7:53 Sarah Coughlon here! Matt Shuham, Alex Wirth, James Alver and I are liveblogging the GOP jobs debate in New Hampshire. We’ll update as we go, typing in different colors a la The Economist to signify who typed what. Stay tuned for more!
7:59 Matt Shuham: Hey everyone, this should be fun!
8:01 Jay Alver here, I’m hoping we hear some good ideas tonight.
8:03 The 9-9-9 plan will never stop sounding like a pizza deal.
8:05 Romney is framing himself as a leader – a strong, if predicable, start.
8:09 Alex Wirth here with the first impact youth have had on this debate. Herman Cain is sitting in the middle of the table partly due to this Harvard Institute of Politics Poll released yesterday.
8:13 Ron Paul is going after the Fed – again predictable, though it’s good to see him articulating the libertarian argument a little more fully.
8:14 Just realized that the debate is seated. This may be a big help to Rick Perry, who’s apparently had a lot of back pain towards the end of past debates.
8:14 If there’s one great thing to be said for a topic debate in the primary, it’s that it lets us see people like Rick Santorum talk outside of their comfort zone.
8:15: Santorum: “Repeal them all!” It’s never that simple.
8:16 Huntsman: “Washington DC is the gas capital of the US” not Pennsylvania.
8:16 Thank God Huntsman isn’t wearing that heinous yellow tie. (Also, I get one free Bachmann clothing critique because I started by criticizing a man?)
8:18 Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy in the room, but he’s not saying anything relevant to the debate.
8:18 Gingrich says that gov’t suggestions, like that men shouldn’t get as many prostate exams, amount to a death panel.
8:19 When answering the question about innovation you cannot forget about education and young people. Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were under 25 when they started Apple and Microsoft.
8:20 Michelle Bachman isn’t the smartest one in the room, but she’s definitely trying to scare a lot of people.
8:20 Fun fact – I was at a Bachmann town hall yesterday where she repeated the Medicare speech here almost verbatim (including the “beautiful” eighty-five year old women). Also, is she trying to revive the death panels?
8:23 Props to Huntsman for the Bowles-Simpson reference – good substantive note.
8:24 Herman Cain says his tax plan doesn’t come from a pizza box, but from his team of economists.
8:26 Enough of this: Mitt Romney’s job was firing people, and he was good at it.
8:35 Huffington Post Politics makes a great point that Romney criticizes all of Obama’s Ivy League advisers but he just name dropped his own.
8:38 Perry pushing the balanced-budget amendment idea. Interesting to hear the candidates picking up this issue – House Republicans love it, we know that much.
8:39 Romney says we need to cap the Government sector’s % of the economy, says we were better off at 27% under JFK
8:41 Romney coming out strong against new taxes – someone needs to press him on the difference between taxes “on the American people” and taxes on hedge-fund managers.
8:42 Love him or hate him, I think Newt’s making a few good points about presidential leadership and the congressional lack of vision.
8:45 When confronted with the facts: “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect.”
8:46 These are a couple of great infographs if you are interested in talking about taxes.
8:50 I hope all this talk about “the Chinese” leads into some decent analysis from Huntsman (former US ambassador to China… also speaks Mandarin, which is pretty cool).
8:51 Romney says we WON’T have a trade war because China relies on exports to the US, I hope he’s right, the Senate is moving on this as we speak.
8:55 Rick Santorum wants to go to war with China? I’m assuming that’s hyperbole…
8:56 Biggest problem with the 9-9-9 plan (other than its incoherence as policy…) is that Cain keeps repeating the name without repeating a message that people can get behind.
8:58 Kudos to Mitt for admitting that the status quo before healthcare reform wasn’t acceptable.
8:58 The Obamacare argument was interesting, though it was a little disappointing that the entire argument was just a fight over who could be more repealy. In related news, this debate is far too hectic for anyone to make any sense of it.
9:01 As of right now, I think Perry has lost the debate. He has been too quiet too long and is not a present factor. This was the debate that he was suppose to be prepared for and it is not showing.
9:00 The debate so far: Perry seems to have little idea what the heck he’s saying, everyone else is saying a lot of words without any substance, Mitt looks confident, and this format is very odd. If you’re an “average American New Hampshire voter,” is the TV even on anymore?
9:06 Bachmann going to Perry’s long-dead past as a Democrat to link him to Obama policies – it’s been literally three decades since then, it seems like there are quite a few other rocks from Perry’s past (get it?) for her to throw…
9:07 Cain calling out Romney’s comprehensive plan as not being “simple,” but Romney says that just taxes or just energy are insufficient to solve the problem.
9:09 Cain’s question about Mitt’s plan is interesting… he, for one, does not seem to be selling any pizzas.
9:10 Newt isn’t making any fans by combatting tax cuts for the middle class. At this point, he’s trying to be a king-maker.
9:10 Gingrich is going after capital gains taxes in Romney’s plan – this is rather an interesting idea, though I think Gingrich spent too much time blaming Obama and not enough explaining to average Americans what the heck a “capital gains tax” is.
9:12 The use of new media came up through the twitter feed. Mitt Romney’s campaign has bought the #econdebate twitter feed with the tweet “Thrilled to announce the support of @GovChristie today in NH – a national leader in the fight to reform government and cut spending.” appearing at the top of all #econdebate tweets.
9:13 Huntsman is attacking Mitt’s story. He’s looking to take down the top because he thinks he still has a chance. New Hampshire is his background.
9:15 Romney responds to Huntsman’s characterization of his business career as “job-destroying” by pointing out the businesses Bain helped found. Streamlining inefficient businesses while creating new ones. That’s the mindset America needs.
9:16 Romney name-drops Christie while supporting his decision to enact Romney-Care. I’m glad he’s standing by his decision, the 10th Amendment argument is perfect.
9:17 Great to see someone pressing Romney on how Romney originally presented MassCare, though it’s a little questionable if this particular argument is ever going to go anywhere. They’re already said all they’re going to say about this.
9:20 Michelle Bachman has had some great prep for this debate, but Romney is still winning, with Cain not far behind.
9:20 Yes, Bachmann, we know you’re a small business owner, but it offers “Pray-The-Gay-Away” services, how legitimate could it be?
9:21 Bachmann may not be punching herself out a la Rick Perry, but the ever-present “I opposed Obama” narrative needs a little more meat on it at this point in the race.
9:24 With one segment to go, Romney has neither gained nor lost in any objective sense, but he’s doing very well relative to the rest of the field by just avoiding looking like a fool.
9:28 Perry’s emphasis on energy policy is interesting – that’s also a mainstay of Huntsman’s argument on the campaign trail, but I don’t know how many points it wins him in a jobs debate.
9:29 Perry emphasizing the “50 laboratories of democracy” idea of Federalism. I love Federalism…
9:29 If Perry’s poor performance tonight drags his poll numbers even further down, can we expect this and the Christie endorsement to start clinching a Romney victory, or could this be an opportunity for Huntsman to edge into the “not-Romney” spot in the race?
9:31 Herman Cain went through a whole response without mentioning 9-9-9! Now, to get attacked by Ron Paul.
9:34 Looking at winners from this debate I think it is obviously Romney. He has kept his lead again and made no major mistakes. Ron Paul is also looking pretty strong and Herman Cain wins on simplicity but not depth. Bachmann has faded out and Perry just did not preform well enough to exceed expectations.
9:32 Paul is sticking to his guns, both Bernanke AND Greenspan are failures in his opinion. He REALLY hates the fed, though he’s happy Greenspan is coming back to the gold standard.
9:34 Romney’s argument that deregulating banks will help small-business owners is intriguing in all the wrong ways. Predatory lending was a massively contributing factor to the economic crisis.
9:35 Michelle Bachmann was going to find a way to tie the ATM fee back to Dodd-Frank.
9:36 Cain only IMPLIED 9-9-9 was the plan that removed capital gains taxes. He’s getting better at not saying it constantly. Not MUCH better, but still.
9:38 Perry talking up his jobs record – I find it a bit odd that he didn’t wield that one as strongly in the jobs debate as he did in his previous two appearances.
9:41 Again, Newt Gingrich is always one of the smartest guys in the room, but he just doesn’t have a chance.
9:43 Just got the first Occupy Wall Street mention from Herman Cain. As much traction as the issue’s gained lately, it’s not really surprising that the Republican contenders aren’t talking a lot about it: the #Occupy protestors just aren’t their target voting group.
9:45 There has been a lot of talk about China in this debate. It is worth noting this poll commissioned by Generation Opportunity that found of young people 18-29 “76% view China as a danger: 48% as an economic threat and 28% as both an economic and military threat.”
9:45 Santorum just tried to tie gay marriage to economic collapse and poverty. Or am I reading too much into it?
9:45 Santorum finally found a way to work in family values into an economic discussion. Family breakdown is unhelpful, but gay families are families too.
9:46 Annnnd Santorum finally sneaks in “the American family.” Did the gays cause the economic crisis…?
9:49 I do love the phrase “the cause of liberty.” Excuse me while I go frolic with the bald eagles…
9:52 Final thoughts, team?
9:53 It’s been fun guys. I feel much more secure about the future of our country now.