ORLANDO DEBATE: Open Thread UPDATE: ‘You Don’t Have a Heart’

Posted on Comments

Nine Republican candidates will be debating in Orlando, Florida (Fox News , 9 p.m.) tonight and, rather than live-blogging, I’ll be aggregating and occasionally updating.

Karl Rove has “handicapped” the debate.

Thad McCotter is dropping out of the GOP race, after being repeatedly excluded from the debates.

UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: After the first commercial break, I think Herman Cain’s winning decisively so far. (Because I said so, that’s why.)

UPDATE 9:35 p.m. ET: Herman Cain just proposed eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency. Also, he correctly pronounced Chile: Chee-LAY.

He was praising Chile’s private retirement program, but I think he was also showing off the fact that he knows how to pronounce Chee-LAY.

UPDATE 11:15 p.m. ET: Frank Luntz couldn’t get his video clips to play during the focus group, but said that Perry’s “you have no heart” comment about illegal immigration was very badly received. Rick Santorum’s retort to Perry was very sharp. Overall, Mitt Romney was perceived as the winner, and Brett Baier had positive things to say about Herman Cain’s performance. (Chee-LAY!)  Also: Gary Johnson’s dogs.

UPDATE 11:40 p.m. ET: Allahpundit on Perry’s “you don’t have a heart” moment:

Perry’s answer is a transparent dodge, of course, and Santorum rightly calls him on it.  The question isn’t whether children of illegals should be educated, it’s whether they should be subsidized by taxpayers with in-state tuition rates.

Here’s the video:

61 comments

  2. It’s probably too late for Mitt stop defending the mandate in Romneycare which is unconstitutional at any level of government, his assertion that the mandate is acceptable for states based on the 10Th amendment is ridiculous. He appears to be having some success in selling that idea. But other than the big government nature of the Massachusetts plan he can make a reasonable case for the rest of the plan. But other than the indefensible mandate he didn’t make any mistakes last night. Perry made several the heartless crack pissed off those he’s courting without giving him any advantage with anyone else. Wooing the open borders crowd away from Bachmann or Romney isn’t a winning strategy.

Comments are closed.