Slow start today, because it's going to be a long night of live-blogging, the Republican National Committee having declined to find a space for me and my pad and pen among the credentialed media in Boulder. So I'll be here, behind a couple of feet of mahogany at the shebeen, pulling pints and cracking wise like a normal person. However, I would pay cash money if all the CNBC panelists would indulge amply in the libertarian vegetable delights now legal in the great state of Colorado. I mean, how great would it be to see Becky Quick, ripped to the gills on some fine killer Willie's Reserve , asking Dr. Ben (The Blade) Carson why somebody has decided to play him at 16 r.p.m his whole life.

(By the way, if you're looking for tonight's troublemaker, keep an eye on John Harwood, a smart, decent skin who was terrific on The Daily Show last week and, recently, has begun to show evidence that his personal big bag of fcks to give is running extremely low. The way you know this is that his presence on the panel already has the denizens of the monkeyhouse hitting 100 m.p.h. on the radar gun with their poo.)

We can all have fun watching these people talk about the economy, as though anything they say makes any sense, and as though we don't all know what they mean when they talk about "reforming" "entitlements." We can all have fun watching Chris (Amtrak Blues) Christie call other people lazy, and while Marco Rubio talks about how much he hates his day job, and Doctor Ben the Blade explaining the economic views he developed during his childhood sojourns on the Planet Arous. (Please, I beg you all, one of you ask him how this "debt ceiling" thing works—or how "money" works, for that matter.) Carly Fiorina is sinking in the polls and desperate; I suspect we'll be hearing about cannibalism at Planned Parenthood at some point. I don't think even the inherent entertainment value of Donald Trump can top what we're going to get from the other folks on the stage. But, as we know, this debate isn't aimed at us. It isn't even aimed at those mythical critters, the Independent Voters. Who is it aimed at?

It's aimed at the people that Public Policy Polling recently talked to in the newly insane of North Carolina.

Public Policy Polling

OK, let's assume that a generous 10 percent of the respondents said yes just to goof on the question, or because they are thinking wishfully. Let's add another five percent who take the altogether understandable position that the best thing you can do to pollsters is to lie your ass off when they call you, unbidden, at dinnertime. (I usually identify as Inuit, just to see what it does to the future demographic profile of my neighborhood.) That's still a very whopping big number who believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton should be impeached before she ever gets to the inaugural ball. This is, of course, completely bazats on a number of very basic levels. But this is the audience to which this group of candidates will be pitching their ideas on how to best screw up a slowly improving United States economy.



The children are already throwing tantrums about the facilities provided for them at the debate site. (And if this "controversy" isn't the perfect story for Tiger Beat On The Potomac, I don't know what is.) Rand Paul seems particularly miffed that his libertarian brogressive moment seems to have passed without anyone in the country noticing that it ever happened; he'll be holding an extended fundraiser on the floor of the Senate. But, if you're looking for Tomorrow's Headline Today, clap your eyes on John Kasich, currently polling a little above Antarctica.5, is making a vigorous pitch for all of those national political pundits who are casting about to find a way to ignore the fact that the Republican party has become demented.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich offered a blistering assessment of his Republican presidential rivals here Tuesday, on the eve of a debate that presents a make-or-break moment for his candidacy. "Do you know how crazy this election is?" said Kasich, who has presented himself as the grownup in the GOP race. "I've about had it with these people." He mentioned no names, but it was clear that Kasich focused on three of the top GOP contenders: real estate mogul Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "We got one candidate that says we ought to abolish Medicaid and Medicare," Kasich said, an apparent reference to Carson, who has suggested replacing both programs with private savings accounts. "You ever heard of anything so crazy as that?" Carson's proposed 10 percent flat tax also drew ridicule. "We got one person saying we ought to have a 10 percent flat tax that will drive up the deficit in this country by trillions of dollars. ... Why don't we have no taxes? Just get rid of them all, and then a chicken in every pot on top of it." (ED. NOTE: Why does John Kasich hate Ronald Reagan?) Kasich blasted Trump's call to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. "We got one guy," Kasich said, "who says we ought to take 10 or 11 million people ... we're gonna pick them up and we're gonna take them to the border and scream at them to get out of our country? That's just crazy." But Kasich reserved perhaps his most scathing critique for Bush, who often brags that, while governor of Florida, he was known as Veto Corleone because of all the spending requests he sent back. "One of the candidates says he's known as Veto Corleone," Kasich said. "He's so proud of the fact that he vetoes everything. You know what vetoes are? Vetoes are a sign that you can't get what you want."

If Kasich manages to land solid shots on this theme throughout the debate, he will be the unquestioned winner of tomorrow's inevitable Morning Squint primary on MSNBC. Unfortunately for him, nobody yet has found a way to do this without insulting almost every voter in the Republican primary electorate. This is the way politics work in the dungeons of Bedlam.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io