CPAC 2012: defective internet, defective hippies, but the straw poll finally made sense

Sigh. So...I'm here at the last day of CPAC, and the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel has been a great location again, except for one very glaring issue: slow and unreliable internet connection.

#CNNdebate: River City Rumble!

Press filing room at the UNF student union.

Welcome to the #RiverCityRumble! (Credit for that hashtag goes to @AbelHarding, I believe.)

I'm here in the press filing room at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, getting ready to watch the latest Republican mud wrestling match debate, which will air on CNN starting at 8 pm.

You can follow my commentary at my twitter feed (@rumpfshaker) and I was also invited to live blog the debate for Sulia.com. Follow along at this address:

http://www.sulia.com/channel/gop-primaries-2012/

If you want just my feed, click here.

Florida: "All your primary are belong to us"

Now the REAL battle begins.

Here's the score so far...

Mitt Romney (Oops, just kidding!) Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses,

Romney won the New Hampshire primary, and...

Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina last night. (Final tally: Gingrich 41%, Romney 27%, Santorum 17%, Paul 13%.)

Some tweets from last night's results that I found interesting:

Some thoughts on last night's television

Lots of excitement on TV last night: Leonard and Penny might be getting back together, a great series of completely-immature-yet-still-hilarious double entendres from Sheldon, and a funny gag involving a life-size cardboard cutout of Zachary Quinto.

Oh, what's that? You came to Sunshine State Sarah for something other than a recap of Big Bang Theory's 100th episode? Heh. OK, fine. There was also some political stuff on last night too. Here's my thoughts...

Ron Paul Bumper Stickers!

Heh. These are great, from the blog Woody's Place:

Why I don't give a flying you-know-what about Ron Paul's economic ideas

Liberty! Constitution! I win the debate!

For the past year, every time anyone criticizes Ron Paul's ridiculous foreign policy, his minions supporters leap to his defense, demanding that you admit how obviously brilliant his domestic economic policies are.

My response to this has always been that a great economic policy won't help much if we embrace a suicidal foreign policy. Arguing that the United States should exercise prudence before intervening in the affairs of other nations is one thing, saying that it's "understandable" that Iran wants a nuclear weapon and blaming America 9/11 is something else altogether.

I'm now beyond the point of just disliking Paul's foreign policy. The ugly bigotry that this man has openly encouraged among his supporters is absolutely inexcusable, and he deserves nothing but scorn from respectable conservatives.

Dear GOP Candidates, Come Get Me

As I noted last week, I've been officially "undecided" about who I'm supporting in the Republican presidential primary for a few weeks. 

Follow up from Saturday's GOP debate

Ah. Finally. Someone put the entire debate on YouTube. I was having the worst time getting the original video to embed properly and it was slowing down this site's load time. The perils of amateur web design...sigh...

Anyway, read my post from yesterday, and then I really recommend that you watch the debate when you get a chance. FYI there's some introductory remarks from the debate organizers and Frank Luntz, and the actual debate starts at about the 35 minute mark:

YouTube | PikaFilms | Thanksgiving Family Forum -- Complete Video

The GOP debate you probably didn't watch, but should have

Last night, CitizenLink, a Focus on the Family affiliate, sponsored a debate in Iowa last night between the Republican presidential candidates, focusing on social issues. But you probably didn't see it, because it was online only, in a livestream that was scheduled up against a lot of college football games. That's really a shame, because it was definitely worth watching.

(At the end of this post, I've included a link to the video of the entire debate, so you can watch it, and I strongly encourage you to do so.)

I can't stop laughing at this Ron Paul Bad Lip Reading video

The folks at BadLipReading.com have been making videos with the Republican presidential candidates' ads, replacing the original words with an  intensely funny dose of awesomesauce. Here's their latest, featuring Ron Paul:

'RON PAUL' €” A Bad Lip Reading SoundBite - watch more funny videos

Gotta love the fact that the video starts with "A lot of people say, I kinda wish you were less coo-coo." Heh.

This post is dedicated to all the leprechaun farmers who are gamblers and love dishwashers. 

(Just watch the video, it will make sense...well, sort of.)

Everyone has a 9-9-9 Plan!

Herman Cain isn't the only one with a 9-9-9 Plan:

[Hat tip: Crooks and Liars blog]

See the original 9-9-9 Plan here!

The Las Vegas Debate aka Conservative Slap Fight

Well, that was entertaining.

The Republican presidential candidates met in Las Vegas last night for the latest debate. As appropriate for the location, it was a wild evening with some of the nastiest fights ever between the candidates yet and even an appearance by Wayne Newton.

I've got the Twitter trending topics (from right after the debate ended) for you, and then some random little thoughts about the debate itself:

Last Night's Debate at the Reagan Library

Here we go again. The Republican presidential candidates squared off last night at the Reagan Library, so once again, I did an analysis of the trending topics on Twitter immediately after the debate ended. (Don't miss my previous posts on the New Hampshire debate and Ames debate.)

The only debate-related topic that was trending nationwide was "Did Ron Paul." Yes, you read that correctly. Unfortunately for Paul, the vast majority of the tweets for that topic were along the lines of "Did Ron Paul really just say that crazy thing?" Many of these tweets centered on Paul's comments that a border fence could also be used to keep Americans in, and that we should save money by taking away the air conditioning units from our troops in Afghanistan. Huh?

Twitter Analysis of the Ames Debate

During the last GOP Presidential debate in June, I did an analysis of the trending topics on Twitter immediately afterwards and got a lot of positive responses.

So, back by popular demand, here's another city-by-city analysis of what everyone was tweeting about the debate in Ames, Iowa tonight. One thing is immediately clear: there were a lot fewer debate-related trending topics than when I did this analysis in June. Not sure if there were less overall tweets, or if an election that's still more than a year away was overshadowed by the controversy about whether Bert and Ernie should get married (Yes, "Bert and Ernie" is a trending topic in many cities tonight, and yes this is a real issue. I wish I were kidding.) but the Ames debate was definitely less of a presence on the trending topics lists tonight.

Anyway, here's your trending topics (if a city is not listed, then it did not have any debate-related trending topics):

Overall United States: T-Paw

Atlanta: Ron Paul

Austin: #GOPdebate
Boston: Mitt Romney
Chicago: Ron Paul
Dallas-Ft. Worth: Ron Paul   Rick Perry
Denver: Ron Paul
Houston: Rick Perry   Ron Paul
Los Angeles: Rick Santorum   Mitt Romney
Minneapolis: Ron Paul
Nashville: Ron Paul
New York: #GOPdebate   Mitt Romney   Santorum
Orlando: Rick Perry
Phoenix: Rick Perry
San Antonio: Rick Perry
San Francisco: Mitt Romney
Seattle: Mitt Romney
Tampa: Rick Perry
Washington: #gopdebate   Rick Santorum   T-Paw   Jon Huntsman

The important thing to remember is that the presence of a name on the trending topics list does not necessarily equal support. All it means is that people were talking about that candidate. In the case of Ron Paul, the overwhelming number of responses I saw were extremely negative. Paul's rabid fans don't like to admit it, but his foreign policy is just way, way out of the Republican mainstream and he has no chance of winning the primary.

Someone Tell Ron Paul that Iran is a threat because their leaders are even Crazier than he is #amesdebate #GOPdebate #iowadebateFri Aug 12 02:23:15 via TweetDeckJeff Dunetz
yidwithlid

 

Ron Paul would be great for the economy, but unfortunately, we'd be blown up by a nuclear Iran before we got to enjoy it. #amesdebateFri Aug 12 02:16:35 via TweetDeckPrudence Paine
PruPaine

The presence of Rick Perry on so many cities' lists is very interesting, considering that he was not even in Iowa tonight and has not officially declared his candidacy yet (although rumors say he will do so on Saturday at the RedState Gathering in Charleston, SC). Perry was definitely the "elephant" in the room. (Ha ha...get it? Elephant, like the Republican mascot? Sometimes I just crack myself up.) Michele Bachmann had a great answer to Bret Baier's question about Perry, saying there was room for Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and even Bret himself if he wanted to get in...but the reality is that many of the candidates on the stage tonight know that if when Perry enters the race, their chances of victory will drop significantly.

In other news. Rick Perry is looking great. #amesdebateFri Aug 12 02:39:33 via Twitter for iPhoneAndrew Staroska
OHCONSERVATISM

I'll post some more thoughts about the debate later if I get a chance, but wanted to get this posted. What did you think about the debate? Were you following on Twitter? Who do you think won the debate? Leave a note in the comments!

A few thoughts on last night's GOP presidential debate

Last night's GOP presidential debate took place in New Hampshire and was moderated by CNN's John King. Here's some of my thoughts on how it went: