most awkward man asks a question from the audience.  Santorum diplomatically tells him he’s a moron, and moves on.  This is yet another win for Rick. He uses the work “fecklessness” as his cherry on top.  Well played, sir.  By the way, we’re running out of time and we haven’t even talked about Guns!  (Cut to Charlton Heston pulling his hair out in heaven.  He's mad as hell.)

115:00

We get a great question from the audience on the low approval rating for the Republican Congress since they took control, and the conceived weakness of the Presidential field.  No one answers.  Jon King asks the candidates to choose between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.  Everyone ducks, except Pawlenty who believes Mrs. Palin is qualified as President.  His campaign just ended.  Mitt Romney just hit on Michelle Bachmann.  The Mormon candidate currently only has one wife...let’s see where this goes!  Mrs. Bachmann wants to hold an American Idol contest for her Vice President.  (Cut to Gingrich’s Scotty shirt.)

118:00

The closing question to the candidates is on what we’ve learned tonight?  Santorum wins again with a soundly diplomatic answer on his competitors.  Bachmann rambles on and is cutoff by King.  Her 28 children are converging on the stage like the Children of the Corn.  Gingrich avoids boo’s and looks like he can’t wait to go home.  Romney gives a canned answer on the people of New Hampshire. Obviously he didn’t see the people who were asking theses questions (sorry New Hampshire!).   Paul smiles coyly and says nothing.  Pawlenty takes a dig at Canada.  Canada!?  Really!?!?  Cain recycles his opening remarks.  Debate over.

But, what did we learn?  Who won?  Who lost?  Where is this thing headed?  Here’s our analysis:

Paul Ryan: A+, Paul Ryan is the winner of the day, and he did so without even showing up.  He was referenced no less than 6 times during the GOP debates and praised by his fellow Republicans.  Ryan sees what his counterparts don’t, and is clearly a beneficiary of that long term thinking.  He sees that the administration is going to be very difficult to beat in 2012.  First of all, the incumbent always has an advantage.  Secondly, Obama and his aides are master campaigners (see Election, 2008).  Finally, the Republicans remain a party looking for their identity in a time of transition.  They are not together, and not yet ready to win.  2012 is not the time for Republicans, but 2016 will be.  When Mr. Obama vacates his seat in 2016 (presuming a 2012 victory) it will be the Democrats who are left to sort through a lackluster field of candidates.  Meanwhile, Mr. Ryan will have risen to greater prominence in his party, with his work on Medicare being his crowning achievement, and he will be well positioned for the office in 2016.

Rick Santorum:  B+, Solid but not spectacular, Mr. Santorum established himself as the “old school” conservative, which will resonate with the traditional Republicans in the party.  Unfortunately, it is a candidate like Mr. Santorum who will lose votes from the Tea Party candidates.  But, at the end of the day, Santorum answered every question directly, honestly, and with specifics, and took the first step in making a name for himself.

Mitt Romney:  B, Romney came in as the perceived front runner and did nothing to diminish that position in tonight’s debate.  He pounced on topics that are seen as strengths for him (economy).  He ran from controversial topics that can derail a campaign (Muslims, gay marriage).  He did what he needed to do, he came prepared, and earned extra points for taking the high road on the feud w/ Mr. Pawlenty.

Hermann Cain: B-, for having no political experience, Cain was poised and prepared for the debate.  For 95% of the night, you saw passion and proficiency from the “anti establishment” candidate.  However, his political inexperience shown through when asked to clarify his statements on American Muslims.  That will not sit well with a good number of voters, even some within his party.  More importantly it showed that his inexperience is a potential liability going forward. 

Michelle Bachmann:  B-, we’ve already touched on Bachmann’s legitimacy as a candidate, and honestly she appears to be the top option to push past Romney going forward.  This grade is an overall grade, but her debate performance had two distinctly different halves.  Her opening hour would be graded a D, as she refused to answer the questions presented to her, in lieu of making grandiose announcements and catch phrases to ignite the crowd.  However, as the night went on and she had to address specific issues, she started to show her mettle.  As mentioned, we know she will raise a lot of money and has the influential support of the Tea Party.  If she can avoid the embarrassing statements that have befallen Sarah Palin in the past, she has a chance at the nomination.

Ron Paul:  C, Paul’s performance was high quality if not predictable.  However, the likelihood of Mr. Paul securing the nomination is slim to none, so his score is automatically hindered.  Additionally, Ron Paul is unable to separate his overarching themes from his answers that require a more specific, micro-level approach, which causes every answer to sound the same, and creates the illusion that he can’t fully grasp the complexity of each individual issue. 

Tim Pawlenty:  C+, Pawlenty’s poor performance started even before the debate, when he went at Mitt Romney over health care.  By doing so before the debate, he put himself in a position to have to confront Romney face to face.  Only, he refused to do so tonight, which made him look weak.  Additionally, he looked as though he were totally unprepared for it to come up at all, which was a major oversight, considering the rest of the world saw it coming from a mile away.  Outside of that issue, Pawlenty appeared overly emotional and angry for most of his answers, leaving a big question mark on whether or not he can make it through the campaign without a derailing blowup.  Finally, Santorum called dibs on the traditional Republican candidate, taking away the one identifying factor that Pawlenty would have had going for him.  This was a tough night. 

Newt Gingrich:  D-, Like Pawlenty, Gingrich started well behind the eight ball before the debate even started.  News that Gingrich’s entire staff quit just days prior to the debate raised immediate questions about his campaign’s legitimacy.  Through the debate, Gingrich played right into all the question marks that already existed about him.  He showed that he is a skilled technician of politics and policy, but he also showed that he is a lone soldier, loose cannon, and someone who would be difficult to work with.  In a matter of weeks, Gingrich has gone from the candidate with the most experience and pedigree to the candidate most likely to be the first to bow out.   


But, overall, what we really learned was that this primary debate had a much different feel than the Democractic primary debates of 2007-2008.  These candidates were polite to one another, rarely challenged each other, and weren't ready to fight.  Nobody moved us--And, no matter how hard you looked and how much you wanted to see it, you didn't see a U.S President on that stage.