GOP Florida Debate: Best Laugh Line

23 September 2011 |permalink | email article

Fox News and Google staged the latest in a series of intramural Republican presidential candidate forums in Orlando Thursday night. The clash between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney was predictable although I thought that the Texas governor at times appeared quite subdued in contrast to the former Massachusetts governor becoming more assertive. Jon Huntsman stepped up his game but drew scant applause; Michelle Bachmann lost altitude as did Ron Paul; and former Speaker Newt Gingrich circa 1994 is now reinventing himself as a new ideas guru awaiting a presidential coronation. Few Americans remember former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson who worked very hard in many Fox appearances to get on the stage. But he delivered the most compelling laugh line in an otherwise unmemorable debate: “My next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this president.”   

Obama and Rand Paul

Turns out the Tea Party hero has some ideas about infrastructure that appeal to the president. The two spoke on Air Force One as they flew to a bridge in Cincinnati as Obama pitched his jobs bill. The Kentucky Republican senator, unlike sourpuss counterpart Mitch McConnell, told the White House pool reporter that he has some ideas that may interest Obama. Paul said that in the national transportation bill, 10 percent of the funds are set aside for things like beatification, and he would like to reprogram the money for emergency work on bridges. “He seemed receptive,” Paul said of Obama. ‘This is something I think I can get Republican support for.”

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