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5:22 PM PT: I still can't get over Rick Perry referring to Herman Cain as "brother," twice. And now all the candidates are just beating up on Cain's 9-9-9 plan. Romney scores the best points, I think. He actually backed up Perry's criticism of Cain's plan, but Romney is showing that he probably has the most verbal dexterity of any of the candidates on the stage. On the other hand, he still made a huge mistake today when he endorsed accelerating foreclosures.
5:23 PM PT: Gag me. Gingrich is talking about how Herman Cain deserves a ton of credit for raising the 9-9-9 plan, but proceeds to basically calling him an idiot. I'll bet Cain hasn't been patronized this much in quite some time.
5:24 PM PT: Wait, Bachmann is now going on about how everybody in the country needs to pay taxes, as if not everybody does already. This is the same Bachmann who told a questioner at a previous debate that he deserved to keep every single dollar of his income without any taxes.
5:27 PM PT: Rick Perry says we've got enough fuel buried beneath us to power the economy for 300 years. He says digging it up will create 1.2 million jobs. Hate to break it to Rick, but if you were anywhere near right it would create a hell of a lot more than 1.2 million jobs. Nonetheless, huge applause for Perry, and Romney, who gets the next question, doesn't disagree, and somehow ends up talking about repealing Obamacare. Because Obama sucks to conservatives, and he Mitt Romney wants their votes.
5:31 PM PT: Rick Santorum punches Romneycare, bringing up for the first time in a debate the fact that Romney's advisers helped the White House draft health care reform. Romney says he has consistently opposed taking his plan national, and both Santorum and Perry accuse him of lying, a charge that Romney rejects, and a shoutfest breaks out. Romney finally reclaims the floor, and basically wears Santorum down through sheer diarrhea of the mouth.
5:34 PM PT: Michele Bachmann keeps on yelling for Anderson's attention as Romney and Gingrich fight over which one of them is lying about who got the individual mandate idea from whom.