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The Spectacle Blog

Not a play by play tonight. More of an impressions-on-the-fly report....

Romney was asked about a possible recession. He said we are going to "stop the housing crisis." HOW??? The rest of what he said was nothng but platitudes, too. On substance, not a good start.

McCain's answer is community colleges. SOunds really good. But on substance, a very weak answer. And it is not a federal responsibility. Oh, well, that's the wonk in me talking. Again, his answer SOUNDED good.

McCain is making me mad already. He talks about stopping dependence on foreign oil, but says NOTHING about new domestic production. He pretends it can all happen by developing alternative energy sources. Bogus answer, at least in the short run.

Oh, gosh, here comes Huck. Says we must end enslavement to foreign oil. Again, HOW???? No substance to the man, whatsoever. (My wife is sitting here saying: "He hasn't said a thing!") Now he does the Fair Tax thing. Pitiful answer.

Giuliani is hitting a question out of the park on tax cuts. He is the most convincingly supply-siderish candidate in the race, or tied for that honor with Thompson. But he explains it all SO well. Good for him.

McCain gives a good answer, too, emphasizing spending cuts.

Ron Paul actually is making a bit of sense on the causes of recession. Good for him. Let him teach free market economics at a university.

Thompson: Starts off well in defending tax cuts. He's making good points, but rambling a little. Now he gets into speeding up depreciation schedules, etc.... but it's all the sort of small-bore stuff for which I criticized Bush in my column this morning. Then rescues is answer, partly, but saying that extending the Bush tax cuts WOULD help now. He's right. But his overall answer on style and substance combined is just a B-minus.

topics:
Economics, Energy, Oil