Last night's debate, Weiner, and the economy

Warren Smith, Associate Editor of World Magazine and member of the Matt Friedeman Show Brain Trust, on Weiner, the economy, and last night's debate.


Your perspectives on last night's debate?

Well, my perspective is that a number of them looked pretty good.

Bachmann did better for herself than most people did.

Romney was trying to not make a gaffe....I think he generally did that.

If there was a loser, I think it might have been Herman Cain.

Pawlenty had a chance to hang Obamneycare around Romney, and didn't. Is he the loser?

He's got to walk a fairly delicate tightrope right now.

Tim Pawlenty's trying to make himself seen as a non-everybody else.

If Mitt Romney's going to be knocked off the top perch, his opponents will have to go after him. Will they?

One of the thing Tim Pawlenty's facing right now is some poll numbers that nobody in New Hampshire knows about him.

I think he's going to end up on the stump in New Hampshire, in Iowa.

Was this debate too early to matter?

It is early, but it's not as early as it was.

We're now into the summer. People are beginning to start paying attention a little bit more.

This is the time when organizations, when campaigns have to get their staff in place and start raising some serious money.

Even South Carolina, which is a relatively small state, has three major media markets in it...you've got to spend some money there.

Anthony Weiner. Larger lesson to be learned here than we've got a pervert for a congressman?

One lesson we should learn here is that character matters.

Even looking at someone like Newt Gingrich here or Bill Clinton...it's character issues that ultimately bring down these great men.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said we've turned the economy around. Does this sort of rhetoric actually work?

Sometimes it does work. But this time I don't think it will.

If people don't really understand what's going on, that rhetoric might have an influence.

We are not out of the woods in terms of this recession. We look at these massive debts that are ballooning out of control.

I'm hopeful that the truth will win in this particular debate.

The president's saying the recovery's going to take time. By extension that means Bush is still to blame.

Why wouldn't he? If he doesn't, he'll have to accept so much of the responsibility.

I think Barack Obama is a brilliant politician. I am not, candidly, that hopeful that one of these Republicans will knock him off in this election cycle.

I think many people are seeing through what the true cause of these economic problems is.

One piece of this that is true, is that George W. Bush does share some of the blame for these massive debts.

Somebody's gotta take a long, hard look in the mirror...the American people.