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GOP Contest Rattled Before SC Primary as Perry Exits, Newt’s Ex-Wife Speaks Out, Santorum Takes Iowa
Republican presidential candidates gathered in Charleston, South Carolina, Thursday night for their final debate before Saturday’s primary. The debate capped a busy day that saw the departure of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rick Santorum’s defeat of Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucus recount, and new details of Newt Gingrich’s infidelities during his second marriage. We air clips from the debate and speak to Kevin Alexander Gray, a civil rights activist and community organizer in South Carolina, and Wayne Slater, a senior political writer at the Dallas Morning News and author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential.”
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Ahead of South Carolina Primary, GOP Candidates Employ Race-Baiting Tradition to Win Southern Vote
Leading up to the South Carolina primary, several Republican presidential candidates have been criticized for comments made over issues of race. This week Newt Gingrich defended his description of President Obama as “the food stamp president,” while offering praise for President Andrew Jackson, the architect of the Indian Removal Act. We speak to South Carolina civil rights activist Kevin Alexander Gray and longtime political reporter Wayne Slater about how Republicans have adopted the long-held “Southern strategy” of race baiting in order to win over bigoted white voters. “Democrats come here to get their black ticket punched. Republicans come here to punch black people,” Gray says. includes rush transcript-partial
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Tariq Ali: Obama’s Expansion of Af-Pak War “Has Blown Up in His Face”
Amid ongoing U.S.-Pakistani tensions and fears of a military coup in Pakistan, we are joined by British-Pakistani political commentator, historian, activist, filmmaker and novelist Tariq Ali. Ali discusses Pakistan’s internal turmoil, as well as Pakistani attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy, the GOP presidential contest, and the prospect of a military strike against Iran. “Pakistanis are basically suffering because Obama, arrogantly, escalated the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and thought he could get away with it. That has now blown up in his face,” Ali says. Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.
2012-01-20 13:00:00 – RF/Democracy Now!
