Live Tweet or Die #2: The Most Important AND Bloodiest Debate Ever!

CK MacLeod

WordPresser: Writing since ancient times, blogging, e-commercing, and site installing-designing-maintaining since 2001.

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35 Responses

  1. Elizabeth Picciuto says:

    I am in!Report

  2. Warriors 73, Thunder 59 at the half.Report

  3. Michelle says:

    I didn’t realize there was a Republican debate tonight until I checked my Facebook feed. Apparently, I missed the Christie-Rubio feud but got to hear various candidates lie about Hikkary’s position on abortion. No, she doesn’t support a woman’s right to abort her baby one day before its due date. I think it was Rubio who said that. He’s not as bad as Cruz but he’s really started to get under my skin the last couple of debates.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Michelle says:

      Doesn’t she?

      DICKERSON: This week, the Senate is going to vote to impose a federal ban on late-term abortions. Do you support a federal limit on abortion at any stage of pregnancy?

      CLINTON: This is one of those really painful questions that people raise. And, obviously, it’s really emotional.

      I think that the kind of late-term abortions that take place are because of medical necessity. And, therefore, I would hate to see the government interfering with that decision. I think that, again, this gets back to whether you respect a woman’s right to choose or not. And I think that is what this whole argument once again is about.

      The question wasn’t specifically about one day before the due date, but when asked if she supported a federal ban on abortions “at any stage of pregnancy,” she said no.Report

      • Explain how it could be medically necessary to perform an abortion one day before the due dateReport

        • Morat20 in reply to Mike Schilling says:

          Generally it’s not. They’ll just deliver a dead or dying fetus because it’s less physically dangerous than a C-section or partial birth abortion.

          I suspect if you dig far enough, you’ll probably find some cases close wherein you had a dead or dying fetus, a mother going septic, something like that.

          Bluntly speaking, pregnant women who keep the baby past the first trimester are generally women WANTING a baby. Which means abortions after that are almost exclusively tragedies.Report

        • Brandon Berg in reply to Mike Schilling says:

          I don’t know. Ask Hillary Clinton. I think that’s just the framing she uses to avoid alienating moderates. She doesn’t say “I support a ban on abortions in the final N weeks of pregnancy, with an exemption for medical necessity.” She says “Medical necessity…anyway, this is about a woman’s right to choose.”

          I’m not saying I disagree. I’m just wondering where Michelle gets the idea that she supports a ban on very-late-term abortion, with or without medical exemptions.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Brandon Berg says:

            Maybe the reason Hilary doesn’t support a ban on abortions “past n week” is because it would be a case of government intruding into an area where the individual choices of women and physicians is already working just splendidly.

            Just splendidly is the phrase here. Is there a problem with women having abortions of perfectly healthy fetuses in the 8th month for no good reason?

            Is this happening, anywhere?

            Or are we going to start passing federal laws to ban things that aren’t happening, but could somehow?

            This pressure to ban late term abortion is like the Terri Schiavo case- it completely shreds the noble rhetoric of the conservative movement about individual choice and limited government.

            There is no problem with late term abortions that needs outside intervention. The idea that women are strolling into abortion clinics in their 8th month and frivolously terminating their pregnancies is a complete and utter lie, a fantasy.

            Yet it is the cause celebre of the conservative movement, one that has their almost laser like focus to the exclusion of everything else.

            The only reasonable explanation is that conservatives are not angered so much by the fact that it is happening, but that women have the freedom to choose.Report

          • It’s also an attempt to conform her policy to the structure of Roe v. Wade, which slides state interest against individual interest by using trimesters. Arbitrary but objectively definable periods of time, which are (hoped to be) mostly right in most situations. Because that’s the best you can do anyway, legislatively.Report

  4. Christie likened Rubio to Obama for being a first-term senator. Unfortunately for Rubio, as a Republican he couldn’t snap back about the track record of recent presidents who were in their second term as governor.Report

  5. Autolukos says:

    So, I spent the day watching the Star Wars prequels. Better or worse use of time?Report

    • Richard Hershberger in reply to Autolukos says:

      It depends: watching for the first time, or rewatching? If for the first time, this is a defensible decision on the basis of knowing what it is that everyone is bitching about. If rewatching, then this is a perverse exercise in masochism. On the other hand, watching a Republican debate is, too, so it is a hard call. Didn’t you have any shoes that needed rearranging or something?Report

  6. Damon says:

    I heard bernie and HRC got into it a bit last time around. Otherwise…yawn.Report

  7. Jaybird says:

    The Twitter Hot Take du moment is something to the effect of “Boy, isn’t Rubio lucky that he messed up that badly right before Superbowl Sunday?”

    Which seems to me to indicate that Trump met expectations, Cruz didn’t exceed them, and Jeb is still in the race for some reason.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

      Yeah, Rubio took a beating and was exposed – so The Story goes – for reciting memorized lines and therefore!! being an empty suit. On the other hand, his advisers have decided he should very self-consciously campaign against Hillary and Obama’s legacy as a tactic to win the primary. Which strikes me as good if sometimes clumsily delivered politics. I see this hiccup hurting him right up until pregame festivities start.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Stillwater says:

        The take that did not strike me as particularly hot was that if Rubio can’t handle the pressure of a single-digits guy right before New Hampshire, he will never EEEEEEEVER be able to handle Hillary in the general. (There was some other observation about the difference in pressure between a media that is interested in a horse race and a media that is interested in making sure that their preferred candidate gets elected but that’s conspiracy theory talk.)Report

        • CK MacLeod in reply to Jaybird says:

          People read all sorts of things into exchanges like that one, and it is pure speculation, and often projection, to presume we know how the People are going to react. Rubio himself is defending his tactic – including his repetition of the point he was trying to make, and including a promise to keep on making it. I could even see him inviting his supporters to repeat it with him at public events!

          My relatively apolitical Republican friend who was watching the debate noted the exchange, agreed Christie had a point, but didn’t think it was an important point, and is now a Rubio supporter, I’d say. Previously, my friend knew only that Trump was running, but didn’t really know anything about any of the candidates other than to have heard of Bridgegate and to know that Bush is a Bush: I think that’s probably close to the median voter.

          The polit-mavens, including some Rubio-likers, seemed mostly to take the position that Rubio repeating “Let’s dispel the fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing” three times, and even after being called on repetition of canned statements, does not rise to the level of embarrassment of Rick Perry’s “Oops!” moment. However, just the fact that a significant section of the opiniontariat thought Marco looked unsteady and less than commanding – whether or not his performance could be explained as staying on message and not sinking to low-polling bully Christie’s level – slows the consolidation of support around him as the best the Rs are going to manage this cycle.

          So, if Rubio had had a universally acclaimed superduper performance, then maybe he’d have maintained or accelerated momentum on both tracks, establishment and electorate, and be closer to wrapping things up. Instead, “establishment” may have paused at least for the moment, at a time when every day is thought to count, and we’ll still have to see whether NH voters care, and if so, how they care.

          So, the door is probably still open, but how open it is, no one knows. I think Rubio probably remains the best not-Trump, not-Cruz they’ve got, just as he was before the debate, unless one of the governors somehow parlays a strong result into momentum for the next states.Report

          • Stillwater in reply to CK MacLeod says:

            I just read a Vox article on Rubio’s performance which, in an attempt to provide analysis!!???, claimed that his debate performance was horrible; that he’s now “branded” as a Reciter (hey, that’s not bad! if anyone uses that term against him remember you heard it here first); and that the establishment media&donors will be reticent to back him now…. BUT! that voters don’t really care about that stuff, and donors prolly won’t either… SO! it’s only the establishment media folks who’ll make a big deal about it … UNTIL! they don’t anymore.

            So, pretty much what you said with the only difference being that you didn’t get paid to write it up.Report

          • Will Truman in reply to CK MacLeod says:

            I think we’ll find out a whole lot on Tuesday. He could be knocked completely out of contention, or become the likely nominee. Until then, it’s hard to say. There’s going to be a lot of football noise between now and then.Report

          • That exchange was the only part of the debate we saw live. We were watching the Nets doing poorly against the 76ers(!) and we supposed we should check in on the Rs.

            The thing that struck me more than Rubios repetition, was his non-follow up on the shot at Christie about NJ’s downgrades. Christie just denied it and Rubio didn’t follow up – easy to do since the facts were on his side had he known more than simply the bald assertion. So the repetitions were in the context of Christie leading with his chin and getting away with it.

            It was easier to watch the Nets!Report

        • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

          The take that did not strike me as particularly hot…

          Agreed. If the Christie attack came from Trump, one might conclude that he can’t play ball with the heavy hitters. Coming from Christie it looks more like ankle-biting. To me anyway.Report

  8. Jaybird says:

    Rubio strikes me as a guy who will make one hell of a nominee in 2024 or 2028.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Jaybird says:

      He already is, no? His answers to two pretty important questions – “what’s conservatism?” and “what would you do to fight OMightyISIS” – were far, FAR better than anyone else on stage last night, seemed to me. He actually knew the difference between Sunnis, Shia and Kurds (oh my). But the establishment-driven narrative that “being a good conservative” is essential to winning the primary appears to be upended. At this point, anyway.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

      Or 2040, since all serious candidates have to be at least in their late 60s these days.Report