LIVEBLOGGING: FRED-LESS

9:00 PM "Tossing fish" seems like a great metaphor for some kind of political activity. Perhaps involving Larry Craig.

9:01 PM Full disclosure: SwampHusband and I warmed up for this by watching "The Hills." A burning question: Is Spencer more like Mitt or Rudy? Is Brody Fred? Talk amongst yourselves.

9:02 PM Can Brownback look both moral and rakish? Can Duncan Hunter look like less like a hall monitor?

9:03 PM Britt Hume seems "exceptionally perky," notes an operative. "Perhaps because he's surrounded by white people." CONSERVATIVE white people.

9:05 PM Huckabee knocks the Thompson question out of the park: basically, "we're running for president and we're acting like it." McCain also very good: "Maybe we're up past his bedtime." Also, a not-very-subtle acknowledgment that "those unsuccessful presidential candidates from Arizona." The Romney President-a-tron 3000 uses a joke he's most recently used in the obscure venue of the Washington Post. Rudy works in the first Law and Order joke. Drink!

9:09 PM Wallace wants to know why Romney didn't "catch" the illegal immigrants mowing his front lawn. I want to know who's mowing Chris Wallace's front lawn.

9:11 PM Giuliani's tan disturbs me more than his position on illegal immigration.

9:13 PM McCain gets to relive his glorious "Mitt wants to chase the illegal immigrants off his lawn" moment. Huckabee stands beside the assertion that some opponents to immigration are, basically, racist. Uhm, wow. I'm sure Brit Hume is offended. Now he's saying immigrant tracking should be "outsourced to FedEx." Because that's not dehumanizing... Oh, wait, Tancredo's up. And now I understand what Huckabee was talking about.

9:17 PM Tom Trancredo wants to feel the other candidates' hearts. He means that literally.

9:17 PM Wallace asks Hunter about completing the border fence. How will Hunter do that? Well, he does have a tiny model! He's anti-straggly fence! It's a DOUBLE FENCE. HIS FENCE IS BIG AND STRONG. And exists entirely in his mind.

9:19 PM Carl Cameron is clearly a re-animated corpse. Not so ANTI STEM CELL, ARE WE, CARL? Notes an operative: "the NH police are overwhelmed with all the immigrants from ... Canada?"

9:23 PM Romney appears wrinkled. Is it time for the fresh application of lacquer?

9:24 PM CRAIG QUESTION! Brownback says Craig as already "pulled that trigger" when it comes to "second thoughts." Heh, heh. Craig wishes.

9:25 PM Shorter Brownback: Just because some of us are gay doesn't mean that we shouldn't be homophobic.

9:27 PM Karen notes that everyone is all about "itchin'" to ask questions. It appears to be contagious and possibly related to West Nile Virus.

9:28 PM "I recognize that for some people abortion is murder," says Romney. "However, those people alone can't get me elected." An operative writes: "romney has a three-legged stool on abortion ... without three different positions, a Republican cant get elected."

9:29 PM Huckabee will protect all fetuses in coal mines.

9:30 PM Thompson wants to arm students to protect us from the next Virginia Tech. Giuliani actually sounds sane on this, perhaps because he realizes how bad it would be if someone with his temper had a gun.

9:32 PM Ron Paul doesn't think the government should protect us from terrorists. This is what's known as "going down the libertarian rabbit hole," which, coincidentally, is another slang term for an activity well known to Larry Craig.

9:34 PM Gotta love the Granite State for supporting people "being able to marry whoever they want." Marry free or die.

9:39 PM Shorter John McCain: Mayor Giuliani did a great job on 9/11. Period.

9:40 PM More McCain: IRAQIRAQIRAQIRAQ. Because I understand that's popular.

9:41 PM Giuliani: "I'm not running on what I did on September 11th. I'm running on what I LIED about what I did on 9/11."

9:42 PM PATRAEUS REPORT! DRINK! Romney speculates "we won't have a permanent role," if, you know, you consider "until the end of time" the definition of permanent. He also seems confused. Needs to update his firmware. Also: PRETTY SURGE. PRETTY PRETTY SURGE!

9:45 PM McCain tells New Hampshirians, that, when it comes to Iraq, he "shares their anger and their frustration and their failure." Whoa, talk about straight talk. (Actually he had a nice Romney smack as well, defending the actual surge, rather than the pretty pretty Romney version, a "Ron Paul moment" notes a pal.)

9:47 PM Ron Paul gets his own Ron Paul moment: "cakewalkbloodbathslamdunk," those are the ones responsible for the failure.

9:49 PM Karen notes this may be an unprecedented number of candidates NOT WEARING FLAGS on their lapels. WHY DO THEY HATE AMERICA?

9:51 PM Second shout-out from a fellow candidate to John McCain. That, ahem, is how you can tell he's losing.

9:53 PM "Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor," says Huckabee. It's a nice thought, but I worry that the Republicans have already lost both and therefore don't worry about the actual lives...

9:57 PM Carl Cameron is high. I hope.

9:57 PM Wow, there's a lot of law enforcement officials in that diner. Too bad for Carl! But a great night to commit a crime!

9:58 PM Romney getting called out for comparing his sons' campaigning for him with "service" to the country. Now Romney referencing "broken pottery." And SURGE! SURGE! Who's a good widdle surge! Who's a good surge! McCain literally making fists while Romney talks. Will totally rip his circuit boards out behind the scenes...

10:01 PM Romney says "if you will" more often than one of the "Queer Eye" guys. I'm just saying. He also smiles no matter what he's saying, including his enthusiastic endorsement of wiretapping churches and mosques. I've already gotten in trouble for getting into a theological debate about him, but, I have to say, I think there are some religious philosophers -- and, you know, Americans -- who might have trouble with that. We may hate terrorists, but we love to sin. Insert your own Larry Craig joke here.

10:04 PM McCain good, as always, on torture. Classily acknowledges Huckabee's shout-out, too. That's how you can tell he hasn't completely lost.

10:07 PM Hunter just declared that the Bush administration is TOO LIBERAL. He's totally sewn up the Cheney vote. He also just argued that we have to keep Gitmo open because it's .... safer than our standard federal prisons. Ah. I'm not even sure how to respond to that. Let's ask the folks at Gitmo. There may not be as murders there as in other federal prisons, but there's also a lot more innocent people.

10:10 PM Karen says, "huckabee is having a good night, though. don't know if he's convincing anybody to vote for him, but i bet there are a lot of people out there who are deciding they want to marry him." I would, at least, dance with him. If he believed in dancing.

10:10 PM McCain, pledges? He don't need no stinking pledges! Stupid tax cuts are pretty much the same as stupid spending increases. And pledges are for tables.

10:14 PM Giuliani brags about lowering taxes in New York, which is nice, but a little like increasing chastity in a whore house. Speaking of, an operative asks: "rudy giuliani hesitant to make, uhm, vows, you say...." No, no, just hesitant to keep them!

10:18 PM Wait, if we institute the "fair tax," we get rid of hookers and drug dealers? Then what's the point?

10:19 PM Ten more minutes. There is a god!

10:20 PM They always cut to Rudy when Ron Paul gets worked up. It's true that Rudy's expression is the best case for a gun ownership waiting period that any Republican has ever made.

10:21 PM I think Rudy just argued, "you look into people's private life to see how they'll behave in public life, but you don't need to look into mine." It's true, he's never lied about his private life. Just his leadership after 9/11.

10:26 PM Let's throw some fish.

10:26 PM Brit Hume is talking about invading Iran. He must be glad to be sitting down.

10:27 PM Ron Paul and his adorable attachment to the Constitution. Next!

10:28 PM Tom Tancredo feels there is no option but to KILL THEM ALL. "We don't immediately go to war...but action must be taken." Also, "political correctness will get us all killed." Apparently, women's studies programs mean we will all die. Glad I went to U of C!

10:30 PM Hunter would like us to stop all this horseplay before someone pokes an eye out.

10:31 PM Huckabee rejects hypotheticals, because it would necessitate imagining that he could be president.

10:33 PM Brownback needs some Visine. He's all squinty.

10:33 PM Giuliani offers props to McCain again. I'm sorry, John... Also: "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot." Yeah, just by wildly overestimating the warmaking capacities of the USSR! Not that such thinking is what I would want anyone to emulate.

10:36 PM Romney is very good at charades.

10:38 PM McCain would employ some of Reagan's methods. Like luck, I guess... nah, he won. For what that's worth.

10:38 PM I'm suing Fox for every second of my life I had to spend on this longer than the 90 minutes I promised my boss. Please text your vote for Ron Paul to Fox, just to piss off Sean Hannity.