We're at 3 out of 4 now. The other witness to the alleged Brewer/Obama 'confrontation' says that the whole thing wasn't tense at all.
I keep hearing anchors at MSNBC and CNN repeating her story, even though both witnesses now say on the record that her story is bunk. What's up with that? Chuck? Wolf?
With few establishment endorsements, Newt Gingrich has just gotten the nod from incarcerated former Rep. Duke Cunningham who tells Newt he'd have the felon vote locked down.
Ron Paul knew about and signed off on the racist newsletters, says former Secretary who still supports him.
I found last night's debate so messy and scattered that I had a hard time knowing quite what to make of it. But here's my take. As a debate, I thought it was terrible. Very disorganized. The moderation was close to not there at all. Perhaps it was that we've been through this routine so many times there wasn't much more to say or to ask. I don't know. One of the funnier moments for me was when Newt apparently got tired of waiting for a host to say something that outraged him and just attacked the host anyway, to pretty poor effect.
Read More →Things you probably shouldn't do when accused of a race motivated attempted bombing:
Correspond with a noted white supremacist leader from prison.
The Jacksonville Republican debate boiled down into 100 uproarious seconds.
TPM's "Not-So-Veiled-Insult-Of-The-Night Award" goes to Fred Thompson for his remarks about Bob Dole.
Romney says he never saw the Romney ad he said he approved.
9:13 PM: It's not worth getting angry about? What did that even mean?
9:13 PM: Dead to rights. It's amazing that it took 19 debates but Santorum finally got Romney dead to rights on his plan being more or less identical to Obama's.
A lot of these debates have been pretty bad. But this strikes me as the most disjointed debate I think I've ever seen. The moderation is poor. The candidates seem to be the campaign equivalent of punch drunk. What do you think?
8:53 PM: I think this debate is a bigger mess than any of the previous ones.
8:56 PM: Newt started off strong but this extended digression on space and moon states. Just not happening.
8:59 PM: When I was a little kid I used to watch those great Ali fights when you had these two heavyweights exhausted in the late rounds. Got sloppy. Messy. About like this debate.
9:01 PM: Newt started pretty strong. And then Mitt got in that pretty embarrassing spot where he said he hadn't seen one of his own ads and denied it even being his ad. A classic Mitt moment. But since then Newt's just been all over the place and he's given Mitt all sorts of opportunities to come in and be the grown up. Not good for Newt.
9:04 PM: Mitt: I'd fire anyone who bought me a moon base.
Every last nugget of debate information at TPMLiveWire.
I pay a 40% combo tax and charity rate.
There's a lot of evidence that Romney's 'blind trust' isn't that blind.
Here's the last time Mitt Romney denied having seen an ad at the center of the campaign debate. That time it was from a Super Pac working on his behalf.
8:11 PM: When's the fighting start?
8:17 PM: Really good answer there.
8:18 PM: Mittdignation!
8:19 PM: Is Newt actually managing to use logic and understatement this time? That's total newtjitsu.
8:22 PM: Okay, this may be a problem for Mitt. He just said he hadn't seen this ad about Gingrich allegedly attacking the Spanish language and doubted it was his. (Here's the ad.) Well, it's his ad and actually have the 'I approve this message' tag at the end.
Three big dynamics are likely to drive the Florida primary race between now and next the election next Tuesday.
The biggest and most interesting is the growing effort by what we think of as the GOP establishment to knock Newt down hard enough in Florida that he can't get up off the canvas. Bob Dole's seering attack on Newt today and Larry Kudlow's very aggressive interview with Newt tonight on CNBC are the latest examples of the Stop Newt movement. The second dynamic is the $5 million of pro-Newt money from the Adelsons. Does it go toward a ferocious last-minute attack on Mitt? Signs point to yes. The final driving force is tonight's debate, in a primary season where the debates -- nearly 20 of them now -- have had sometimes outsize influence.
The debate starts at 8 p.m. ET. You can follow the debate here in the Editors Blog and on TPM Livewire.
A local GOP official who witnessed the exchange between Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama on the tarmac yesterday gives TPM his different account of the "awkward moment."
Regarding Bob Dole's broadside against Newt Gingrich, the Gingrich camp's top spox tells TPM at an event in Florida just now: "It's got to be on the top 10 list of the weirdest things he's ever written."
There's one big fact about the Obama presidency: the US economy has sucked all through it. Who you blame for that is the key to the American political debate. But the reality of the suck is the baseline. The President's approval on the economy has trended down over the course of the last three years.
Read More →Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Senior Associate Editor
Associate Editor
Assistant Editor
Reporters
News Writers
Video Editor
Research Interns
Christopher Hohmuth
Tom Kludt
Publishing Intern
Christopher O’Driscoll
General Manager & General Counsel
VP, Ad Sales
Manager, Ad Operations and Sales Support
Deputy Publisher
Director of Technology
Designer/Developer
Matthew Wozniak
