I missed the debate, I thought it was Thursday. So shit happens, but from the recaps and articles I've read here are some random disjointed thoughts.
Bachmann:
All she does is regurgitate talking points. When Fox news hosted the debate (might have been the S. Carolina debate) they explicitly asked for candid answers and to avoid one-liners, Bachmann's first answer was an obvious one-liner. She is extremely religious and I do not trust her to separate church and state and I find her fiery personality a detriment and impediment to being an effective President. I'm glad her relevance is waning.
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Here is a good quote from Jonathan Chait (NPR: How Rick Perry Won The Debate) on why Perry beat Romney in the debate despite media holding otherwise...
“Yet Perry, stylistically, ruled the roost. The media seems to consider Romney the winner. Pardon the condescension, but they're not thinking like Republican base voters. Romney approaches every question as if he is in an actual debate, trying to provide the most intellectually compelling answer available, within the bounds of political expediency. Perry treats questions as interruptions. What scientists do you trust on climate change? I don't want to risk the economy. Are you taking a radical position on social security? We can have reasons or we can have results. His total liberation from the constraints of reason give Perry a chance to represent the Republican id in a way Romney simply cannot match.”
I agree with the statement above, reading the transcript, it appears that Romney acknowledged there are many factors that go into job growth other than who is governor. The only reason Romney used logic over an appeal to emotion of course is because it was politically beneficial to help undermine TX's job growth and Perry's platform.
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Ron Paul Quote:
WILLIAMS: Well, 30 seconds more for devil’s advocate here, because
would you then put it on the drug companies to say, “No, we’re bringing
this to market, trust us, it’s a fantastic drug”? All the pilots in the
sky, to add to their responsibilities, their own air traffic control, in
an organic way?
PAUL: What I said is, theoretically, you could — it could be
privatized, but who ends up doing the regulations on the drugs? They do
as much harm as good. They don’t take good care of us. Who gets — who
gets to write the regulations? The bureaucrats write the regulations,
but who writes the laws? The lobbyists have control, so lobbyists from
the drug industry has control of writing the regulations, so you turn it
over to the bureaucracy.
But you would have private institutions that could become credible.
And, I mean, do we need the federal government to tell us whether we buy
a safe car? I say the consumers of America are smart enough to decide
what kind of car they can buy and whether it’s safe or not, and they
don’t need the federal government hounding them and putting so much
regulations on that our car industry has gone overseas.
WILLIAMS: Congressman, thank you.
If we moved away from the FDA regulating the release of drugs, drugs which save people’s lives but are not approved would save millions more lives, the FDA does more harm than good. People are not dumb, they will not buy a non-FDA approved drug, or an untested drug, for a normal sickness or non-severe no-alternatives disease, they will choose a safer proven drug. But the FDA has an incentive to be overly safe, that is their job, they fail if a drug is released and is harmful, they succeed if they hold a drug in testing for 8 years to make sure it’s safe.
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Paul scares me though in that as a President he would have to compromise, and I am not sure if he could, his principles would be put to the test. It is heartening to hear him say "we live in a society where we have been adapted [to accept regulation of the marketplace], and you can't just drop it all at once, but you can transition away from it." Boo-ya.
