Live Thread: Republican Presidential Debate in Jacksonville, FL on CNN 8 P.M. EST

Thursday, January 26, 2012 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

Hosted by Wolf Blitzer at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. Candidates: Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

Word is the audience will be "allowed" to participate.

Livestream here.

[jwalsh07]

Oh, you listen to them? God bless ya for He knows how tough a job that is! :-)

[rodguy911]

Romney may have a shot at buying the election.If he can saturate the air waves in every state with lies like he did here in Floriduh it could happen.The country has an ignorant voter base,we maybe doomed.

[bray]

Mitt got his lunch handed to him by Rick on the Romneycare. If the voters are supposed to ignore that then they really are blind.
It’s CNN.

[RitaOK]

I just don’t how we (Newt) get to “focus on Obama”, if we fail to take on Romney first, which in so doing would hand Romney the victory. Nobody beats Romney without a punch, because his opposition research operation swamps the rest. After all, Newt is enduring a full frontal assault right now and must be seen standing ground and fighting back.

[MissMagnolia]

I would agree with you on that.

[katiedidit1]

Very well said. Rush and Coulter..no children involved. We all know the mess this country is in and what our children and grandchildren will face. The greatest generation left behind a great country full of opportunity. What happened? I like Newt because he has a genuine concern for the children of America. He spoke in the past of teens going to work...the work ethic; English as our official language. He is the anti gop establishment candidate and our hope to revive this nation. God help us if Romney wins.

[writer33]

No, I finally told my wife to turn the channel to FOX so we had a chance to get something more accurate on analysis.

[ponygirl]

Something called “Temple Garments,” I think.

[superfries]

His excuse for supporting Specter over Toomey was Specter agreeing to back the justices being brought to the supreem court.......not that that is a good excuse. Specter was ranking minority member....I think....someone correct me on this.....????

[sandshark222]

Why is the GOP establishment so afraid of nominating conservatives? The dems aren’t afraid to nominate flaming liberals.

[montag813]

Anyone with any sense of reality knows Mitt didn’t win that debate.

Mittens' "11 million grandmothers" quip absolutely shredded Newt - who asked for it with his colossally stupid, pandering appearance with Jorge Ramos on Univision. Newt's immigration stances are preposterous, and are slowly undermining him. Once his Florida panderfest is over, he had better change his tune, and fast.

[nathanbedford]

The conventional wisdom expressed by the post debate pundits on both CNN and on Fox have it right: Newt did not win the debate, he was hurt tonight. Romney's cause was advanced.

Although Santorum performed remarkably well, any advance by Santorum in the vote count comes out of Gingrich's score. Therefore, a good debate by Santorum such as we saw tonight hurts Gingrich.

Romney did very well on theatrics and that is of vital importance in this context. Gingrich's argument is that he can out debate Obama and that means that he must be able to out debate both Santorum and Romney. A tie is a loss.

Finally, Gingrich went into the debate tonight requiring a turnaround performance and he did not deliver. He will lose momentum in Florida.

Full disclosure I am one of the earliest supporters of Gingrich on these threads. My observations are just that, reporting what I saw, not what I wish to have seen.

[AnnGora]

Newt should have stated it exactly as you just did. Instead, he said “I’m doing it for my children.” Again, lame. Sounds automatic and pandering. Billy Jeff Clinton on a typical, lip biting day.

[NKP_Vet]

Santorum is a flat-out liar when he says Newt has been for an individual mandate for 20 years. Newt has talked about many things to help fix health care. Santorum makes it sound like Newt and Willard are on the same level with socialized
medicine. Santorum will say and do anything to make himself look good. In that regard he would make a good running mate for the lying sneaky SOB Romney, whose the phoniest, fakest SOB this side of the moon. Just another filthy rich liberal trying to buy the nomination. Does the names John McCain come to mind. Guess what. He lost.

[Red_Devil 232]

"YOu could have slept though the entire debate and not missed much...."

Exactly what I did! Trying to catch up now. Sounds like Mith may have had a good night - I hope not!

[Just mythoughts]

the line “for the children” has become a joke. Surely you know that by now. Get real. It’s pandering.

You have a hearing problem. He said it was about his grandchildren. I guess it is possible in some warped world to pander to ones own grandchildren.

[topfile]

Newt showed a pair on the palestinian question.

Notice how Wolf presented the question to Romney..."Lets ask Gov. Romney first of all what would you say to Abraham?" Afterwards Wolf then follows with "Thank you Governor"

Newt's Turn...Wolf prefaces the question "Speaker Gingrich you got into a little hot water when you said the Palestinians were an invented people" Newt nails the answer and Wolf interrupts the audience applause with..."Lets go to Miami"

Fair???? This crap was going on all night!

[Southnsoul]

How was Romney the clear winner? Santorum cleaned his clock tonight. By the way, even those on CNN said afterward there was no clear winner.

[BagCamAddict]

Remember Romney got his ass handed to him in a couple debates, and he was considering not doing any more debates, and he was slow to confirm he was doing the Florida debates.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if he only agreed to do these debates after he got the audience taken out of the first debate, and after he (or his Super PAC) BOUGHT 2200 seats in the 3000-seat auditorium for this debate.

He may not be ethical, but he knows how to spend money to stack the deck in his favor.

[CrosscutSaw]

Santorum and Paul did well tonight.