GOP South Carolina debate

On Thursday night, five Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debate of the 2012 election cycle. The debate took place in Greenville, South Carolina. The state of South Carolina will hold the nation's second primary election (and the first primary in the South) sometime in February of next year.

The participants in the debate were: Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, 50; former CEO of Godfather's Pizza Herman Cain, 65; former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, 58; current Congressman from Texas Ron Paul, 74; and former Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum, 52.

Let's do a quick rundown of the candidates:

Tim Pawlenty - Served two full terms as governor, but did not win a majority in either election; seriously considered as a possible running mate by John McCain in 2008; received an "A" grade from the Cato Institute; known for balancing budgets without raising taxes despite facing massive deficits.

Herman Cain - Was briefly chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; newspaper columnist and radio talk-show host; opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and/or incest; colon and liver cancer survivor; the only black Republican candidate running for president this year.

Gary Johnson - Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003; considered a libertarian Republican; was a successful businessman prior to entering politics; supports the legalization of marijuana and used marijuana "medicinally" as recently as 2008; climbed Mount Everest; a major tax-cutter.

Ron Paul - Ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008; also known as a libertarian Republican; considered one of the main inspirations for the Tea Party movement; opposed the war in Iraq; worked as an OB-GYN for many years; can raise funds from individual donors like few candidates.

Rick Santorum - Served in the House of Representatives for two terms before serving in the Senate for two terms; was crushed in his reelection bid in 2006 by roughly 18 points; known for being very socially conservative; absolutely despised by the Left; endorsed Mitt Romney in 2008.

Read the rest:

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-orlando/rating-the-debate-republican-presidential-candidates-face-off-south-carolina

>>36
Many industries require astronomical capital to operate efficiently, they will never be conducted by a plethora of small business model administrations.
>>37
I'm already aware how wonderful economies of scale is and that central planning has some uses but it doesn't change the fact it is just one factor among many, one of which is corruption. Many sectors of the economy are less effective when managed under the corporate/bureaucratic model, if the state subsidizes corporations while penalizing small and medium sized businesses then corporations will begin to take over these sectors and they will be administrated inefficiently. I'm proposing to make critical structual changes that would eliminate substantial corruption, if the corporations can compete in a free market due to the advantage of an economy of scale then they shouldn't have any problems.

The bankers were greedy but they weren't stupid and they could not have created such a huge real estate bubble without intervention from the state. In a free market bubbles are often small, quick and limited only to those who threw wads of cash at the snake oil salesman, without the federal reserve and government sponsored enterprises fredmac and fanmay the credit for the crunch could not have been maintained beyond individuals willing to take the risks. I'm not sure if you are trying to argue that banksters who are obviously corporatist are in fact operating in a free market or you ignored me when I said "you confuse corporatism with free markets" here.