Paul Begala: Huntsman Wins South Carolina Debate by Dropping Out (audience was "craaaazy")

[highplainsdem]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/16/paul-begala-huntsman-wins-south-carolina-debate-by-dropping-out.html

Jon Huntsman was the clear winner of the South Carolina debate. I wonder if the reason he dropped out of the GOP race is because—how do I say this delicately?—these people are craaaazy.

I don’t even mean the candidates. I’ll get to them in a moment. I’m talking about the audience. From the TV cutaways they seemed clean, well-dressed, and drug-free. And yet their reactions would scare off any sane, sensible person. In previous debates the right-wing GOP audiences booed a gay soldier. Someone shouted “Let him die!” in response to a question about an uninsured person.

But in South Carolina they took the cake. The crowd booed the mere mention of the name of the country of Mexico. Just the name. I might understand it if they booed, say, North Korea or Iran or Texas A&M—centers of evil. But Mexico? Good luck with that Latino vote in November, guys.

Then, when Ron Paul said the Golden Rule should guide our foreign policy, the crowd booed. They booed the Golden Rule. Apparently nobody told them that Jesus wrote the Golden Rule. On second thought, they’d have booed Jesus.

-snip-

[deacon]

1. They are. These people are truly crazy. If that isn't motivation for dems to get out the vote.

Nothing is. Extreme candidates with dangerous ideas.

[jberryhill]

2. Wait till they see Romney's Mexican Birth Certificate

Somebody needs to gin up a fake Mexican birth certificate and circulate that all over South Carolina the day before the polls.

[MADem]

3. Booing Mexico? Didn't they worship at the altar of

Jorge "Tacos y Cerveza" Bush?

No talent for nuance, along with shit-fer-brains, those folks, apparently!

[RainDog]

4. how did so many Americans get to be so nasty and stupid?

honestly.

why are so many people here idiots?

[highplainsdem]

17. I think a lot of it has to do with right-wing media encouraging nastiness and stupidity.

Especially right-wing talk radio, which is practically a monopoly:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mann/heres-why-the-right-wing_b_206444.html

[Raine]

5. Didn't think it was possible to be crazier than the candidates but the audience

was completely and totally batshit. crazy All the debate audiences have been nutz but So Carolina is in a league of it's own it was the absolute craziest of all!

[HillWilliam]

16. It has been said and repeated since before the Civil War

that SC is too small to be a country and too big to be an insane asylum.

I lived in SC for a little while. I refuse to set foot in that state again. It's one of about five (out of the 40 I've visited or lived in) I won't even cross to go somewhere else. (I had the sh*t scared out of me in Mississippi and Alabama. There are some places a gay man isn't safe to show up in, even if he's law-abiding and minding his own business.)

[Bolo Boffin]

6. "...when Ron Paul said the Golden Rule should guide our foreign policy, the crowd booed."

Are you kidding me? The modern GOP, believing that this nation is a Christian nation, believing almost that it is chosen by God, booed when told that this nation's foreign policy should be guided by the Golden Rule?

It might be time to wonder if the very vocal minority taking over the Republican Party is a threat to our national security.

[Skip Intro]

10. Yes, they did.

I'm hoping the debate in Charleston, my hometown, will be a bit more civil.

Then again, we are talking about Republicans.

[Bolo Boffin]

11. NEW RULE: If you boo when someone suggests that America's foreign policy

should be guided by the Golden Rule, you don't get to say America's a Christian nation anymore.

(Not you, Skip Intro, of course. You would never do anything that idiotic.)

[A-Schwarzenegger]

7. "Treat other white Republican Americans as you would have them treat you."

[Kablooie]

8. Schools are now decreeing that global warming must be taught as a controversial theory.

It's going the same way as evolution.

The stupid keeps coming with no end in sight.

[Old and In the Way]

9. Kind of gives you insight as to why we have such Republican extremists/nutjobs in Congress, no?

With a base like this, what sane individual would want to lead them?

[Ship of Fools]

12. Utterly unwatchable to me ...

Too soul crushing.

So I went over to MSNBC. Ed's info on Philly teaching debacle and Rachel's
take on Michigan's city takeovers damned near made me start crying.

So THEN I switched over to the Weather Station. With the freaky weather
we are having here and across the country, all I could think about was
climate change.

I then switched to a movie -- *Armageddon,* a silly favorite of mine.

As I was falling asleep, I decided that my teevee viewing decisions this particular
MLKJ day were enough to make someone want to jump off a cliff.

[oberliner]

13. The Golden Rule predates Jesus

He did not write it as this piece claims. Though he did express similar sentiments.

And I think the crowd booed the Juan Williams mention of Mitt Romney's parents (or grandparents?) being from Mexico. I think they just thought the question was silly.

That being side, the audience was like a Jerry Springer crowd - cheering the red meat lines and whatnot.

[quaker bill]

14. The convention should be spectacular

One of the several reasons GHW Bush was defeated by Clinton came out of their convention. If you don't recall it, this was the convention where they let the loonies out of the bin. Some of the christian conservatives (Falwell, I think) had prime time speaking slots. They went all redmeat social conservative "to fire up the base". The dynamic was that the religious RW found GHW Bush "too liberal / moderate" on their issues, pretty much as they see Romney now. The convention was run to bring them on board. That convention was mind numbingly horrific. Romney, given he gets the nomination, will need to feed this crowd again.

The approach did not work and it also drove the indies toward Perot and Clinton. Ron Paul is playing a pretty good Ross Perot this time out, more so if he runs indy.

I think we will see history repeat.

[AlinPA]

15. Did they cheer the pissing on the corpses? Perry could get some more votes there.

[Hugabear]

18. The inmates are taking over the asylum

This is what happens when you give the most rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth element in your party a voice.

[Canuckistanian]

19. "Let him die!"

That was the most chilling outburst from a GOP candidate's debate. What kind of a mind not only thinks that, but yells it out in one of the most public forums in America?