Who won the GOP debate? Does it matter?

[ProSense]

Who won the GOP debate? Does it matter?

Winners? Losers? Well, the first thing to remember is that there’s more hype than importance to these debates, even a relatively high-profile one such as this. So the first thing I’d tell you is that no one is going to win or lose the nomination thanks to Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library…indeed, no one is going to remember much of it in a week or two.

What that means is that nothing could really happen in these debates to change the structure of the contest, which remains basically a two-person race between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

<...>

The most notable thing about the Republican field, by the way, continues to be the absolute absence of a middle tier — candidates who would make perfectly plausible nominees, but just weren’t likely to win. I suppose that Tim Pawlenty would be playing that role if he had stuck around. I’m not sure, but it seems to me that the GOP systematically pushes those types of candidates out of the race far more efficiently than the Democrats do. I don’t think it affects the eventual nominee very much, but it sure does affect the atmosphere of early debates.

Also: The questions were, in fact, weak (Newt Gingrich was right about the moderators picking fights, although wrong about the reason for it), and the candidates collectively were woefully ill-informed (or at least acted ill-informed) about policy. I mean, really, the big problem with the U.S. has been too much inflation? Yikes! But that’s pretty much par for the course, although it would have been nice to have follow-up questions on Social Security as a Ponzi scheme and some of the other whoppers the candidates told. But as far as effects on the nomination are concerned, I’d say that very little happened at the Reagan Library Wednesday night.

Doesn't matter. The media, pundits and those who engage in the debate about who won are going to basically try to mainstream crazy. The GOP candidates are simply pushing every RW lunatic proposal/talking they can get away with. They'll continue to do it because no one in the media will challenge them.

[patrice]

1. No it doesn't, because the DU is getting ready to elect a Republican anyway. nt

[ProSense]

2. The team to beat:

Distortion/Willful Ignorance 2012

Campaign slogan: Working hard to confuse the issue so you don't have to!

[patrice]

6. I just put up a good Amy Goodman interview with a past chair of the Clean Air Act Science Advisory

Committee, a Dr. McClellan with 30 years of Clean Air standard setting process and science behind him, in which he explains what the problem is. That video is in the DU political video section. I also wrote notes for it in the body of the post.

[ProSense]

9. Interesting thanks.

John Walke wrote an extremely critical post about the smog rule at the NRDC blog, but as posted here, he did give the administration credit for other significant progress related to EPA rulemaking.

[patrice]

12. Yeah, he's defending Jackson in the Goodman interview, hoping she doesn't resign, sort of

implies that something didn't go quite right with her responsibility for the standard setting process, doesn't it?

[Tx4obama]

3. President Obama IS a Democrat. Your comment is offensive. n/t

Edited to fix typo: Obam to Obama ;)

[patrice]

4. Yeah, that's what I'd call posts calling for his impeachment, not at all unheard of here on the DU.

[patrice]

5. There's a big ol' anger fest going on in a post about Sen. Boxer calling for greens to sue Obama

over his decision about those EPA regs.

I'd love to know how many DU-ers actually have evaluated the actual critique of those regs.

[Tx4obama]

7. Everyone should read the letter that Obama had Sunstein send to the EPA.

A copy of the LETTER that President Obama asked Sunstein to send to the EPA

http://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/USEOPWHPO/2011/09/02/file_attachments/56091/Letter.pdf

The letter on the above link explains WHY President Obama had the rule sent back to the EPA for reconsideration.

[patrice]

10. Yeah, I've been posting that all over the place. Listen to McClellan there ARE SERIOUS process

issues involved in what happened.

[patrice]

11. McClellan's comments also explain where the grounds for "duplication" of effort come into the letter

[flamingdem]

14. lol

kind of!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

8. I think Mittens won. Perry's a moron, that was obvious. Unfortunately

Mittens, who is hardest to beat.

[LynnTTT]

13. It was always Romney

No way were the heads of the GOP going to let a crazy get the nomination.

Huntsman could be more formidable though- saner, fresher, doesn't have the baggage of Romney (except for that nice letter !)