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January 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Mr Romney, who is leading in opinion polls here ahead of the contest’s
third vote, gave his weakest performance of the 16 debates so far. At one
stage he was pressured into suggesting that he would release his personal
tax records, before then refusing to commit to doing so.
05.55 (00.55) Tim Stanley remarks on how the
GOP candidates finally stuck the knife in to Mitt Romney, however,
somehow Romney managed to survive the joint attack squad relatively
unscathed.
If only the conservative presidential candidates had done this one month ago,
the race would now be wide open. During last night’s debate they finally
stopped attacking one another and stuck their knives into Mitt Romney
instead. They drew a lot of blood; enough to wound him, probably not enough
to kill him. Mitt lives to fight another day! But at what cost to both him
and the GOP?
05.34 (00.34) The Telegraph’s Alex Spillius points out that
while Newt Gingrich may have won votes in South Carolina for his successful
jousting effort in tonight’s debate, his demagoguery makes him unelectable
as president in the long term.
All these answers may have delighted a conservative audience in South
Carolina. He could well get a bounce in the polls heading towards Saturday’s
primary. He could do well enough to emerge as the conservative alternative
to Mitt Romney, who is labelled a moderate.
But Gingrich’s responses showed why he would be unelectable in a general
election. For every Republican cheering on his feet in the convention centre
in Myrtle Beach there were one or more Democrats sat at home cursing his
demagoguery.
In just a few minutes he made remarks that many will interpret as an
implication that black children are lazy, that President Obama favours his
own race, that the needy are greedy and the unemployed feckless.
05.08 (00.08) US media are crowning Newt
Gingrich as the winner of tonight’s debate; The New York Times
says the nothing-to-lose candidate “let ‘er rip tonight” with the
crowd eating out of his hand. The newspaper also praises the performance of
an “effective” Rick Perry, who said little but when he did, it did
the trick.
On the loser scale, the newspaper expresses sympathy for Ron Paul, who
was subject to numerous boos and a suggestion from Perry that a gong should
have gone off. They dismiss him as not having a chance at the Republican
nomination due to his inability to deflect questions on foreign policy.
The newspaper also said it was a bad night for the audience, who came across
as ultra right-wing, even booing the commentators for asking questions. As a
result the candidates ended up vying for cheers with “conservative red
meat” foder rather than detailed discussion on policies.
04.47 (23.47) Juan Williams tells Sean Hannity that Newt
Gingrich responded well to his challenge over food stamps, however he sticks
to his point that he believes it is “racially sensitive” to call
Obama the “food-stamp president”. Here is a clip of Newt
Gingrich’s blunt rebuff of Williams’s question during the debate. The
footage ends just before the crowd gave Gingrich a rare standing ovation.
04.22 (23.22) This has just been published on Mitt Romney‘s
Twitter account – a sound bite he didn’t manage to squeeze into tonight’s
debate? Pretty sure we’ve all heard this before.
04.00 (23.00) John Hardwood, a New York Times reporter and a former
colleague of Daniel Pearl, the executed Wall St Journal correspondent, had
this to say about Perry’s quip earlier:
03.55 (22.55) And it’s over. Alex Spillius’s take:
This debate – the 16th – has followed a familiar pattern. Mitt Romney fends
off attacks, Ron Paul sticks to his guns and one of the rest stands out. In
this case it was Newt Gingrich, who had many in the crowd on its feet with a
robust answer to the supposition that his Barack Obama was a ‘food stamp
president’. In fact the biggest difference tonight was the vocal audience
cheering tough answers of foreign policy, entitlements and more.
03.50 (22.50) Romney has a rare zinger, describing Gingrich’s Super Pac
attack ad, The
King of Bain: When Mitt Romney Came to Town, as “the biggest
hoax since Big Foot”.
03.40 (22.40) Romney finds a more nuanced way to describe his
hunting experiences, saying he hunted elk recently and loved it but is not a
big gamesman. Much better than this, which happened last time:
03.37 (22.37) Perry’s rant about Turkey and the Middle East could cause
him problems in the unlikely event that he were to be the next leader of the
Free World.
An extraordinary moment a little earlier when Rick Perry lumped together
Turkey with Iran and Syria and suggested they were countries run by “Islamic
terrorists”. In the highly unlikely event that the Texas governor is
inaugurated as the 45th president of the US next January, he will have some
explaining to do to Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, leader of a US ally that
has suffered from Islamist terrorism itself.
03.30 (22.30) Santorum has been trying to raise the populist flag all
night, with mixed success, but now attacks Romney’s social security plan as “not
bold” and Gingrich’s as “fiscally irresponsible”. Gingrich is
on stride, rattling off names of economists and telling Santorum that he
balanced the budget four times – the only time that’s been done “in
your life time”.
03.26 (22.26) The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza makes this
assessment with 30 minutes to go. It sounds about right to me.
03.23 (22.23) The crowd in Myrtle Beach is interesting. Paul has
a loud and hyperactive group of supporters who even booed Romney at one
point for his tough stance on civil liberties. But overall the audience is a
real, souther conservative crowd – applauding bold and stark proposals to
slash government and hammer America’s enemies.
03.20 (22.20) We’re now in a bidding war on who can sound toughest on
detention of terror suspects. Only Paul comes to defence of habeus
corpus – with genuine horror in his voice he describes how the US
military could arrest an American citizen and hold them without trial. “Don’t
give up on our American judicial system so easily, I beg of you.”
03.17 (22.17) Rick Perry has marched unprompted into a discussion of
the US
Marines who urinated on the bodies of dead Taliban. They need to be
punished, he says, but for the Defence Secretary to call them “utterly
despicable” is over the top. Cutting off journalist Daniel Pearl’s head
is utterly despicable, he snarls.
03.15 (22.15) Jon Swaine is sceptical about Romney’s tax return
manoeuvre:
A bizarre answer from Mitt Romney on his tax returns. Either he should have
committed to releasing them, thus thumbing his nose at Newt Gingrich and
Rick Perry by casually meeting their demands – and indicating that there is
nothing to be ashamed of in the documents – or stuck to his guns and said
no. Instead, he opened the door to their release but wriggled out of a
proper commitment.
Now he has said there is no reason why they should not be released,
pressure to do so will surely become unbearable. So he might as well
have committed.
03.11 (22.11) Gingrich is lavished in applause as he brings up one of
America’s favourite sons: Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of
the United States and a hero of the Revolutionary War. “He knew how to
deal with America’s enemies: you kill them”. The line combines Newt’s
love of history and conservative red meat.
Romney tries to top that but he sounds like an unlikely gunslinger: “We
should go wherever our enemies are and kill them. The right thing for bin
Laden was a bullet to the head.”
03.00 (22.00) We’re switching to foreign policy now. Paul goes
on a long, looong scree about how the US is digging a hole for itself in the
Middle East. It prompts the question: are you more Left-wing than Obama? The
crowd is utterly frosty and actually boos as he tries to explain why sending
troops into sovereign countries isn’t always a good idea.
02.55 (21.55) And just to illustrate her point, Williams has asked
Gingrich about his “food stamp president” remark. It sounds like
you’re belittling the president, he says. The question is roundly booed by
the crowd. Gingrich relishes the answer:
The fact is: more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than
any other president in American history. I know that to the politically
correct you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.
The crowd goes ballistic with applause, rising to its feet to howl its
approval.
02.52 (21.52) My friend Olivia Feld from the BBC points out that Juan
Williams, the only black person on the Fox moderating panel, is asking
all the sensitive questions about race.
02.50 (21.50) Alex Spillius is unconvinced by Romney’s attack on
Obama’s free market record.
02.44 (21.44) Romney says he expects he will release his tax returns
some time around April. “I have nothing in them that suggests there are
any problems and I’m happy to [release them],” he says chirpily. It’s a
smart move – he was always going to have to release them eventually, better
to do it now that when the pressure reaches a critical point.
02.41 (21.41) Ron Paul is on his favourite tract now – the wild
spending at the Pentagon. As one symbol he cites the American embassy in
Baghdad, which he describes as “bigger than the Vatican”.
02.38 (21.39) Gingrich gets huge applause as he describes Obama
as “the best food-stamp presidency in American history” – a line
that has raised eyebrows in some corners.
02.36 (21.36) Tim Stanley, our blogger-at-large, has this take on the
action so far:
So far, Rick Santorum is having a good night. Taking a detour from his usual
orthodox conservatism, he has argued for moderate positions on voting rights
and union membership. Yet he has managed – somehow – to make Mitt Romney
look like a liberal flip flopper. The key to this is Santorum’s aggressive,
populist style that conservatives respect. Romney is always slick, but he
flinches when openly attacked. Santorum gets him on the ropes, and he just
lies across them grinning lamely.
02.34 (21.34) Perry gets very animated on the issue of “Obama’s
war on religion”. His eyes light up and his arms wave as he says: “This
administration is out of control!”
02.30 (21.30) The Ghost of Huntsman just rose up, ressurecting
his great quote that Romney is a “perfectly lubricated weathervane”
on controversial issues. Romney defends his record on abortion, citing a
pro-life group in Massachusetts that rated him as “solid” on
abortions.
02.27 (21.27) Perry’s camp emails reporters with details of his Federal
Income Tax Returns, trying to draw a stark contrast with Romney.
02.25 (21.25) Romney is risking coming across as a bit smug with his
disdain for the time limits set by the moderators. He tells the moderator,
Fox’s Bret Baier, that he’s going to take a little more time to
answer the question, thankyouverymuch. At the end of the first segment, Baier
threatens to reinstate the warning bell to cut off loquacious candidates.
02.20 (21.20) CBS’s Lindsey Boerma catches the best line of a ding-dong
on Santorum’s record.
02.12 (21.12) Unlike Gingrich, Perry goes straight for the
jugular – possibly a sign that he has less to lose than the former Speaker.
He immediately brings up Romney’s tax returns, which the frontrunner has so
far refused to release.
We can’t fire our nominee is September. We need to know now. I hope you
will put the records out now so we can see other we have a flawed candidate
or not.
02.10 (21.10) Romney trots through his business experience, his success
at the Olympics and his the 4.7 per cent employment he left Massachusetts
with. He looks and sounds confident and the crowd bursts into applause.
02.05 (21.05) First question: Gingrich is asked why he’s no
longer the happy warrior he was at Christmas and has gone so negative on
Romney’s record. “I raise questions that I think are legitimate
questions,” he says, insisting he is doing his bit to test Romney ahead
of the general election. With a cute shrug, Gingrich repeats his claim that
he was vital to the creation of 16m jobs under Reagan.
02.00 (21.00) Here we go. The debate is being hosted by a Holy Trinity
of conservativism: Fox News, the Wall St Journal and
the South Carolina Republican Party. Jon Huntsman’s passing is noted
with little sadness.
01.50 (20.50) An indication of the tone tonight, from USA Today’s Susan
Page:
01.45 (20.45) Our own Jon Swaine sets the scene from the filing centre
in Myrtle Beach:
The caravan has rolled into South Carolina. Tonight the five remaining
candidates for the Republican presidential nomination will square off in a
convention centre in Myrtle Beach, about 30 miles down the coast from the
border with North Carolina.
Time is running out for Mitt Romney’s rivals to stop the former
Massachusetts governor. Eyes will be on Newt Gingrich, the volatile former
House Speaker, to lay some blows on the front-runner, while Rick Santorum,
the former Pennsylvania senator who ran Mr Romney close in Iowa, will also
be expected to perform strongly in front of a socially conservative crowd.
Mr Romney’s moderate stances from his days in Massachusetts, and his
Mormonism, were expected to make this a tough state for him to win. However,
with five days until polls close, he is in the lead. The four per cent of
voters who had been backing Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who quit
the race today, are also expected to shift into the Romney column after
their man’s endorsement.
Something special is needed to halt the Romney juggernaut. Perhaps we will
witness it this evening.
01.40 (20.40) This is the sort of thing we need to see from Newt tonight:
01.30 (20.30) Our merry band of would-be presidents has dwindled to
just five after Jon Huntsman withdrew from the race earlier today. Here’s a
quick recap of the last men (for they all are men) still standing and the
polling numbers they’re standing on:
Mitt Romney: 30 per cent
The former Massachusetts governor’s slow and steady approach has yielded
victory in Iowa and New Hampshire and the title of undisputed frontrunner.
He has looked increasingly assured in recent weeks as the party’s big guns
fall in behind him but tonight he will have a major target painted on his
back.
Newt Gingrich: 22 per cent
Despite dismal performances in the first two contests, Gingrich is running
second in South Carolina, a state that should his southern background and
feisty conservative message. Gingrich landed many of the best debate hits on
Romney, including exhorting him to cut the “pious baloney”, and
will be looking for a repeat tonight.
Ron Paul: 15 per cent
The libertarian Congressman from Texas is almost running in a separate primary
from the other candidates, one where auditing the Federal Reserve and
restoring the gold standard are the pressing issues of the day. But his
support is undeniable and he is a feisty debater.
Rick Santorum: 14 per cent
His almost-win in Iowa led to an almost-last in New Hampshire, but the staunch
social conservative is on stronger ground in South Carolina. He will do his
best to cast Romney as a phony on social issues, especially abortion.
Rick Perry: 6 per cent
The Texas governor skipped New Hampshire to head straight to the Palmetto
State but his reward has been a dismal set of polling numbers. Perry has to
convince voters to take a second (or third, or fourth) look at him tonight
with a strong debate performance.
01.25 GMT (20.25 EST) Good evening/morning and welcome to our live
coverage of the Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Every one
of these contests is billed as crucial but this one really is: if the
conservative Right is to have any chance of stopping Mitt Romney’s procession
towards the Republican crown then it needs to begin with a blistering attack
tonight.
• New Hampshire Republican primary: January 11
as it happened
• New
Hampshire Republican primary: as it happened January 10
• New
Hampshire Republican primary: as it happened January 9
• New Hampshire primary debate: as it happened
January 8
• New Hampshire primary debate: as it happened
January 7
• Iowa Republican primary: as it happened
January 4
• Iowa
Republican primary: as it happened January 3
• Iowa
Republican primary: as it happened January 2
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