obama did. it was pretty vanilla as far as the republicans were concerned, i thought, tonight. they were lacking the devil in the detail of what they wanted to do. joan walsh, michael dyson, we ll have much more on the debate coming up. gerald bernstein will be here to discuss the economic solutions presented tonight. later, robert gibbs joins us from manchester. stay with us, we re right back. [ motor starts ] your finances can t manage themselves. but that doesn t mean they won t try. bring all your finances together
than to play the blame game? that s what they do best. i wanted newt to get to that american exceptionalism that he always talks about. here s mitt romney. this is his take on what is wrong with america and what we have to do about jobs. as i went around the world, this is an important topic. i went around the world. you can tell how to get jobs going in this country and president obama has done it wrong, and the idea as tim described, those are in the right wheel house. see right there, mr. romney, you had an opportunity at the top of the show to say, i want to get capital to the little guy. i want to give capital to small businesses because small businesses really is the backbone of the american economy. 75% of jobs in this country come from small businesses. we ve got tight credit so much and none of this was acknowledged tonight by the republicans. none of it. and then, of course, the term middle class never came up. but i will give credit to tim pawlenty.
us who scored very well tonight, joan walsh, your thoughts. since there are two primaries going on for the republicans, i ll have to name two winners. you ve really got the far right unlike in 2008 has several candidates and i think that side of the primary, i think michele bachmann did the best. partly because she didn t totally embarrass herself. sometimes they had a little bit more than surface to them and then on the other side the kind of primary for the people who might used to formally have been moderate and reasonable. i think the winner there was mitt romney. i think pawlenty lost the minute he refused to confront mitt to his face about his insults and i think that you saw those two
about the debate. this is the ed show. let s get to work. what this president has done has slowed the economy. we need a new president in the obama depression. this president is a declinest and he views america as one of equals around the world. this president has failed. what has happened in this administration is that they have pressed oppressive policy and oppressive regulation after obama care being first and foremost. as president of the united states, i will not rest until i repeal obama care. it s a promise, take it to the bank, cash the check. i ll make sure that that happens. that was the central theme of the night for the republicans. obama has overreached on health care and has underachieved on jobs. that s nothing new. what else was not new. they don t have any solutions to problems facing this country. and, you know, i was waiting for the small business pitch.
health care plan obamnicare. when he was asked about it during tonight s debate, pawlenty got a little stage fright while standing right next to the former massachusetts governor. president obama stood before the nation in 2008 and said he promised to do health care reform focused on cost containment, along with republicans. heeds he d do it on a bipartisan bases the question is why obamnicare? this is another example of him breaking his promise. you don t want to address why you called it obamneycare. what are the similarities between the two and i cited president obama s own words that looked to massachusetts as a blue print or a guide when he designed obama care. fair enough, but you chose those words. one of my questions is, why would you chose those words?