I'm gearing up for today's debate here at home, and hope you'll be tuning in later on also.

Needless to say, this is going to be a big one, because Fred is participating. It's on economic issues, and Fred generally has a lot to say here. He's quite good at railing against extravagant spending, and big, bulky entitlements like Medicare Part D and Social Security. So, I think this could be good for him-- as long as he adjusts the monotone, and comes off as a wee bit more energetic than normal.

The real action I'm anticipating at the debate will be between Rudy and Romney. Romney, inexplicably, has decided to go after Rudy tons on economic issues in recent weeks. This is despite the fact that, in my estimation, Rudy's strongest card is his record on taxes and spending (not as his campaign seems to think, 9/11), and (as CATO's rating of him makes clear, as does what they've actually written in their assessment of him, at page 26, here) despite the fact that Romney has some serious weaknesses in this area. Remember: Bill Richardson, a Democrat with a Democratic legislature, did better than him with money, according to CATO.

Watch for Romney to attempt to kick the crap out of Giuliani and portray him as a tax-and-spend liberal (which he's not, and which Romney is much closer to being), Giuliani to probably focus on beating up Democrats (which will probably make Romney look desperate and pathetic, but might make Giuliani look unwilling to argue-- not a good thing, in my book), Romney to beat up some more, McCain to weigh is as Mr. Anti-Pork and chief Romney-taker-downer (I suspect mainly on his own behalf, but possibly also a little on Giuliani's, unwittingly, given their closeness), and then for Giuliani to really let Romney have it if he carries on (which I kind of hope he does-- just bec...

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... and Fred just stumbled on the word "recession," which he seems to have forgotten. But, he has leapt into talking about excessive spending, which I appreciate. Sadly, he doesn't seem to be doing much of a good job at explaining why so many people think that we're headed into a recession.

Oh-- Romney thinks it's everyone's duty to solve the problem of large numbers of home foreclosures in Michigan, including the government's. He is giving a lot of good Michigan-specific chat, though, and I expect that will play well.

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And Romney just pulled the protectionist line about embedded tax breaks (sounds a lot like "let's penalize the foreigners" to me).

And Rudy's on to bashing Democrats. And introducing his disgruntlement at the Yankees result into the debate, too. Good stuff.

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Ron Paul's talking gold standard, which no one except for him and five other people get. However, I still think he's doing a better job of explaining why 2/3 think we're heading into a recession than Fred did. Oh-- and he's managed to bring it all back to foreign policy. Whoopee!!

Paul just got a big round of applause, too!

McCain's talking jobs, and getting on to health care and Social Security. Smart stuff, but McCain sounds a little shaky. He's on to pork, as well, and what the President should veto-- good stuff-- and how stupid it is that we want to take care of kids while getting people to smoke. I am not sure that him saying that the tax system is fair is a good idea, though-- Michigan strikes me as a little more economically populist than Arizona.

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Huckabee's talking fair tax. I still think this is a bit of a foil to distract from his weak economic record, but he makes it sound good. Huckabee is doing a good job of tapping into angst about the economy, too, which-- although this is playing on CNBC and I wouldn't expect that constituency to dig Huckabee-- seems like something that's going to work ...

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