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Mitt Romney thinks America would be stronger if gay people didn’t raise kids, and four other reasons to be glad you didn’t watch the ABC News New Hampshire GOP debate.

1). Mitt Romney Can’t Defend Being a Job Cremator – After being attacked by Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich for making his fortune by killing jobs, Mitt Romney stuck to and doubled down on his claim that he created 100,000 net jobs while at Bain, but Paul Krugman and The Washington Post already have debunked this claim.

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This week Krugman wrote,

Well, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post got an answer from the Romney campaign. It’s the sum of job gains at three companies that Mr. Romney “helped to start or grow”: Staples, The Sports Authority and Domino’s. Mr. Kessler immediately pointed out two problems with this tally. It’s “based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain,” and it “does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved.” Either problem, by itself, makes nonsense of the whole claim.



2). When Given A Chance To Discuss Racist Newsletters, Ron Paul Rants On The Drug War- When Ron Paul was asked about racist news letters that went out under his name 20 years ago, he didn’t answer the question, or talk about his own feelings on race. Instead, he went the Glenn Beck route and claimed that Martin Luther King was his hero, and then pivoted to a rant about how real racism is found in the judicial system, and how war hurts minorities more than whites. While those are both good points, Dr. Paul had a chance to put this to bed in front of a national TV audience, who may not want to look up his previous answers to this question, and instead dodged the question.



3). Mitt Romney Claims America Is Better Off When Gays Don’t Raise Kids – As the candidates debated a question from a viewer that asked what they would tell gay people who want to build loving committed relationships with one another, Mitt Romney tried to walk the line between being a moderate and appealing to the gay hating right. Romney finally said that America is better off when children in this country are raised by a man and a woman. Romney even went as far as to claim that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married, but they should be allowed to enter into “contracts” with each other.





4). Rick Perry Wants To Send Troops Back To Iraq Right Now- The other Republican candidates refused to commit to sending troops back to Iraq right away, but a desperate Rick Perry said he would, “send troops back into Iraq, because I will tell you I think we start talking with the Iraqi individuals there, the idea that we allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country with all of the treasure both in blood and money that we have spent in Iraq because this president wants to kowtow to his liberal leftist base and move out those men and women.” (That’s just what this race has been missing an extreme blood thirsty war monger).

5). Mitt Romney Lies About The Benefits Of His Tax Plan For The Middle Class- Mitt Romney was doing the best he could to sell his Bush tax cut on steroids plan to the middle class by actually claiming that his plan would provide tax relief to the middle class, but according to Mother Jones, ” For the 95% of us who earn less than $100,000, his plan is almost laughably tilted toward the plutocrat set. There’s just no way for him to pretend that he really cares about the middle class. But for the plutocrat set itself, his plan seems downright miserly compared to the rest of the GOP field.”

Here’s the chart from Mother Jones:

Winners and Losers:

Winners:

1). Rick Santorum- Santorum got his turn in the spotlight tonight, and for this reason alone he is a winner. Santorum toned down the right wing rhetoric and when Romney tried to use the Bush line about listening to the generals, Santorum smacked him down by telling him that presidents have to make decisions.

2). Ron Paul- This debate was the first one in either of Paul’s last two presidential campaigns where he directly took on the candidates, and he took fire from his opponents. Ron Paul is now being taken seriously, and he met with constant criticism from Santorum who is trying to work himself into the number two position in he race. The big news for Paul is that he is no longer being ignored and treated like a fringe candidate.

3). Mitt Romney- Every debate that goes by where his opponents try to take down each other and don’t focus on him is a win for Romney. As far as his performance goes, it was the usual wishy-washy half baked truth from the GOP frontrunner. Romney performances in these debates make it easy to see why Republican voters are so lukewarm on him.

Losers:

1). Rick Perry- Perry was reduced to playing the Michele Bachmann role in of guest on stage pundit. The Texas Governor was asked who had the better of the argument while the candidates discussed whether or not troops should be sent back into Iraq. Perry has gone from leader to invisible. He looks like the next candidate to quit the race.

2). Newt Gingrich- Gingrich has basically fallen off the map. He promised to go after Romney, but got into a feud with Paul over military service. Gingrich has returned throwing red meat to the base by talking about media bias and attacking moderators, but it is too little too late. Newt is slipping into also ran status.



3). Jon Huntsman- Huntsman got plenty of airtime, but for a candidate trying to make his one and only stand, the former Utah governor did little to differentiate himself from Romney. Huntsman did nothing to dispel the notion that he is nothing more than Romney lite.



Final Verdict: A few initial moments of fireworks gave way to an extreme dullness where everyone on the stage not named Ron Paul seems to be competing to be Mitt Romney’s running mate. Romney’s performance was so flat that he was at time quoting his stump speech to answer debate questions. Perry looks like a dead candidate walking, and Gingrich may be joining him soon. Mitt Romney would love to run against Ron Paul, because Republicans will never support the Texan. This debate was so boring that NBC News has decided that America needs to see more of these also rans tomorrow morning at 9 AM (ET).

Barack Obama should sleep well. It appears that the GOP frontrunner is made of tissue paper, because of his fellow Republicans are afraid he will fall to pieces if they tear into him.