Dear Commons Community,

Last night ABC hosted another debate of the Republican presidential candidates.  Recaps can found at the New York Times and Huffington Post. 

The biggest surprise was that most analysts expected the candidates to attack the front-runner Mitt Romney.  This did not happen except when Newt Gingrich raised the nature of Romney’s years with Bain Capital (Romney started this company and was its CEO).   Bain bought-out existing firms with money mostly leveraged/borrowed against their assets, partnering with existing management to apply the “Bain way” to their operations, and then selling them off in a few years.   Sometimes these buy-outs worked for the better for these companies and sometimes they  led to bankruptcies resulting  in large-scale layoffs of workers.

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum went head to head on a number of issues including gay marriage, foreign affairs and the fact that Santorum has made a lot of money as a lobbyist since losing his U.S. Senate seat.

Ron Huntsman was the most statesmen like and strong on foreign affairs especially in a give and take on trade and China.

Rick Perry was basically a non-entity.

The debate gave voters  more grist for the mill for the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

Tony