At The GOP Debate: Clap for the Wolfman -- Final Update

Clap for the Wolfman
He gonna make your ratings high
Clap for the Wolfman
You gonna dig him 'til the day you die

Pregame:  I hate everyone on CNBC right now.   It's Fox News with slightly less garish flags. Although I must say it is adorable that Larry Kudlow insists that the GOP base gives a shit about substance.

ReaganReaganReagan.

Also Kudlow -- who appears slightly bombed, although maybe this is just what early-onset Conservative senior dementia looks like -- believes that massive corporate tax cuts are basically "middle class" and will pay for themselves.

It was cruel of the RNC to force Bobby Jindal to sling peanuts and orange whip in the aisles at the grownup debate.  Cruel...but fair.

Fuck you, CNBC.  I'll use whatever hashtag I want!  You're not the boss of me.

Also, full disclosure.  I was born in Colorado.  My aunt and grandparents lived in Boulder for many years, and I have several relatives who live in the state to this day.  It is s lovely place and deserves better than this.  

Act I:

No opening statements.  You lose Trump!

John Harwood: Show me your asses in 3...2...1...

John Kasich:  I'm most qualified to be up here because everyone else up here is fucking insane.

Jeb Bush:  I can't fake anger.  I can't fake anything.  For example, I have a tiny boner right now and can't pretend otherwise.

Donald Trump:  I trust too much and then I avenge myself brutally on everyone who slights me.  Looking at you, Carson.

Ben Carson:  I can't see myself in the mirror.  It's weird.  I can see Reagan though.

Carly Fiorina:  People say I'm a humorless monster.  Most people.  Ok...everyone.

Ben Carson:  Not mirror Reagan!  Mirror Reagan loves everyone.

Ted Cruz:  I won't get drunk with you but I will haul your unconscious body out to my car and drive you away into the night.  

Chris Christie:  I know many words ending with "ist"!  Did I win?

Rand Paul:  I will filibuster my ass off.

John Harwood: Are you a cartoon Donald Trump?  Like Skeletor or Scooby Doo?

Donald Trump:  Larry Kudlow loves my plan you pissy child.  And we can build a wall, easy.

John Harwood:   You'll create a zillion dollar deficit.  

Jeb Bush: I must interrupt... (fails to interrupt)

Ben Carson:  I did not call for a 10% tax.  I called for tithing.  Ish.  So maybe 15%.  Something Bible-y.  Also we'll need to cut a lot of agencies I know nothing about and which are funded at levels I don't understand to do things I can't explain.

Becky Quick:  None of that is true.

Ben Carson:  It is true.  Mirror Reagan told me.

John Kasich:  These people are freaks.  Elect me.  I won't scare your grandma.

John Harwood:  Which ones are the freaks?

John Kasich:  All of 'em.  You too Harwood!

Donald Trump:  Kasich got lucky with fracking.  Also he worked at Lehman.  And he promised he'd be nice, but then his poll numbers tanked he got pissy.

Ben Carson: I will do math now.  It will be impressive.  Carry the "3".  Apply the Leviticus constant.

Ted Cruz:  Flat tax bitches!  The billionaires are stake-horsing me and you should to.  Also Reagan!

Carly Fiorina:  Everybody talks about taxes but nobody does anything about it.  I can cut the 73,000 page tax system to 3 in the same way I reformed HP:  drive it into the ground, take the money and scoot.

Carl Quintanilla:  You skip votes, Rubio, and you love immigration.  Why not wait until you get hair in your special places?

Marco Rubio:  The Republican Establishment would love that.

Carl Quintanilla:  Your hometown newspaper says you hate your job,  Do you?

Marco Rubio:  Bob Graham missed a lot of votes.  So did Bob Kerry.  And Obama.  Fucking Liberals.

Jeb Bush:  He was endorsed by the Sun Sentinel.  You're my senator.  So why not show up for work?

Marco Rubio:  You modeled you campaign after John McCain, who skipped the Hell outta votes to run for this office.  Someone told you this would work, Jeb,  That's why you're doing it.

John Harwood:  The GOP has lost it's damn mind.  Does this concern you?

Jeb Bush: No.  The GOP is great.  Low workforce participation.  Liberals love how fucked up everything is.

Becky Quick:  You lost me a fortune, Carly.  So where's my damn money?

Carly Fiorina:  Everybody in IT sucked.  HP was a disaster when I got there.  Tom Perkins says nice things about me now!

Becky Quick:  Tom Perkins believes oyster crackers feed him inside information about life on Alderan.

Carly Fiorina:  Tom who?

Ted Cruz:  You're the problem, Carl Quintanilla!  Liberal media, asking dumbass questions that try to make us fight each other.  And at the Liberal debate, every question was a fawning sop thrown to the Bolsheviks.

Rand Paul:  Politicians take money from Social Security to pay for hookers.

Hey look.  It's Chris Christie.  Well what about that.

Christie:  Government is run by liars and cheaters.  All that's in the Social Security are worthless IOUs.

Those "worthless IOUs" are government bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

Mike Huckabee:  It's your money, old white people!   Also Chris Christie needs to stop eating donuts. 

Chris Christie:  The government stole your money old white people!

Ted Cruz:  Republicans in government suck.  Also we can save Social Security by letting the kids take money out of it.

Mike Huckabee:  They stole your old white people! Just like Bernie Madoff!

Act II:

Becky Quick:  You used the bankruptcy laws, Trump.

Donald Trump:  No.  I used the bankruptcy laws awesomely.

Ben Carson:  Some companies make too much profit.  But what about the people.  The average small manufacturer of anything is being screwed by regulation.   So under President Carson dump all the mercury and PCBs you want, bitches!

Chris Christie:  Hillary Clinton price controls are not the answer. 

John Harwood:  No new taxes right?

Jeb Bush:  Obama got his way.  Bastard!   

John Harwood:  But no new taxes right?

Jeb Bush:  Quit asking me hard questions.

Carly Fiorina lectures on crony capitalism.  And irony dies.  Because it can't afford its prescription drugs anymore.   Carly is really into page numbers.  Small numbers of pages, good.  Large number, bad.  So I guess we can welcome her to our next "Atlas Shrugged" book burning.  

Becky Quick:  You can't balance a checkbook, Rubio.  

Marco Rubio:  I was born a poor black child.  Wait, what?

John Kasich:  I will pass a constitutional amendment to do stuff I want.  Also,  have I mentioned that these people are nuts?

Ted Cruz:  My mom was born a poor black child.  And then Jesus.  And now the dirty Liberals want to ruin the lives of poor women under the Big Gummint Barack O'Commie Hillary Clinton economy.

Carly Fiorina:  Hillary Clinton hates women.  Also most of the jobs that Barack Obama flushed down the crapper during the Great Bush Recession belonged to women.  Also I don't understand linear time.

Ben Carson:  The constitution protects everyone.  Even the gays,  Also marriage is only between one man and one woman.   The fact that you can't reconcile those two just shows that PC culture and Liberals are ruining this country.

Ben Carson:  I never did nothing.  I wasn't involved in an organization that paid me to speak.  

Act III

Marco Rubio:  To eliminate unfairness in the tech industry we need more regulations.  Also we need less regulation.  And more training.

driftglass:  Training...like the programs that Barack O'Commie has been advocating for the last seven years?

the 1 thing that pisses me off from this is that these asshats don't know vocational colleges are thriving in this country! #CNBCGOPDebate

— Jimmy williams (@Jimmyspolitics) October 29, 2015

Becky Quick:  You talked some shit about Mark Zuckerberg.

Donald Trump: No I didn't.

Becky Quick:  So where did I get that idea?

Donald Trump:   Fuck if I know how where you people get your fictions.  Also I want to mention that I self-fund.  SuperPACs are a scam.  I'm not blaming these people.  Well, I am.  Specifically...everybody.

Marco Rubio:  Liberals have their own SuperPAC called the...mainstream media (meatheads cheeeeer)  Hillary Clinton is a liar!  Benghaaaazi!

Jesus Haploid Christ, Rick Fucking Santelli?  Really?  Why not Alec Jones?  Why not Space Ghost on a three-day bender?

Ben Carson:  I was wrong about my position about oil subsidies.  We would all do much better if every single regulation and every single government function wandered off into the woods and died. 

Becky Quick:  Income inequality?

Mike Huckabee:  Government is a blimp full of hot air and communists.  People are hurting.  If we cure lots of diseases that'd be great!

John Harwood:  Why would you tax labor more that rich people?

Jeb Bush:  We need to radically change stuff.  Under Barack Obama everything is awful.

John Harwood: Your tax plan bites zombie ass.  The Tax Foundation said after-tax income would go up for the rich and the middle class would get screwed.

Marco Rubio:  The guy who does my dry-cleaning disagrees with you.  And I don't tax investments at all.

Rand Paul:  My tax plan gets rid of all payroll tax and screws the middle class behind the barn, safely out of sight.  Hastert-Style!

Ted Cruz:  I will now demonstrate my mad filibuster skillz

Carl Quintanilla:  Weed! And taxes.

John Kasich:  I worry about the kids OD-ing on the funny jazz cigarettes.  Kids need tax cuts.  Errybuddy knows that.  Now where is my goddamn Harvey Wallbanger.  Also Reagan!

Act IV

Becky Quick:  Here's the quote that proves you were lying Mr. Trump.

Donald Trump:  Meh.

Carl Quintanilla:  You carry a gun,  Mr.  Trump.  Are you cool with your employees packing?

Donald Trump:   The sickos look around for gun-free zones.  I carry, but I like to be unpredictable.  And my people can carry if they wanna.

Carl Quintanilla: Currently you don't allow that.

Donald Trump:  Meh.

Carl Quintanilla: Mike Huckabee, does Donald Trump have the moral authority to be president?

Mike Huckabee:  What a cheap question.  I'm wearing Trump-brand ties and Trump-brand nipple clamps right now.   Deal with that,  Donald Trump would be a better president all day and twice in Sunday that Hillary Clinton.  I fought the Clinton machine every day for the last 20 years,  And lived to tell about it.  Unlike Vince Foster.  Who she killed.  So she could have lesbian scissor sex and then watch Murricans dies in Benghaaaazi.   With Sidney Blumenthal.  Who is a Jew.

Chris Christie:  May I add that Obama hates cops.

Jeb Bush:  I'm dyin' out here so let me just say, Liberals, Big Gummint and student debt.  Now having trashed regulation, I will propose more regulation.

Chris Christie:  What the Hell are we doing talking about fantasy football.  Let's get back to talking about donuts and cops.

John Harwood:  So you want the government to invest in energy?

Chris Christie:  Shut up, Harwood.  The government is completely incapable of solving any problem anywhere so please let me to run it.

Rand Paul:  The only way to fix Social Security is to have old people work in jobs that no longer exist until they drop.

Act V

Mike Huckabee:  You want to drive costs down?  Magically fix all diseases.  Boom.  Done.  Next issue.

Jeb Bush:  The poors will do better with me.  Please vote for me, poors.

Donald Trump:  We're going to bring jobs back.  Cut costs.  Save Social Security.  And alla that other stuff.

John Kasich:  In my state we used technology to save Medicare.  It's called SkyNet.  Look it up!

Rand Paul:  People who want to do nothing aren't cool.  There is no money anywhere anymore.

John Harwood:  You said you would like to replace Medicare with piggy banks.

Ben Carson:  I want to give people the option of opting out of Medicare in favor of piggy banks.

Chris Christie:  Ben is right.  If we send more money to Washington, they'll use it to kill us all and give free stuff to Those People.

Marco Rubio:  The GOP is blessed to have so much awesome.  And as long as we don't screw the olds, we can definitely screw the poors.

Final Statements:

Rand Paul:  I want a government so small that my tiny penis looks like Godzilla next to it.

Chris Christie:  Are you fed up... with mashed potatoes and bile..,like me.  Deadly serious.  Deadly.

Ted Cruz:  Everyone here talks about nuking Washington from space and mowing down the survivors with machine guns...

Carly Fiorina:  Nothing ever changes, which is why we need someone to do to Washington what I did to HP.  I am Hillary Clinton's nightmare.

You are everyone's nightmare, honey.  A preening, incompetent parasite who isn't satisfied to loot-and-scoot with other people'd money, but wants to prance back over the blood and rubble she left behind with a bucket of whitewash and get away with it.

Ben Carson:  Thanks everyone.  Especially Mirror Reagan.  I love you Jesus!

Donald Trump:  We used to win like motherfuckers.  Me and Ben told these idiots at CNBC to shaddap and cut this down to two hours.   And they did.  And that's what I will do for Murrica.

Marco Rubio:  My parents...

Jeb Bush:  Crossroads.  DC politicians.  The culture in Washington.  I will unify.  Leftovers from my idiot brother's 2000 stump speech.  Imagine a country where people are amazing enough to forget my name is "Bush".

Mike Huckabee:  I know the media thinks this is a big joke.  But I do not want to walk my five grand-kids through the charred remains of Murrica.

John Kasich:  I was on Morning Joe the other week...

So was Ron Fournier, Bill Kristol and Donald Trump 72 times, Kasich.  This is not the resume-builder you think it is.

Now it belong to the ages.
And the spin rooms.

In the end, Jeb! could find no footing for his candidacy that Rubio did not already occupy.  The student overtook the teacher.


Jeb! may linger because he has a mountain of money and family retainers behind him, but there is no case to be made to anyone as to why.

From Brother Charlie Pierce:

...But, mainly, Rubio will be thought a winner because it's plain now, if it wasn't plain before Wednesday night, that Jeb! has had whatever little heart he had for this whole enterprise when it began cut out of him as the his campaign has stumbled along. Even his attempt to be lighthearted about the issue of online daily fantasy sports gambling–which he correctly called "day-trading without regulation"–got stomped all over by Christie, who was mad that they were talking about fantasy football and not about how he, Chris Christie, is personally going to defeat ISIS and al Qaeda by telling them to sit down and shut up. He will keep creaking along because he has enough money to do so, but, right now, Jeb! can't even summon the energy to be paranoid about the media. If he can't do that, he has no future in the illusory landscape of conservative politics, where every microphone has fangs, and where Rick Santelli is a liberal mole.

Fiorina is headed for the exits sooner or later: her one predicate for running -- business competence -- was effectively set on fire and left to burn.  So unless she finds another national platform to tell whoppers about baby parts I can't see any path for her though the wilderness.

And overall the entire field finally remembered the most important political truth of our parlous times: nobody on the Right ever went broke pointing at Democrats and screaming "Commie!" and blaming the "liberal media" for the fact that they can no longer hide their raging moral lycanthropy.

In post-game news the Right continues to carve out its own brains and feed it to itself Hungry Hungry Hannibal Lecter-style:

Look in the mirror before you blame, RNC. RT @Reince: CNBC should be ashamed of how this debate was handled. #GOPDebate

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 29, 2015

Click below to support my fundraiser.