8:00 PM: Occupy Las Vegas is outside the pre-show, chanting, drowning out the talking heads, the night is looking up.
8:02: Wondering how long till the first Occupy Wall Street question.
8:03: Just 7 candidates tonight, Huntsman is out (no reason given). Maybe he thought it was Thursday like I did.
8:05: Crowd gives the Magnificent Seven a standing ovation. And, they move into the National Anthem. What the hell?!?! This isn’t a football game.
8:06: No military flyover inside the auditorium
8:08: Santorum slips in a mention of his 7 children during intros. I think the kids are props (more on this in Friday’s post).
8:09: They span the crowd and Wayne Newton is in the building! He looks like a Madame Tussauds wax statue at this point, loads of makeup. Wait, there’s a Madame Tussauds in Vegas, that might be the statue.
8:12: Cain’s 9-9-9 plan gets attacked out the gate. Santorum states that it will raise taxes on 84% of the population (that’s actually true). See you Herman, it’s been fun.
8:15: Bachmann sounding like a normal human being on the 9-9-9 plan. She used to be an IRS tax attorney.
8:16: Perry drops his first letter “g” off of a word. The winning word was “fixin”. (re: the economy)
8:18 Ron Paul comes out for a 0% federal income tax rate, no word on how roads and stuff will be paid for. Maybe we can drive our cars on our freedom from taxation? Who knows, he’s old.
8:20: Romney comes out for a lower corporate income tax. He’s banking on people not knowing that 68% of corporations don’t pay them anyway.
8:22: Newt’s up and he’s for lower corporate taxes too (see above).
8:23: Bachmann is for raising taxes on the working poor, saying they should pay something. Ignoring the fact they pay state/local taxes, payroll, and sales taxes. And, it’s of course, a higher percentage of their income.
8:24: Bachmann gets the first “Obamacare” (OC) reference in tonight. It’s usually her.
8:26-8:29: Romney gets the 2nd OC reference in, Santorum hits back, saying that OC was based on Romney’s health care bill in Massachusetts (this is actually true). Now they’re arguing, nice. The health care bills will be addressed in Friday’s post.
8:30: Whoa, Santorum hits back with a “RomneyCare” (RC) reference and slipped an OC reference in the same sentence. Double talking point win! And, I think you have to take a shot, if you’re playing the GOP/health care drinking game at home.
8:31: Oh no! They pulled Anderson Cooper (AC) in. He just said “OC."
8:32: These things take forever to go to a commercial. Shut up guys, need a bathroom break here.
8:33: Newt and Mitt fighting. Wow, Newt slips in a “HillaryCare” (Clinton’s 90′s health care plan) reference. These f’ers have nicknames for everything.
8:34: Bachmann comes out for repeal of ObamaCare (dammit now they’ve got me saying it), crowd cheers. The Republicans want the freedom to die without health insurance.
8:35: Thank god or Ronald Reagan. Commercial!! BRB
8:38: AC with 2 more OC references (I should have put an abbreviation guide in this). CNN really sucks. Ron Paul also joins the OC bandwagon.
8:39: Cain joins the OC bandwagon. Everyone in the pool, the water’s fine!
8:41: Perry attacks Romney on him hiring illegal immigrants for house work, more arguing, Romney dickish-ly says, “it’s been a couple of tough debates for Rick.” The best show on TV.
8:43: Romney hits back on Texas giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates for colleges (that’s actually true). Romney is in full rich guy, douchebag mode here.
8:45: Cain wants a 2,000 mile, electrified fence on the Texas-Mexico border, to either keep us in or the Mexicans out. But, if one these squids win, that fence will be keeping us in. It will be a reverse run for the border.
8:47: Perry wants drones to keep out the Mexicans, who will do the jobs we won’t do? He probably didn’t think it that far through.
8:49: Bachmann comes out for English as the country’s official language. That’s strange, I kinda thought it was already. Idiots applaud.
8:51: Perry tries to bring up Mitt’s illegal immigrant worker issue, crowd has moved on, boos Perry. Goodbye Rick.. I’ll be able to sleep knowing there won’t be another Texas governor in the White House for a while.
8:55: 55 minutes in, no mention of war, Wall Street, or taxes. There has been about 50 ObamaCare references and 30 references to a big fence. Priorities.
8:58: There’s been a lot of talk about Mexicans coming in, no mention of our sneaky neighbors to the North.
9:00: Ron Paul makes the first anti-war comment, took an hour, but we’re at the big stuff.9:02: If Droopy Dog were a human, I think he would look like Ron Paul.
9:03: Rick Perry drops a George Bush-esque “nucular” (re: energy. not blowing up another country)
9:09: First Occupy Wall Street (OWS) question. Cain stands by his “lay off Wall Street” comments from a few days ago. Crowd cheers. It’s the Twilight Zone.
9:10: OWS question comes to Ron Paul, he looks like he was dozing a bit just before (he’s 76). Might be pass his bedtime. Get him some warm milk during the next commercial.
9:11 36 minutes since the last commercial. This is grueling.
9:13: Mitt dodges his flip-flop on the OWS protests, true to form (will be addressed in Friday’s post)
9:14: Lord Ronald Reagan (I’m figuring this is who Repubs pray to) has blessed me with another commercial break.9:21: Newt’s going on about morality and faith. I think he should wear multiple wedding rings, like the “Big Love” guy.
9:28: Another question to Ron Paul, looks as though it wakes him up. But, he does speak about military cuts, ending wars, etc (will be addressed Thursday, I’m with him on this)
9:32: Santorum doesn’t want to cut “one penny” from defense. Time for facts: The US spends more than the other top 20 countries, in military spending, combined. So, you could probably find a few pennies.
9:34: Question from the audience: person wants a stop to all foreign aid. More facts, foreign aid is about 1.5% of the budget, defense is about 15%. So, we can cut foreign aid, but not one penny from defense, seems reasonable.
9:35-9:45: More bickering, another commercial, blah, blah, blah, Obamacare, low taxes, blah, blah, Romneycare…I’m getting tired. It’s all starting to sound the same.
9:52: Another standing ovation. Who knows why? Maybe they’re just happy its over.
No clear winner tonight. Clear loser: the American people
See you soon,
James
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