About the 10/11/11 debate

I watched about an hour and a half of it.  An hour and a half was plenty enough for me.  Once they started with the "man in the street stuff", I turned it off.  I expected a lot of those silly assed hypothetical questions again.

I am a bit surprised at how negative the conservative pundits are in reporting about the candidates.

Romney favored TARP, it is said.  That won't help him with the Tea Party. Ok, I was against TARP also, but not against supporting people who had nothing to do with the melt down.  The thing that I didn't like about TARP and the subsequent handling of the economy was because it appeared to bail out the people who were responsible.  This may sound too much like these other leftist crazies, but I'll risk that.  I'd like to think that the people who deserved to be protected would get protection.  Let the others pay of their own mistakes. Romney talked like he'd go that way, so it wasn't all that bad for him.

Cain was said to be "naive" for his 9-9-9 plan.  Actually, it is not a bad idea.  The proposition changes the incentive structure towards production and away from consumption.  It stops penalizing success, hard work, and thrift.  That is just what the doctor ordered, in my opinion.  As for giving the government another revenue stream, that won't matter if we get our spending house in order. If we don't control spending, we are cooked in any case.  There would be a risk, but if the spending side gets addressed, the risk is much less.

Perry is getting slammed again.  But his idea of going all out on energy production is another good idea. Unfortunately for Perry, another slow talking, drawling Texan may not be in the cards this time around.

In general, I thought Romney was the focus of the discussion.  A lot of the questions by candidates of each other went towards Romney.  That gave him more of the face time, and he seemed to make the most of it. I think for that reason, he probably comes out on top in this debate.

If Romney wins the nomination, it won't break my heart. But I would worry about the dude.

He seems like the safe candidate.  Safe in the sense that he won't scare people, and safe because he seems to be a nice enough guy.  Safe also in that he appears to bring competence to the table.