Number of times Republican presidential candidates used the word "Reagan" during last night's Fox News debate: 34.
Number of times they used the word "Bush": 1.
Mike Huckabee went out of his way to distance himself from the notion that his presidency would be a continuation of the one belonging to you-know-who, saying that he "wasn't running for this president's third term."
Rudy Giuliani was the man who dared utter the B-word. It came in a sentence about tax cuts: "Tax cutting," Giuliani said, "has been part of the Bush program, the Reagan program, the Kennedy program, and it always led to significant increase in economic activity."
Did somebody say "Reagan"? Giuliani did, 13 times in all.
Number of times Giuliani said "9," "11," or any variation thereof: Exactly none.
Is it possible that, after finishing in the second tier in both Iowa and New Hampshire and becoming a 9/11 wind-up toy for bloggers and comedians, Giuliani has made a conscious decision that not every question can be answered by citing the attacks on America, and that it might be better if some of them weren't?
We report, you decide: When Giuliani was asked last night to respond to John McCain's charge that his 9/11 experience doesn't really amount to having foreign policy credentials, he used much of his time to warn that Democrats would raise people's taxes.
Shares