Let me guess. Romney is the best. Everyone else sucks. Romney blew everyone away….blah blah blah.
I watched the debate and thought Newt did very well, and I’m not even a Newt fan. Santorum was attacked relentlessly by Romney, Paul, and the moderator. He did well with some of the attacks and poorly with others. Romney wasn’t really attacked much. Paul was his usual self but seems to have it out for Santorum. Overall, nothing big comes out of this debate. Nothing new. Status quo.
But when the CNN achors and many Conservative commentators all agree that Rick Santorum was damaged and Mitt Romney did very well, that means the debate had an impact. Mitt Romney will recieve a big boost coming out of this debate and will likely win AZ and MI next Tuesday thanks to his performance tonight, which was spectacular!
Romney’s attack against Obama on defiling religion was the highlight of the debate. This came up during his Governorship, and he fought the effort to get the Catholic Church out of the adoption business to the hilt. The effort to force birth control and abortifacients on the Church is really unconsionable.
Fairly good debate.
The moderator was continually trying to bait the candidates to attach each other. I don’t think King liked it when close to half of those responses were turned to attacks on Obama. Poor ‘cheerleader for Obama’ King, he was a bite flustered that the candidates did not always answer his questions the way he wanted them too. Loved Mitt’s response about that.
1 – This is what I said after the debate, and I still think it’s true.
aspire Says:
February 22nd, 2012 at 9:08 pm
I’ve got to say (as a Romney supporter), I don’t think this debate was as significant as CNN is trying to make it out to be, but I guess they want their debates to be considered important. Since they want their debate to be important they need to pick a winner between Romney and Santorum and play it up…and Santorum was poor.
Well I feel confident that Arizona is going to go to Romney, b/c there has been no polls out of Arizona that have shown him down.
Now in Michigan over the past 2 days there have been 2 polls showing Romney with a 2 point edge and 2 polls showing Santorum with a 4 point edge, but all were within the margin of error and were much closer than the polls last week which means Mitt has all the momentum. But I need to see some Michigan polls over the next 3 days that show Romney taking off before I can feel confident he will win Michigan.
Romney hasn’t even run any television ads in Arizona. Internal polling must be as lopsided as the poll that came out today with him up 16.
Michigan will be trickier, but the polls we have to on there are very close, and taken before tonight’s debate and endorsements of Mitt by papers in Detroit, Oakland, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo. They were also done before a ton of ads.
By next Tuesday, the state will carry for Mitt easily.
I sure hope your right, I’ve been losing sleep over Michigan, maybe I’m to invested in Mitt Romney but I just feel passionatly that he is the right man for the job and no one else comes close.
Matthew Killburn – Washington will go Mitt, You can BET on it. I’ve contacted up 20 friends and family, got their precinct addresses, etc. all set up. They in turn are contacting their friends.
Mitt will take Washington State; lots of behind the scene stuff going on.
Mitt is doing a teleconference to about 200,000 homes in WA state next week. They expect about 20,000 or so to actually take the call or be able to take the call.
I think in 2008, about 13,000 voted in the caucus. Turnout will be higher this year and Mitt will take it.
Relax. Michigan has been trending for Mitt for awhile, and tonight helped. That other stuff also helped. I expect Mitt to also pick up some delegates on the cheap, as he should win some solidly Democrat districts in the Detroit area with low vote totals.
This, of course, assumes that the Democrat machine isn’t involved in Operation Hilarity….hope they’re not. Heretofore, it’s just been a KOS operation.
I really appreciate your work in Washington. I lived in Tacoma before moving to Missouri about 8 years ago. Just for the Caucuses, wish I was still out there.
That third video, the one with Romney and the attacks on religion was a game changer for me tonight.
I had previously wondered if I could ever vote for Santorum or Gingrich or Paul should Romney not make it.
The story about the Catholic charities having to abandon adoption, about having to provide birth control against their religion and last, but most of all that 9-0 Supreme Court vote to deny Obama the authority to pick pastors, etc rubbed against and bristled every fiber in my being. It made me so mad I cried.
Romney just talked me into voting for whomever the Republican candidate is. ANYTHING and ANYONE is better than Obama. Even moon man. And that took some real convincing.
I just officially became an avid ABO (anyone but obama). Period. I’m done taking pot shots at anyone Republican. All I can think about is GET RID OF OBAMA.
I still got more people to call. Lived in WA all my life and most my family and friends still live here.
Washington is Mitt country, followed by Ron Paul (my #2). Lots of libertarians out here; out in the west we have more of a libertarian streak than out East.
Romney almost won WA back in 2008, after dropping out a week earlier and endorsing McCain. Lots of people I knew were pissed about Mitt dropping out and voted for him regardless. I think McCain ended up winning it by 1-2%, would’ve been embarrassing to lose to the guy who isn’t even in the race anymore and endorsed you.
1:
Everybody else did much better than Santorum, so everybody who was on edge between Santorum and somebody else, was pulled toward that somebody else.
This made it great night for Romney, regardless whether his individual performance was great, good or just ok.
Finally, it’s nice to see Santorum getting vetted….the media sure doesn’t do a very good job doing it! Romney shows his enduring strength that he’s doing so well IN SPITE of every media source out there trash talking everything he does. I can hardly wait for all of them to rally to his side in the general.
Just watched the Santorum debacle on DVR. I almost felt sorry for him. He was ill-prepared for the scrutiny. Is not ready to be President by any stretch.
30 – can’t agree with you more. 1 – ‘Romney wasn’t really attacked much’ because he had done his homework. His answers were absolutely spot on and he had come prepared. He looked like a president last night. He was a cut above the rest even tho I loved Ron Paul and the more ‘cheerful’ Gingrich. But Romney definitely won the night, and that’s all I want to say.
33 One of my dear friends is a School District Superintendent. Teachers are so bogged down with the task of getting the children to pass the national tests (and they are tedious and stupid), that a lot of learning and options and creativity are forgone. She says it completely changed their ability to be effective. And there is so much paperwork to fill out to qualify for the federal funds, they have to hire several extra people to do it.
Several states have oped out of the Federal Funds because it compromised the public school system so much. Both of you are out of touch.
SixMa #34. You’ve got that right. The problem with NCLB — as with so many centrally planned progressive initiatives — is that it is premised on the idea that people are uniform widgets, not individuals. You tell schools, principles, and teachers that they are to apply uniform inputs and achieve uniform outcomes. It totally denies human individuality.
Because the underlying premise flies in the face of reality, the outcomes are predictable: schools and teachers who cannot achieve the mandated outcomes will cheat, c.f. also the Atlanta metro school system for just one example. Equally predictable will be an even faster rate of growth in administrators and bureaucracy, which is all that central government ever does when attempting to fix problems it has itself created. Witness how the costs of public education have skyrocketed ever since the US D of Ed was created, although standardized test scores of public school students have remained flat.
NCLB is in urgent need of repeal, and the DoEd should be under the ax, too.
Obviously it was a great debate for Mitt. It’s possible that he’s essentially put period to the race. I just ran a Super Tuesday delegate scenario, assuming he gets momentum from winning Michigan and Arizona, and I came up with him winning 239 of the 437 Super Tuesday delegates, or 55%. And a few of the remaining delegates are unallocated. Santorum only scoops up 103, or 24% of the available delegates. Add that to wins in Michigan of, say, 6% and Arizona of, say, 14% (not that the margin matters) and a split in Washington Romney could add over 300 delegates over the next 2 weeks, with Santorum winning fewer than 140. Hard to argue with that.
35 I disagree with NCLB, but I agree with testing and I do think there are proven ways to teach effectively. Maybe that’s not what you’re arguing against, so I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but a lot of people complain about standardized testing as if that’s the problem.
I think we should have standardized testing, and standards tempered with reasonable expectations. We also need to attack the problems, not dance around them. A big challenge with education is frankly kids coming from non-English speaking homes and single parent households. How are schools supposed to thrive when these issues aren’t being addressed?
Of COURSE school testing is necessary, but NCLB has completely over-stepped, and is destroying. SixMom and MarqueG are absolutely right! As a mom of 5 kids myself – ranging from special ed to ‘brilliant,’ I can tell you NCLB has had nothing but a detrimental effect on both ends of the spectrum. “Teaching to the Test,’ eliminating all learning activities that are not state-approved/mandated, chasing away the good creative teachers out of our public schools and into charter/private schools, and leaving the public schools with the ‘toe the line’ teachers, has not been good for my kids. Not for my small school district.
It’s a good thing Santorum finally figured it out; too bad this home-schooling dad didn’t figure it out before he voted!
I’ve watched this debate twice now. Mitt won, hands down. Newt had a pretty good “professorial’ night, without any real ideas/solutions. Santorum was destroyed – more by his own mouth than anything else. The chickens came home to roost. And there you have it.
Litsening to Tea Party people on the radio this morning some of them said they couldn’t stand to see Rick get ‘beat up’ and they had to turn off the debate. That’s right people – stick your head in the sand. That helps. . . .
37. Testing is essential to good outcomes, but it is most useful at the most local level. Good teachers should be constantly quizzing and testing students to make sure the class is learning and to identify students that need extra attention. Testing and grading at the end of nine or twelve weeks should also serve to show parents where their kids need more help at home. Occasional statewide standard tests at grades three, six, nine, and twelve have been common around the country as a means of identifying geographic disparities.
But the more local the test, the more valuable it is as a teaching tool. The more remote the test results are read, the less useful are the conclusions, since they will be drawn by administrators who are remote from the individual students. These multiple layers of management are costly and have long proved counterproductive. The more the bureaucracy has expanded, the higher the costs have shot, and the poorer our schools have done in international comparisons. Decentralization would be more effective (as would abolishing teacher tenure and union work rules).
#1 cracks me up. He had to hurry on here to make a preemptive strike against all the Romney fans … ‘nothing new, status quo’. Hysterical. It’s like the dude watched a completely different debate. Or is in denial. But, nice try. And congrats on being the first one to comment. At least you won SOMETHING last night.
Thank you Six Mom and MarqueG for informing us about the NCLB. I did not realize that it was such a failure.
I remember talking the “Iowa Test of Basic Skills” growing up in Arkansas almost 50 years ago. When I moved to Nebraska the schools continued to test the students’ progress annually. My children took basic skills tests while in grade school and jr. hi. I looked forward to seeing how they did. However they all graduated by 2000 and I did not see how NCLB affected the schools.
I do think that basic skills tests are needed but I don’t think any of the schools I went to or my children went to taught to the tests, they just taught what the children needed to learn. Although by the time my children were in mid grade school some mandates that were required sounded pretty dumb and time consuming, like creative writing in every class including PE and Math. I can see creative writing in English and maybe another subject but to mandate it for all subjects seemed like an overkill.
#40, I sure hope those “tea party” supporters of Rick’s will stand behind whoever is the GOP’s nominee. SixMom has the right attitude.
After seeing how well the candidates did I would like to see all of them get behind the winner and actively campaign for him as hard as they have for themselves. Everyone has strengths that are needed to defeat the child currently in the WH house.
I attended the debate in Mesa, it was definitely home turf for Romney, but every candidate had a full section of supporters, I just think the Romney supporters were far more enthusiastic (and I was definitely one of the louder attendees). Santorum’s cheering section seemed comatose, but that was probably due to his poor performance.
Santorum was gutted at that debate, his answers make him look like the ultimate weasel politican. Romney did a brilliant job tangling him up in his record, with answers like he didn’t believe in the things he voted for, but he did it to be a team player (like voting for Planned Parenthood Funding and No Child Left Behind) Ron Paul also landed some really effective blows.
Newt probably “won” the debate, but it took him a while to find his groove. Newt’s solid performance though only helps Romney, as it will likely steal votes from the current ABR candidate.
I don’t think you could have scripted a more perfect debate night for Romney. He had solid answers that made him look Presidential, Santorum was destroyed, and Newt got a reason to stick around and split up the ABR vote.
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Let me guess. Romney is the best. Everyone else sucks. Romney blew everyone away….blah blah blah.
I watched the debate and thought Newt did very well, and I’m not even a Newt fan. Santorum was attacked relentlessly by Romney, Paul, and the moderator. He did well with some of the attacks and poorly with others. Romney wasn’t really attacked much. Paul was his usual self but seems to have it out for Santorum. Overall, nothing big comes out of this debate. Nothing new. Status quo.
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:38 pm
But when the CNN achors and many Conservative commentators all agree that Rick Santorum was damaged and Mitt Romney did very well, that means the debate had an impact. Mitt Romney will recieve a big boost coming out of this debate and will likely win AZ and MI next Tuesday thanks to his performance tonight, which was spectacular!
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Romney’s attack against Obama on defiling religion was the highlight of the debate. This came up during his Governorship, and he fought the effort to get the Catholic Church out of the adoption business to the hilt. The effort to force birth control and abortifacients on the Church is really unconsionable.
Well said.
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Fairly good debate.
The moderator was continually trying to bait the candidates to attach each other. I don’t think King liked it when close to half of those responses were turned to attacks on Obama. Poor ‘cheerleader for Obama’ King, he was a bite flustered that the candidates did not always answer his questions the way he wanted them too. Loved Mitt’s response about that.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:08 pm
1
Wishful thinking, you are.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:12 pm
1 – This is what I said after the debate, and I still think it’s true.
aspire Says:
February 22nd, 2012 at 9:08 pm
I’ve got to say (as a Romney supporter), I don’t think this debate was as significant as CNN is trying to make it out to be, but I guess they want their debates to be considered important. Since they want their debate to be important they need to pick a winner between Romney and Santorum and play it up…and Santorum was poor.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:13 pm
so…
wins in MI + AZ —> Win in WA?
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Well I feel confident that Arizona is going to go to Romney, b/c there has been no polls out of Arizona that have shown him down.
Now in Michigan over the past 2 days there have been 2 polls showing Romney with a 2 point edge and 2 polls showing Santorum with a 4 point edge, but all were within the margin of error and were much closer than the polls last week which means Mitt has all the momentum. But I need to see some Michigan polls over the next 3 days that show Romney taking off before I can feel confident he will win Michigan.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:26 pm
Romney hasn’t even run any television ads in Arizona. Internal polling must be as lopsided as the poll that came out today with him up 16.
Michigan will be trickier, but the polls we have to on there are very close, and taken before tonight’s debate and endorsements of Mitt by papers in Detroit, Oakland, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo. They were also done before a ton of ads.
By next Tuesday, the state will carry for Mitt easily.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:26 pm
#1….
That’s the nature of debates. Of the 20+ debates Santorum has never had to answer the tough questions and it was his time to do so.
There was a lot about Santorum’s record I didn’t know about until tonight and I think it’s good these things were brought out now before people voted.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Dave,
I sure hope your right, I’ve been losing sleep over Michigan, maybe I’m to invested in Mitt Romney but I just feel passionatly that he is the right man for the job and no one else comes close.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:40 pm
Matthew Killburn – Washington will go Mitt, You can BET on it. I’ve contacted up 20 friends and family, got their precinct addresses, etc. all set up. They in turn are contacting their friends.
Mitt will take Washington State; lots of behind the scene stuff going on.
Mitt is doing a teleconference to about 200,000 homes in WA state next week. They expect about 20,000 or so to actually take the call or be able to take the call.
I think in 2008, about 13,000 voted in the caucus. Turnout will be higher this year and Mitt will take it.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:50 pm
Florida,
Relax. Michigan has been trending for Mitt for awhile, and tonight helped. That other stuff also helped. I expect Mitt to also pick up some delegates on the cheap, as he should win some solidly Democrat districts in the Detroit area with low vote totals.
This, of course, assumes that the Democrat machine isn’t involved in Operation Hilarity….hope they’re not. Heretofore, it’s just been a KOS operation.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:52 pm
jaaron,
I really appreciate your work in Washington. I lived in Tacoma before moving to Missouri about 8 years ago. Just for the Caucuses, wish I was still out there.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:06 am
I will be out of town on Mar3. L A M E
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:07 am
Mark Halperin grades
Romney B-
Gingrich C+
Paul C
Santorum D
http://thepage.time.com/2012/02/22/grading-the-mesa-debate/#more-280482
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:17 am
That third video, the one with Romney and the attacks on religion was a game changer for me tonight.
I had previously wondered if I could ever vote for Santorum or Gingrich or Paul should Romney not make it.
The story about the Catholic charities having to abandon adoption, about having to provide birth control against their religion and last, but most of all that 9-0 Supreme Court vote to deny Obama the authority to pick pastors, etc rubbed against and bristled every fiber in my being. It made me so mad I cried.
Romney just talked me into voting for whomever the Republican candidate is. ANYTHING and ANYONE is better than Obama. Even moon man. And that took some real convincing.
I just officially became an avid ABO (anyone but obama). Period. I’m done taking pot shots at anyone Republican. All I can think about is GET RID OF OBAMA.
There, I said it.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:27 am
Thanks Dave,
I still got more people to call. Lived in WA all my life and most my family and friends still live here.
Washington is Mitt country, followed by Ron Paul (my #2). Lots of libertarians out here; out in the west we have more of a libertarian streak than out East.
Romney almost won WA back in 2008, after dropping out a week earlier and endorsing McCain. Lots of people I knew were pissed about Mitt dropping out and voted for him regardless. I think McCain ended up winning it by 1-2%, would’ve been embarrassing to lose to the guy who isn’t even in the race anymore and endorsed you.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:35 am
Feeling groovy with my 500 shares of Romney to win Michigan at 52% in average.
Now please Viola, do win that Oscars, so I can bet on Mitt with a nuclear bankroll.
I’m gonna go ballistic on Mitt.
I bought some shares of Romney to win Ohio too.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:40 am
12- I bought a modest 20 shares today, lol. #coffeemoney
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:40 am
7)- yes!
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:41 am
1:
Everybody else did much better than Santorum, so everybody who was on edge between Santorum and somebody else, was pulled toward that somebody else.
This made it great night for Romney, regardless whether his individual performance was great, good or just ok.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:42 am
1– No Child Left Behind = disaster for Ricky Santy
He’s done.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:44 am
Finally, it’s nice to see Santorum getting vetted….the media sure doesn’t do a very good job doing it! Romney shows his enduring strength that he’s doing so well IN SPITE of every media source out there trash talking everything he does. I can hardly wait for all of them to rally to his side in the general.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:45 am
Virtually all of my Intrade/Betfair money is tied on The Artist and on Viola Davis.
It sucks to have no free chips to play with.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:50 am
no body cares about NCLB
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:54 am
26 – Yeah, like no one cares about trillion dollar annual deficits.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:56 am
26- What do you think will be the effects of the debate?
Are you still betting on Santorum to win Michigan?
February 23rd, 2012 at 1:06 am
26– sorry, I meant : do you keep buying Santorum.Nomination?
February 23rd, 2012 at 1:11 am
Just watched the Santorum debacle on DVR. I almost felt sorry for him. He was ill-prepared for the scrutiny. Is not ready to be President by any stretch.
February 23rd, 2012 at 4:43 am
30 – can’t agree with you more. 1 – ‘Romney wasn’t really attacked much’ because he had done his homework. His answers were absolutely spot on and he had come prepared. He looked like a president last night. He was a cut above the rest even tho I loved Ron Paul and the more ‘cheerful’ Gingrich. But Romney definitely won the night, and that’s all I want to say.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:53 am
#26 Do you not have children? It’s mangled and strangled our teachers and our school system.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:46 am
32:
No it hasn’t.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:55 am
33 One of my dear friends is a School District Superintendent. Teachers are so bogged down with the task of getting the children to pass the national tests (and they are tedious and stupid), that a lot of learning and options and creativity are forgone. She says it completely changed their ability to be effective. And there is so much paperwork to fill out to qualify for the federal funds, they have to hire several extra people to do it.
Several states have oped out of the Federal Funds because it compromised the public school system so much. Both of you are out of touch.
Completely out of touch.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:20 am
SixMa #34. You’ve got that right. The problem with NCLB — as with so many centrally planned progressive initiatives — is that it is premised on the idea that people are uniform widgets, not individuals. You tell schools, principles, and teachers that they are to apply uniform inputs and achieve uniform outcomes. It totally denies human individuality.
Because the underlying premise flies in the face of reality, the outcomes are predictable: schools and teachers who cannot achieve the mandated outcomes will cheat, c.f. also the Atlanta metro school system for just one example. Equally predictable will be an even faster rate of growth in administrators and bureaucracy, which is all that central government ever does when attempting to fix problems it has itself created. Witness how the costs of public education have skyrocketed ever since the US D of Ed was created, although standardized test scores of public school students have remained flat.
NCLB is in urgent need of repeal, and the DoEd should be under the ax, too.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:23 am
Obviously it was a great debate for Mitt. It’s possible that he’s essentially put period to the race. I just ran a Super Tuesday delegate scenario, assuming he gets momentum from winning Michigan and Arizona, and I came up with him winning 239 of the 437 Super Tuesday delegates, or 55%. And a few of the remaining delegates are unallocated. Santorum only scoops up 103, or 24% of the available delegates. Add that to wins in Michigan of, say, 6% and Arizona of, say, 14% (not that the margin matters) and a split in Washington Romney could add over 300 delegates over the next 2 weeks, with Santorum winning fewer than 140. Hard to argue with that.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:47 am
35 I disagree with NCLB, but I agree with testing and I do think there are proven ways to teach effectively. Maybe that’s not what you’re arguing against, so I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but a lot of people complain about standardized testing as if that’s the problem.
I think we should have standardized testing, and standards tempered with reasonable expectations. We also need to attack the problems, not dance around them. A big challenge with education is frankly kids coming from non-English speaking homes and single parent households. How are schools supposed to thrive when these issues aren’t being addressed?
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:03 am
Of COURSE school testing is necessary, but NCLB has completely over-stepped, and is destroying. SixMom and MarqueG are absolutely right! As a mom of 5 kids myself – ranging from special ed to ‘brilliant,’ I can tell you NCLB has had nothing but a detrimental effect on both ends of the spectrum. “Teaching to the Test,’ eliminating all learning activities that are not state-approved/mandated, chasing away the good creative teachers out of our public schools and into charter/private schools, and leaving the public schools with the ‘toe the line’ teachers, has not been good for my kids. Not for my small school district.
It’s a good thing Santorum finally figured it out; too bad this home-schooling dad didn’t figure it out before he voted!
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:03 am
36
So if that plays out, Mitt will have something like 450 projected delegates 2 weeks from now, and Santorum will have about 150. Nice.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:06 am
I’ve watched this debate twice now. Mitt won, hands down. Newt had a pretty good “professorial’ night, without any real ideas/solutions. Santorum was destroyed – more by his own mouth than anything else. The chickens came home to roost. And there you have it.
Litsening to Tea Party people on the radio this morning some of them said they couldn’t stand to see Rick get ‘beat up’ and they had to turn off the debate. That’s right people – stick your head in the sand. That helps. . . .
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:21 am
37. Testing is essential to good outcomes, but it is most useful at the most local level. Good teachers should be constantly quizzing and testing students to make sure the class is learning and to identify students that need extra attention. Testing and grading at the end of nine or twelve weeks should also serve to show parents where their kids need more help at home. Occasional statewide standard tests at grades three, six, nine, and twelve have been common around the country as a means of identifying geographic disparities.
But the more local the test, the more valuable it is as a teaching tool. The more remote the test results are read, the less useful are the conclusions, since they will be drawn by administrators who are remote from the individual students. These multiple layers of management are costly and have long proved counterproductive. The more the bureaucracy has expanded, the higher the costs have shot, and the poorer our schools have done in international comparisons. Decentralization would be more effective (as would abolishing teacher tenure and union work rules).
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:29 am
#1 cracks me up. He had to hurry on here to make a preemptive strike against all the Romney fans … ‘nothing new, status quo’. Hysterical. It’s like the dude watched a completely different debate. Or is in denial. But, nice try. And congrats on being the first one to comment. At least you won SOMETHING last night.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:35 am
Thank you Six Mom and MarqueG for informing us about the NCLB. I did not realize that it was such a failure.
I remember talking the “Iowa Test of Basic Skills” growing up in Arkansas almost 50 years ago. When I moved to Nebraska the schools continued to test the students’ progress annually. My children took basic skills tests while in grade school and jr. hi. I looked forward to seeing how they did. However they all graduated by 2000 and I did not see how NCLB affected the schools.
I do think that basic skills tests are needed but I don’t think any of the schools I went to or my children went to taught to the tests, they just taught what the children needed to learn. Although by the time my children were in mid grade school some mandates that were required sounded pretty dumb and time consuming, like creative writing in every class including PE and Math. I can see creative writing in English and maybe another subject but to mandate it for all subjects seemed like an overkill.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:42 am
#40, I sure hope those “tea party” supporters of Rick’s will stand behind whoever is the GOP’s nominee. SixMom has the right attitude.
After seeing how well the candidates did I would like to see all of them get behind the winner and actively campaign for him as hard as they have for themselves. Everyone has strengths that are needed to defeat the child currently in the WH house.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:10 am
I attended the debate in Mesa, it was definitely home turf for Romney, but every candidate had a full section of supporters, I just think the Romney supporters were far more enthusiastic (and I was definitely one of the louder attendees). Santorum’s cheering section seemed comatose, but that was probably due to his poor performance.
Santorum was gutted at that debate, his answers make him look like the ultimate weasel politican. Romney did a brilliant job tangling him up in his record, with answers like he didn’t believe in the things he voted for, but he did it to be a team player (like voting for Planned Parenthood Funding and No Child Left Behind) Ron Paul also landed some really effective blows.
Newt probably “won” the debate, but it took him a while to find his groove. Newt’s solid performance though only helps Romney, as it will likely steal votes from the current ABR candidate.
I don’t think you could have scripted a more perfect debate night for Romney. He had solid answers that made him look Presidential, Santorum was destroyed, and Newt got a reason to stick around and split up the ABR vote.