After all four of the men entered the stage for the last debate before Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary voting, the CNN and Southern Republican Leadership Conference hosted debate started out withe the playing of the national anthem.  The four men, Rick Santorum–former U.S. Senator, Mitt Romney–former Massachusetts Governor, Newt Gingrich–former Speaker of the House, and Ron Paul–U.S. Representative stood with their hands placed over their hearts as the song played.  Of course after the song ended, the questions started coming.

One question addressed to all four of the candidates asked them how they would have run their campaigns knowing what they now know, or if they had any campaign regrets.  Of course they do, right?

Rick Santorum did not have any regrets, nor did he have anything that he would have changed if he could.  His reason was that he did something that he did not foresee happening, standing in the final four.

“Someone who had no money, who lost his last race, who everyone basically ignored as I travelled around South Carolina, Iowa, and New Hampshire, and just talked to people–700 town hall meetings,” he said.  ”And it proved that good ideas and hard work still pay off in America.”

Ron Paul, who has been known to confuse people here and there said that he wished he would have better articulated his ideas and points.

Mitt Romney wanted more votes in Iowa saying, “I’d have worked to get 25 more votes in Iowa, that’s for sure.”  The only problem with that statement is that even with those 25 more votes he still would not have beat out Santorum who won by 34 votes.  Therefore, Romney would have required at least 35 more votes.

Newt Gingrich looked back on his campaign and decided that if he could have, he would have changed the first three months of how he did things.  According to him, he tried to hard to be a traditional candidate which did not speak to the reality of the type of candidate he really is.

First off, let us make one thing clear:  Michelle Bachman is not going to be the next president of the United States.  Both in the polls, and the following infographic, she simply hasn’t got the support needed to sustain a valiant effort against Obama in 2012.  At the top of our list is Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor with great business sense and a keen self marketing strategy.  Take a look.

The Occupy Wall Street protests were started by a Canadian activist group called Adbusters, whose biggest gripes are social and economic inequality, corporate greed, corruption and the financial sector’s strong influence over government, and the exertion of control lobbyists have over politicians. The rallying cry for the entire movement, “We are the 99%”, refers to a statistic stating that all of the wealth in the US is owned by the wealthiest 1% of people, and that the 99% are the people who have been wronged in some way.

What impact will this have on elections?  It all depends on how the politicians respond to the movement, and what they go on the record stating about it.  And it depends on the wider public’s overall opinion of the protests, which are so loosely organized that it’s hard to tell what any one city’s group is complaining about at a given time.  To help clear up the mystery surrounding the protests, here is an infographic that might shed some light:

There seems to be less and less enthusiasm for Perry’s candidacy. On the other hand, businessman Herman Cain received a standing ovation after speaking. Even when organizers informed him he was almost out of time, the crowd roared that he should keep going.

One woman interviewed said she was a “huge Perry fan” before the Tuesday debate.

“Not anymore,” she said, after watching Perry’s continual interruptions of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney during a heated discussion of immigration.

“The president of the United States has to be someone who has the courtesy to let other people speak, and he has demonstrated without a doubt that he does not,” she said.

Romney,long  considered a strong favorite in Nevada, where he easily swept the 2008 Republican caucus, was generally well received, but now is a hot recipe for disaster. Herman Cain, who proposed once more a bold plan involving “throwing out the current tax code, throw it out,” was rewarded with uproarious applause.

Rivals disputed Cain’s  9-9-9 tax plan, asserting that it would mean higher taxes for most people. Cain responded that it simply isn’t true, and that he invites Americans to do their own math to see the truth of the matter.  Still, there are some valid concerns about his plan.  With a 9% federal sales tax, where does this leave the states, who have sales taxes of their own in place as a primary means of revenue?  Will Americans want to pay as much as 16% total in sales taxes?  Can they afford it?

The main message to walk away with is that Perry has blown his shot at candidacy.  Mitt Romney won the debate.

The Republican campaign landscape has already begun to change to reflect the most recent announcements from potential party candidates who may seek the party’s endorsement for the 2012 Presidential Election.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney started up a campaign swing across New Hampshire on Wednesday, where he picked up several key endorsements. He also picked up steam  in the first-caucus state of Iowa.  Romney also attracted the backing of Vin Weber, the former Minnesota congressman and prominent Washington lobbyist who once served as national co-chairman of former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign.  Since Pawlenty dropped out of the race on August 14, Romney has gained many of Pawlenty’s former supporters.  Weber will be rejoining the Romney team, this time as a special adviser on foreign and economic policy.  During the 2008 campaign for president, he was on Romney’s team in another capacity as well.

Do your part for homeland security by getting security systems for home.

What does America really think of all this?  Were they outright lies, or merely the well intentioned promises of a dewy-eyed and inexperienced candidate who really was naive enough to believe he could convince congress to do even one thing he wanted done?  Obviously, Obama has been a lame duck.  No one in congress ever intended to let him lead.  When he tried, no one followed.  But that means he is an ineffective leader.  Perhaps that is exactly what Pelosi and Co. were counting on by pushing to get him elected.  What they never anticipated, though, was the backlash during mid-term elections, and that voters would soon see through their rouse.

President Obama’s ratings continue to plummet as well they should, and it’s evident that black voters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama during his 2008 bid for the presidential election with high hopes for Obama’s unfulfilled campaign promises.   It would be particularly interesting to get the follow-up views of black voters as of today.

To see the whole infographic, click it to expand.

Be sure to follow all the lastest on channels on direct tv.

The following is an opinion column by our guest commentator, Winfred Lindley.  Winfred enjoys writing about what she calls “political fire alarms,” or events that should trigger an emergency response from informed voters.

President Obama is a bonehead.  The definition of bonehead, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online is:  a stupid person: numbskull.  Now, before you berate me for using a puerile term to refer to America’s Commander in Chief,

Oh, that’s right.  He doesn’t really command anything.  Let’s try another title.  How about Chief Executive Officer?

But wait, we can’t call him that, either.  Not today, as the economy braces for impact against a double recession, doubled again, with jobs reporting expected to take a massive downward slide yet another time under his watch when July numbers are published in various states later today.  In North Carolina alone, the jobless rate has escalated from 9.7 percent in May to 10.1 percent as of this morning, and analysts say there are thousands upon thousands of jobless North Carolinians who are unaccounted for in the reporting.  The actual rate is probably much higher, more to the tune of 13%.

Yet, President Obama has decided to fly off to Martha’s Vineyard with the fam for a few days of whatever a presidential family does in Martha’s Vineyard during the worst financial crisis to come upon America since the Great Depression.  Why not?  He works hard telling people on “both sides of the isle” to “play nice” and “compromise.”  Nevermind that he is ineffective and can’t get anyone to actually listen to him.  And he works hard calling blue collar workers “stupid,” talking about how things are on some “main street” he has never really seen, insulting people cleaning up after natural catastrophes like the tornadoes in Alabama this Spring, and other such exertions.  I guess that deserves a vacation.

Would it have improved your opinion of Obama if he had chosen not to go on vacation?