In case you missed last night's Republican primary debate—or worse, missed Jed Lewison's liveblogging of the event—here are some of his real-time reactions to the clown show in South Carolina.
- Rick Santorum claims credit for his Iowa victory. Mitt says how great it is to be here with his wife. And mentions how long he's been married to her. Translation: he's not a dirtbag like Newt. Seemed smarmy to me. Newt and Paul seemed more at ease and lest practiced than either Santorum or Mitt.
- You know what question John King should have asked the guys on the stage? "Given that you think gay marriage should be illegal because it undermines straight marriage, should individuals who are unfaithful within the context of straight marriage be allowed to stay married?"
- Now Bain: Newt continues to say that in some instances, Bain's model undermined companies he invested in. Romney responds by saying he'd rather talk about the economy in general, and then he keeps on saying "Obama ... crony capitalism ... Solyndra ... labor stooges... crony capitalism ... bow to the most extreme members of environmental movement."
- John King is giving Mitt another opportunity to dodge talking about Bain.
- Romney tries to defend his 100K+ jobs claim. He cites 120K jobs at four companies, and then says only 10K jobs have been documented lost by his political enemies. Of course, Romney hasn't revealed the documentation for all of Bain's investments. So this settles nothing.
- Haha, Dave Weigel on Newt's ferocious pushback on the attacks on his adultery:
This reminds me of the time Gingrich BLEW UP at the media for covering the Lewinsky scandal.
- The Father of Obamacare is talking about how proud he is to be the Father of Obamacare, and how his experience as the Father of Obamacare will give him the stature a president needs to repeal it.
- Rick Santorum really needs to stop saying "bottom up."
- Now it's Ron Paul's turn to talk health care reform. Can we get a crowd cheer for letting uninsured people die, please?
- John King asks Mitt Romney he's running an ad calling Newt Gingrich an "unreliable leader." Mitt Romney says he doesn't want to answer that question and at least so far, doesn't. Instead he mutters about not wanting politicians in DC.
- When Ron Paul gets wound up, my interest in this debate sags, and massively.
- And when Rick Santorum and Ron Paul get into a back and forth it gets even snoozier.
- We're now at that phase of the debate where the Republicans are getting together to talk about how much they want to reduce the number of brown people coming to the country. But Newt says he doesn't want to deport people who have been here for 25 years and have been otherwise law abiding.
- Mitt Romney says handling immigration is easy. Build a fence, give immigrants cards and make employers check those cards. Uh, dude, then everybody would need those cards, unless you have some magic way of figuring out who is an immigrant and who isn't.
- Rick Santorum says he's a the grandson of immigrants, and that we don't need any more of them.
- To claim he is really deeply committed to being antichoice, Mitt Romney is giving the least convincing answer I have ever seen him give on any topic. He's muttering about how "now is not the time to be questioning integrity."
- Ron Paul mutters about "drugs and pornography" causing abortion, even before it was legal.
- Santorum and Paul are fighting again over who gets to be less irrelevant than the other. Combined, I bet they don't get as much as whoever finishes second.
- Newt says Obama is the "most dangerous" president he has every seen. "Truly frightening," he says. White conservative men across South Carolina are getting that sturburst feeling right about now.
- Romney's closing argument was more Romneybot nonsense. And now Santorum is offering his closing argument. My closing argument to Santorum: Dude, what the hell are you doing still in this race? Get out now while the getting is good! And also too, if you stay in, don't use the royal "we" and "I" interchangeably. Choose one and stick with it.
- The debate is over. Not much to analyze: Newt killed the field. Big win for him.
And there you have it ... the entire freak show wrapped up in a couple of minutes of easy reading.