(Live Thread) Republican Presidential Debate #8 Oct. 18, 2011 Nevada 8 P.M. EDT CNN

Bachmann is serving her 3rd full term in the U.S. House. Founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, worked as a tax attorney, and was a foster mother for 23 teenagers. She is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Cain is the former chief executive of Godfather's Pizza and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He lost the Georgia Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 2004. He was recently the host of Atlanta-based radio show.

Gingrich served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He represented Georgia's 6th congressional district as a Republican member from 1979 to 1999. He has a PhD in modern European history.

Paul is serving his 11th full term in the U.S. House. He’s an ob-gyn and was Libertarian nominee for president in 1988. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president in 2008

Perry is the three term governor of Texas, from 2000 to current. He is a retired Air Force captain for former farmer. He has a degree in animal science.

Romney was governor of Massachusetts (2003 to 2007) and former CEO of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican 2008 nomination for president. He has an MBA (Harvard) and JD (Harvard Law).

Santorum served two terms in the U.S. House and two terms in the U.S. Senate. He became the Senate's third-ranking Republican in 2001. He was defeated for reelection in 2006.

The questions will be more telling than the answers.

That's why I say that the debate format and commentators are themselves another battle front.

Why should conservatives hand over their microphone and message to the leftists in the MSM who ask a bunch of stupid questions and not only make themselves look stupid, but more importantly silence the message of the conservative candidates who have the answers for America and instead make them also look stupid and marginalized?

I think the conservative candidates with their head screwed on straight should band together and demand ground rules that include conservative moderators and questions that go the heart of the issues that threaten our country's future. They should also widely publicize these demands to the American people and figure out their own live video debate if they can't get cooperation.

I wonder if they will ask Paul about his recent budget proposal:

Ron Paul puts out ‘Plan to Restore America’

The proposal, which Paul unveiled in Las Vegas on Monday in advance of Tuesday’s Republican debate, is dramatic by any measure and goes well beyond what other Republican candidates are proposing.

It cuts $1 trillion in spending in one year, largely by ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, eliminates all foreign aid, and slashes five cabinet departments — Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Interior and Education.

The Texas congressman would also get rid of the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of the Homeland Security Department and was created after the 9/11 attacks, “returning responsibility for security to private property owners.” Spending in most other departments would be frozen.

The other proposals in Paul’s plan are more similar to current conservative thinking, including reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, eliminating the estate tax and extending all the Bush tax cuts.

Paul would repeal President Obama’s health-care reform law, the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform overhaul, and the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act, which increased corporate accounting oversight in the wake of the Enron scandal. He would make Social Security voluntary, turning welfare programs into block grants.

He would also end corporate subsidies — one of the few parts of this plan “Occupy Wall Street” types might like. Paul’s perennial concerns crop up — he would like to audit the Federal Reserve as well as enact “competing currency legislation,” which legalizes alternatives to the dollar including gold.

In a mostly symbolic populist gesture, Paul would give himself a salary of $39,336, “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.” He would also cut congressional pay.

If these measures are implemented, Paul predicts a budget surplus by 2016.

It has to be said that Paul’s budget is mostly a wish-list. In the last Washington Post-ABC News poll, Paul came in at 11 percent, in fourth place. However, as we’ve written, there’s a ceiling on Paul’s intense support.

And, if did increase his support in the GOP primary, he would likely have to water down portions of the above platform in order to make himself more palatable to general election voters.

“Ron Paul is something of a spiritual leader in the GOP today. If he says we should eliminate five departments, that will strike a lot of Party faithful as appealing at a commonsense level,” said Republican strategist Ed Rogers. “The mainstream is less interested in confusing details than ever.”

If he did win the presidency, Paul has given little indication of how he would implement his unconventional ideas, saying only that he would use “the bully pulpit of the presidency, the power of the Veto, and, most importantly, the united voice of freedom-loving Americans” to enact his dramatic.

While the plan is fairly detailed on cuts, Paul does not explain how government functions eliminated under his plan would be handled by states or the private sector.

But small-government advocates argue that the proposals could advance and expand on the economic discussion already underway in the 2012 presidential race in a positive way.

“You have a lot of Republicans who talk about cutting spending in a general sense, but when they get pressed to name specifics they’re not very forthcoming,” said Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst at the libertarian CATO Institute. ”I’m hoping that at the very least this forces the other candidates to start to get more specific about what they would cut as well.”

BTW...breaking on FoxNews right now are allegations that Barack Obama's campaign committed fraud in the 2008 Indiana primary, many of the voter signatures (to get Obama on the ballot) were forged and when the forgeries are removed, Obama would not have had enough signatures to get on the ballot. Apparently other states are being investigated as well and ACORN is in it up to their ears.

I think people suggested this back then. How nice that they are finally getting around to investigation. Sign he won't run again?? They need to pass a birth certificate requirement?

Nice version of the National Anthem. Nice to see the candidates held the proper hand over their hearts. Unlike these two.

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