Moderators and guest questioners have been excruciating, mind-numbing and downright frustrating the Republican base by their prattling questions that have little to do with jobs, the economy, the environment, President Obama’s record or anything that average day Americans actually have on their minds. Previous debates have included Terri Schiavo, sugar subsidies, the Everglades Project, and an oddly foreshadowing exchange over contraception. With every candidate having been given the opportunity to respond to the inane and inaccurate narrative (contrasted with President Obama begging for reporters’ mercy not to question him) that the number one priority of the GOP is to ban all women, everywhere, from getting access to birth control, it’s a pretty good bet that the topic will come up tonight. CNN, however, may choose to avoid the almost assured boos from the audience if the question is asked.

Santorum claiming that the USA is under direct attack from Satan has been making the media rounds for the last 24 hours. Pundits are clamoring and MSNBC talking heads are exploding, it wouldn’t be surprising if Satan found his way into the debate topics. (By the way, millions of Americans also believe that Satan is an active being that attempts to disrupt events.)

As a side note, it’s Ash Wednesday. Most Catholics recognize this day with ash on their foreheads. We’ll see if the Catholic presidential candidates choose to follow this ritual.

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This Wednesday, in what has practically become a weekly ritual this election season, the four remaining Republican Presidential contenders will gather in Arizona for their 26^th debate together. While political junkies like myself will probably tune in anyway to comment on any slight differences we can detect in the candidates’ strategies or performance, the vast majority of Americans are beginning to view all these debates as too standard, too similar, and too unproductive.

Therefore, if these debates are to have any lasting relevance during this primary season, the networks must strive to use new techniques to reach a new audience. There is one particular demographic which is impacted most directly by many of the issues discussed by the candidates but whose participation in previous debates has been minimal if not nonexistent: the American youth. Despite this trend, it makes perfect sense that those young citizens who have the most at stake in this next election be able to help vet the candidates that will determine their future prosperity. In order to accomplish this, we hope to build support for a “Youth Debate” that will give all Republican Presidential hopefuls the platform necessary to address young voters directly.

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Democrats already know one issue upon which they have potential GOP nominee, Mitt Romney at a severe disadvantage, as Paul Begala points out: RomneyCare versus ObamaCare.

After 19 debates Mitt still doesn’t have a straight answer. Rick Santorum skillfully dissected Romney on the topic. If Romney is the GOP nominee, you can be sure Barack Obama will do the same.

Appearing to have been stuck in, you’re angry mode, a tactic Romney is deploying to target Newt Gingrich, it was all he seemed to have as a fall back when very effectively pressed on the subject by Rick Santorum in last night’s debate.

“We cannot give the issue of healthcare away in this election,” Santorum declared, striking a resonance with conservatives everywhere.

Based upon various Twitter accounts, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh picked up on the topic this morning, stressing the importance of the exchange between Santorum and Romney. Liberal blogs and outlets such as Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post are picking up on it with video, as is The Hill, among others.

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A funny thing happened in the GOP debate in South Carolina last night.  FOX NEWS’ Juan Williams implied racism in Speaker Newt Gingrich’s defense of capitalism, and Gingrich did not back down:

Williams: Speaker Gingrich, you recently said, “Black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps.” You also said, “Poor kids lack a strong work ethic,” and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?

After Williams asked this question, about three people applauded somewhat timidly, but there was mostly silence in anticipation of how Gingrich might dig himself out of this one.  He had been put on the spot in front of the world by a media spokesperson who not only opposed Gingrich’s position, but who himself was black, and who views almost everything through the lenses of race.

But Gingrich did not fold. Instead he looked at Williams and responded: “No, I don’t see that.” In other words, Gingrich was saying “No, I don’t see how capitalism is racist nor do I see how a defense of capitalism is racist.” The venue exploded with applause and cheers.

Gingrich then continued by telling the audience his daughter’s first job had been as a janitor in a Baptist church in Georgia when she was thirteen. Said Gingrich: “She liked earning the money, she liked learning that if you worked you got paid, she liked being in charge of her own money, and she thought it was a good start.”

Amid applause, Gingrich continued

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A recap of the Republican debate on national security and foreign policy, as seen through its best and worst moments.

Worst gaffe of the night: CNN, which mis-identified former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark as a Republican in its pre-debate analysis.

Best comeback: Newt Gingrich to Ron Paul, on the need for the Patriot Act: “Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That’s the whole point.”

Worst neo-colonialism: Mitt Romney, channeling his inner Kipling by suggesting that we have to bring Afghanistan and Pakistan into “modernity.”

Best follow-up answer: (Tie) Michele Bachmann on the Patriot Act, who focused on Barack Obama’s eagerness to grant rights to terrorists, rather than taking the bait to attack fellow Republicans (that time, anyway); and Ron Paul, who highlighted problems with immigration and the war on drugs in answering a question about border security.

Worst attempted dodge: Rick Santorum, allowing Wolf Blitzer to back him into saying that Muslims should be profiled at airports.

Best nickname: Herman Cain wins for calling Wolf Blitzer, “Blitz.” Somehow, I think that’s going to stick.

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Tonight’s debate among the Republican presidential contenders, co-hosted by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and CNN, will feature the candidates’ views on foreign policy.

By now, Republican voters are used to the clash between the hawkish approach favored by the party mainstream and the isolationist posture championed by Rep. Ron Paul–a confrontation that has been a feature of GOP presidential debates since the 2008 election.

Yet the events of the past year–especially the upheaval of the Arab Spring–have generated real debates among conservatives about how the United States should respond to a rapidly changing Middle East, an ambitious China, and a disintegrating European Union. Those new fault lines within the party will likely make their appearance on the stage tonight.

Though it is certain that each of the Republican candidates on stage tonight will criticize President Barack Obama’s record, each will find something different to criticize–not just because of their own divergent views, but also because of Obama’s incoherent policy. (more…)

Tonight, eight Republican presidential candidates will take the stage at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., to share their foreign policy and national security views with the American people. The debate, hosted by The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, will be broadcast on CNN at 8PM ET.

The debate will focus on a number of crucial national security and foreign policy questions that will undoubtedly reach the President’s desk in the coming years. Ensuring our country’s defense is a fundamental responsibility of the federal government, as set forth in the Constitution. And it is up to the President to take the lead in crafting American foreign policy while also serving as commander in chief of the armed forces.

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I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do, it isn’t usually cable news. Living, as I do, in new media, I’m already generally up to speed on what they are talking about. CNBC has good financial news, even if they do conflate the health of the stock market with the state of overall economy. CNN will give you an accurate pulse of the median views of the mainstream media. Fox will give you a moderate to very slightly center-right take on the day’s events. I always had a vague sense that MSNBC was very left-of-center. Last night, that vague sense was confirmed. But, I also realized that MSNBC lives in an alternate universe.

Today, it was reported that jobless claims spiked higher…yet again. The CBO reported that, through the last 11 months, the federal government has spent almost $1.3 Trillion more than it took in. European banks are on the edge of collapse and the entire world economy balances precariously on the edge of a global depression. If the US economy hasn’t technically yet entered another recession, it is only a matter of time before it does.

The housing market is set for another downturn. The number of Americans in the labor force is at historic lows. There is no prospect for economic recovery at any point in the future. I could go on and on, but you get the point. The economy is teetering on the edge of another collapse and government debt has so suffocated us that we are flirting with a period of permanent decline.

And yet, at last night’s GOP debate at the Reagan Library (!), neither John Harris with Politico nor Brian Williams with NBCMSNBCCOMCASTGE, asked a SINGLE question about these issues. Nothing about government spending, debt or the economy. Instead, we were treated to almost 90 minutes of questions on HPV vaccines, immigration, FEMA, TSA, welfare, poverty programs (more in need after 2+ years of Obama than ever) and science. Science?!?

Seriously, do John Harris and Brian Williams need an up-to-date calendar? Are they stuck in the 90s, when the economy seemed fine and all we had to worry about were so-called ’social’ issues, ’smart growth’ and school uniforms. We thought we were fat and happy then and could afford the luxury of the ’small’ issues. We aren’t anymore, but that is all they fed us. If I closed my eyes, I don’t know that I could have told you whether this ‘debate’ was for President of the state legislature.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by economic advisor Jim Johnston about tax policy, but first, we discuss last night’s Republican debate hosted by the always one-sided MSNBC, the ridiculousness of some of the questions from Brian Williams, the lack of a focus on the issues that really matter to Americans, and discuss who walked away the winner.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Erick Erickson: Perry vs. Romney
Perry Leads
In wide field, it’s Romney vs. Perry
Why the Market Crash? Downgrade or Threat of Tax Increase?
Jim Johnston at Heartland Institute

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Follow Ben on Twitter

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Ouch. Maureen Dowd in today’s The New York Times:

The leader who was once a luminescent, inspirational force is now just a guy in a really bad spot.

His Republican rivals for 2012 have gone to town on the Labor Day weekend news of zero job growth, using the same line of attack Hillary used in 2008: Enough with the big speeches! What about some action?

Polls show that most Americans still like and trust the president; but they may no longer have faith that he’s a smarty-pants who can fix the economy.

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Of all the political figures in history, Ronald Reagan is the target of the most contempt by people on the left. Reagan, through his personality, vision and actions is the one person who has done more to undermine the flimsy ideas that liberals hold than any other.

Reagan was born in 1911 so 2011 has been a year celebrating the centennial of his birth. Many of the events commemorating the centennial have been held at the Simi Valley California, Reagan Presidential library.

A flagship event at the library for the centennial year is obviously the Republican Presidential debate scheduled for next week. It was revealing that Obama would make a bid to upstage the debate by scheduling his own “urgent” jobs speech to a joint session of congress on the same night. It revealed the Olympian level of contempt that Obama and his democrat cronies have for Reagan’s legacy and memory.

Sure, it is true that Obama may have sought simply to undermine the momentum Rick Perry and others in the GOP field have garnered against him in the last few weeks as the president has suffered political stumbles on myriad issues but there is no way that team Obama was ignorant of the bigger issue surrounding this particular GOP debate which was the specific stage and location it was being held at as well as the specific year it is being held in.

This is not the first time Obama has gone after Reagan’s legacy or family in word and deed.

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The American left and its handmaidens in the Old Media spent 24 hours desperately trying to spin Obama’s attempt to schedule a joint session of Congress on the same day as the GOP debate as an example of how the GOP is refusing to work with him. These leftists categorically deny that Obama was simply engaging in political brinkmanship, using his selection of Sept. 7 as a political ploy. But the very night that Obama was shot down by Speaker Boehner on the date he chose for his jobs address, Obama’s campaign sent out a fundraising letter that pretty much proves that Obama intended the whole episode to be the very political ploy his pals in the Old Media tried to deny was happening.

On Aug 31, President Obama announced as if it were set the date of Sept. 7 for his jobs speech to a joint session of Congress. Of course, he and his staff knew that Sept. 7 was the date scheduled months ago for the next GOP presidential debate. It was clearly an attempt by Obama to overshadow the debate, the first one that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be a part.

One problem here is that the protocol of scheduling a joint session of Congress was not observed by this White House. The fact is a president cannot schedule a joint session of Congress on his own hook. He simply does not have that power Constitutionally. He must ask the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the House of Representatives if the date he is requesting will work. Such a date has to be agreed upon by Congress before announcements are made. Obama did not do this. He simply tried to decree on what date the speech would be held and announced that date as if it were settled.

This was an unprecedented move.

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In Thursday’s FOX News GOP Presidential Debate, a resounding roar of ‘boos’ filled the auditorium when debate moderator Washington Examiner Columnist Byron York asked Congresswoman Michele Bachmann whether she would be “submissive to her husband” if she were elected president.

This question was framed after a comment Bachmann had made a few years back about how she didn’t want to do something her husband had asked her to do (return to school to become a tax attorney), but she buckled down and did it because he asked. She said she was ‘submissive’ to his wishes.

The idea of wives submitting to their husbands is a Biblical-based principle ingrained into fundamental Christians since Paul wrote the words in Ephesians 2:22-24:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

The writer of Ephesians, Paul (formerly a soldier known as Saul who persecuted Christians in Rome), was writing letters to churches he supported while he was in prison and during his vast travels to support Christians in the region. He was outlining instructions/guidance to keep the people of the church focused on God in a society not all-together friendly to the Christian faith.

Let’s not forget Christians were being herded up and thrown into arenas and into Lion’s Dens. His words were those of comfort and of unity and were spoken out of a desire to allow Christians a support system. In the social class present back in the day, men were revered as the leader of the home and of the society in which they lived. Therefore, Paul instructed women to listen to their husbands (who were often more educated and world wise than they were) and then in turn, for husbands to support the church as Christ had.

There is still a place for this, but it is different now as times are different and a woman’s role in this society has astoundingly changed.

In our culture, meanings change through the years based on the times and the interpretation. If they didn’t, “gay” would still mean “happy”; “cool” would only mean a temperature and a rainbow would still represent God’s promise to Noah.

Times have indeed changed.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, we’re talking commodities, the debt ceiling, and the unemployment rate with Francis Cianfrocca.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

WSJ: Unemployment Rate Rises
Bloomberg: Trichet on ECB and Inflation
Gokhale: Why We Must Freeze the Debt Limit
Harsanyi: What Debt Ceiling?
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Every four years the voters and the media both complain that the presidential selection process starts too early and go too long as candidates all try to get a head start on competitors. Past is more than prologue. Forget everything you know about the Republican Presidential nominating process. The TV and cable networks, in their frenzy to trump each other, will start this process with the first televised debate a full eight months before the first votes are cast in Iowa closely followed by New Hampshire.

As a veteran of eight National Presidential campaigns I have studied this process for a long time. The Networks have created TWO contests – one in 2011 and another in 2012. This takes national focus off current government efforts to solve the nations problems. It’s a disservice to the voters and will de-value the early state caucuses and primaries.

Putting that aside, the process must be played as it is – and the new schedule could be a lay-up for a media savvy candidate like Donald J. Trump. No one understands the power of television like Trump. Millions tune in the Apprentice to see the most successful and best known businessman in America. Trump’s sharp criticism of trade policy with China, OPEC and the war in Afghanistan could find a large, even commanding segment in the GOP.

Trump showed at the CPAC gathering that his star quality plus his pro-gun, pro-life views combined with his pro-business stance can be a winner in the GOP. Trump literally has nothing to lose – and everything to gain by entering the 2011 debates. While Trump says he will decide if he is running by June, I would advise him to wait until the Florida GOP straw-poll in October to decide. After all, Trump doesn’t require time to build his name ID.

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