Rick Santorum had a pretty lousy night in Arizona, but his candidacy has raised some valuable social questions, as I argue in my latest print column (available to TIME subscribers). His candidacy also demonstrates the traditional problems that long-term members of Congress have when they attempt to run for President. Legislative democracy is complicated and untidy. You have to make difficult choices all the time–and, to my mind, the decisive moment in Wednesday night’s debate came when Santorum empretzeled himself in an effort to explain why he’d voted to fund Planned Parenthood, of all things.
“Only one thing is certain,” CNN’s opening montage declares. “Expect the unexpected.” That hits the spot. We need false hope at a time like this. It’s the 19th Republican debate. Everything that can happen probably already has. The screen flickers with a Romney video clip from the campaign trail. “We’re not choosing a talk show host,” he says. This will need to be fact checked.
TV Guide lists a new episode of Fear Factor at 9 p.m. on NBC. It’s called “Leaches & Shaved Heads & Tear Gas, Oh My! Part 1.” And yet, as the hour strikes, the screen shows another patriotic montage, this time from Tampa, Florida, introducing the 18th Republican debate. The NFL plays a 16-game regular season. There are nine circles of hell. God got it done in six days. But democracy is unrelenting.
The CNN spaceship is set to launch, with blue gels on the lights that give the auditorium an alien aquarium vibe. It’s the 17th GOP debate of 2012 cycle. Roll the intro montage: “Welcome to the South, the heart of the Republican Party,” says the hokey disembodied voice, doing its best imitation of a Stephen Colbert send up, “where tradition lives and values matter.”
Newt Gingrich’s indignant response to the first question of Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate in South Carolina sucked every cubic centimeter of oxygen from the auditorium.
If Mitt Romney has his way, Monday night’s Republican primary debate in New Hampshire will be all about Barack Obama. If Mitt Romney’s Republican rivals have their way, Monday night’s debate will be all about Mitt Romney. Herein lies the danger, and the opportunity, for Mitt Romney, who has emerged as expected as the early [...]
Tonight in South Carolina, Fox News will televise something that purports to be a 2012 Republican presidential primary debate. In truth it will be an almost entirely meaningless event. After all, most of the big-name candidates who either intend to run or are thinking about it–Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Mike Huckabee [...]
I was just about to hit send on a post about how the Dems were rolling out cots for a forced all night session on financial regulatory reform when I got this email from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “I appreciate the efforts of Sen. Shelby to work toward a bipartisan solution on an issue [...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon made a second pass at starting debate on financial reregulation but to no avail: the vote ended exactly as it did yesterday 57-41, mostly along party lines. The scene is starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day: isn’t doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results the [...]
