According to CNN, Bachmann’s campaign manager Keith Nahigian walked through the spin room and called Dickerson a “piece of shit.”

Prior to Saturday night’s foreign policy debate in South Carolina hosted by CBS and National Journal, Bachmann spokesperson Alice Stewart was accidentally copied on an email about a post debate webshow hosted by CBS. The email said that Bachmann would not receive the same amount of attention that the frontrunners would due to her low polling numbers.

Here’s a screenshot of the email provided by the Bachmann campaign:

During the debate, campaign manager Keith Nahigian sent a message to Bachmann supporters on Facebook:

“While Michele has been onstage at tonight’s debate demonstrating strong leadership on foreign policy and national security, we received concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already knows – the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative message and limiting Michele’s questions,” he said. “[W]e need to show the liberal media elite that we won’t stand for this outrageous manipulation. Help us fight this affront by sharing this with your friends.”

Nahigian followed that up with an email message to supporters accusing the media of anti-Bachmann bias (Nahigian’s emphasis).

“[W]e will NOT stand for this pathetic attempt by the liberal media to manipulate the Republican primary process by limiting Michele’s conservative message for Republican primary voters,” he wrote. “ALL AMERICANS should be offended by this blatant attempt to manipulate the nominating process. Primaries are about voters, NOT the media elites. This is OUR primary and we will fight this blatant attempt to suppress Michele’s conservative message.”

According to CNN, during the debate, Nahigian ran through the spin room where the media and campaign staffers were gathered and said, “John Dickerson should be fired. He is a piece of shit. He is a fraud and he should be fired.”

After the debate, Bachmann told CNN, “I think it’s only respectful to allow the candidates to be able to speak and not intentionally ahead of time make a decision to limit candidates’ opportunity to speak to the American people. Clearly this was an example of media bias.”

Caldara opens with a new Independence Institute motto: “Come for the public policy, stay for the sexual harassment.” Then he makes some office jokes.

“The Herman Cain sexual harassment accusations just hack me off. What? Do I actually have to run for president to get the women in my office to expose my proficiency in unwelcome snuggling? So far the only person to come forward and accuse me of unwanted advances is our Research Director Dave Kopel. And he’s making half that crap up.”

The Institute is holding an event this month honoring Colorado Springs Gazette conservative politics cartoonist Chuck Assay. The Institute email posts a sample of Assay peer Henry Payne‘s work for the Detroit News, apparently because it advances the sexual harassment comic thread.

On his radio show this week, Limbaugh put on an unwitting clinic in the kind of attitudes legal scholars have been lamenting for years as a hurdle to encouraging victims of sex crimes from leveling charges and testifying against attackers, attitudes that make victims feel sex-tainted and complicit. Limbaugh’s schtick concerning Cain accuser Sharon Bialek included him pronouncing her name “Buy-A-Lick” and slurping into his microphone.

He also mocked accuser Karen Kraushaar for suggesting that the growing number of Cain’s accusers should hold a joint press conference.

“What’s the big deal with the panel here?” he said. “Do they want to synchronize their menstrual periods? Why appear together?”

Republican debate audiences this year cheered Texas Governor Perry for signing off on 230 state executions, they booed a gay U.S. soldier and applauded Cain for saying unemployed Americans should just get a job.

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Previous debates have included gaffes, accusations and outright inaccuracies. We’ll be here, along with our colleagues nationwide at the American Independent News Network, to offer context and analysis.

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After the debate, many moderate Republicans spoke out against the audience’s behavior including Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kriesel who called those who booed “morons.”

Stephen Hill, a gay soldier serving in Iraq, asked the candidates what they would do with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell if they took over the White House. As he did, the audience booed, and Santorum responded that he would reinstate DADT.

Santorum overlooked that a soldier serving in Iraq during a time of war had been disrespected by the audience. That drew a sharp rebuke from Republicans who support LGBT members of the Armed Forces.

“Tonight, Rick Santorum disrespected our brave men and women in uniform, and he owes Stephen Hill, the gay soldier who asked him the question about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, an immediate apology,” said a statement from GOProud, a conservative gay rights group aligned with the tea party. “That brave gay soldier is doing something Rick Santorum has never done – put his life on the line to defend our freedoms and our way of life. It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.

Minnesota state Rep. John Kriesel (R-Cottage Grove) condemned the incident.

He wrote on Twitter:

“Booing a soldier during a time of war?!? A new low. Way to look compassionate Florida Republicans. #morons”

He added:

“If someone is brave enough to risk their life and serve their country in a time of war, let them serve. Who cares if they are gay?!?! How many of those people in the audience at the GOP debate that booed the gay soldier serving in Afghanistan are brave enough to serve??”

Only two of the candidates spoke out against it Thursday night.

“It was unfortunate,” Jon Huntsman told Talking Points Memo. “You know, we’re all Americans, and the fact that he is an American who put on the uniform says something good about him.”

Gary Johnson said, “In my opinion, when you have booing this is not indicative of Republicans,” he said. “This is not the Republican Party that I belong to.”

The former New Mexico governor won the right to participate, according to Fox sources, by cracking 1 percent in the latest five national polls in which he was included—Fox News, CNN, McClatchy-Marist, ABC, and Quinnipiac—which was the criterion the network had set for inclusion.

Talking Points Memo reports Johnson has yet to receive final notification that he will participate in the debate, though he told TPM, “It would be good news if we get it.”

Johnson is a self-identified libertarian who differentiates himself from Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the more popular of the libertarian GOP candidates, with his support for abortion rights and his opposition to the construction of a border fence. He has attended one other GOP debate, where he was asked about his support for drug legalization and discussed his initial opposition to the war in Iraq.

According to Politico, Johnson’s inclusion in the debate came over the objection of the Florida Republican Party, which has excluded him from Saturday’s Florida straw poll.

If he does indeed receive a debate invitation, Johnson will have temporarily left the ranks of presidential candidates who have too little support to gain the valuable national airtime of a debate. These candidates include former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer (R), Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) and California Republican Fred Karger.

FERRECHIO: Governor Romney, turning to you, in 2008, you said you favored allowing American companies to hire more skilled foreign workers. With the unemployment rate now at 9.1 percent, do you still think that employers need to import more foreign labor?

ROMNEY: Well, of course not. We’re not looking to bring people in and — in jobs that can be done by Americans. But at the same time, we want to make sure that America is a home and welcome to the best and brightest in the world.

If someone comes here and gets a Ph.D in — in physics, that’s the person I’d like to staple a green card to their — to their diploma, rather than saying to them to go home.

Instead, we let people come across our border illegally or stay here and overstay their visa. They get to stay in the country. I want the best and brightest to be metered into the country based upon the needs of our employment sector and create jobs by bringing technology and innovation that comes from people around the world.

Romney has used the “stapling a green card” line before many times, both in this campaign and in his 2008 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Despite being the preferred candidate for many immigration enforcement hawks who distrusted Romney’s opponent Sen. John McCain, Romney joined McCain in voicing strong support for giving foreign students at U.S. graduate schools permanent residence.

Indeed, “stapling a green card to their diploma” has become a catchphrase for high-skilled immigration reformers. It’s a policy strongly favored by many Silicon Valley and high-tech firms, whose workforce is disproportionately foreign-born. It’s even inspired the name of a bill, the STAPLE Act, repeatedly introduced by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Flake’s bill, which has both Democratic and Republican cosponsors, grants an exemption to the cap on permanent visas to any Ph.D graduate in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM).

Permanent residency for U.S. Ph.D grads is one of the few policy ideas that establishment Republicans and business lobbies like the Chamber of Commerce see as something that shouldn’t cause much partisan friction and thus can be dealt with on its own. But Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who chairs the immigration subcommittee in the Senate, have rejected the idea of pushing high-skilled immigration reform bills, such as the STAPLE Act, without a comprehensive reform effort that also deals with issues related to low-skilled and undocumented immigration. And many tea party and conservative Republicans reject the idea of any immigration reform, including the STAPLE Act, without further border security measures.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chair of the House immigration subcommittee, this year introduced the IDEA Act, which goes further than the STAPLE Act by expanding permanent residency visas for foreign-born entrepreneurs and STEM workers. Not a single Republican has endorsed Lofgren’s bill.

Nevertheless, Lofgren’s bill has strong support among high-tech companies, which have signaled impatience with the GOP’s current enforcement-only ideology. Unusually, these companies have given more to Democrats than to Republicans, and in particular to Democrats who care about issues such as high-skilled immigration. This can be seen in the strong support Lofgren receives from Silicon Valley: Computer- and internet-related industries were far and away the top donors to her 2010 campaign, and no single House candidate received more from internet-related companies than Lofgren in the 2009-2010 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

It’s clear that among the GOP candidates currently running for president, Romney is Silicon Valley’s pick. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, computer- and internet related industries have donated $145,805 to Romney’s campaign in this election cycle, more than any other candidate except for Barack Obama. But whether Romney will continue to toe the strict “border security first” line that has become a tenet of GOP and tea party orthodoxy by endorsing, even in the smallest way, policy innovations like STAPLE remains to be seen. With the entrance of Gov. Rick Perry (Texas), himself a candidate with an ambiguous history on immigration, into the GOP primary, the question of whether enforcement-only is a necessary position for a GOP presidential candidate may become a salient issue in the weeks and months to come.

Here’s the first exchange the two had, where Pawlenty dinged Bachmann for making false statements and Bachmann attacked Pawlenty for supporting cap and trade:

Immediately following the debate, the Bachmann team released a statement saying simply, “Tim Pawlenty’s executive experience is not an asset if it simply means bigger and more intrusive government.” The campaign included with that statement research painting Pawlenty as a big-government Republican because of his past support for cap and trade and government involvement in health care.

“It shows that we’re gaining traction in Iowa,” Pawlenty campaign manager Nick Ayers.

In another exchange, Pawlenty and Bachmann sparred over the cigarette tax that was passed in 2005 (the exchange begins at the 12-minute mark):

Talking Points Memo took a look at the history of that bill and provides some context:

So what the heck were they talking about? Well, the big heavy lift in the budget deal that ended the shutdown was the cigarette fee. Republicans in the state legislature weren’t any happier about new taxes than Republicans in Congress are today. As a sweetener for wavering conservatives, the health and human services funding bill containing the fee also contained an anti-abortion provision to try and shame women seeking to end their pregnancy. Under the new law, doctors would be required to ask patients more than 20 weeks pregnant seeking an abortion whether they would like to first give their fetus anesthesia before the procedure.

The abortion part of the bill starkly divided state conservative groups: the main anti-abortion group, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, endorsed the health bill. But the main anti-tax group, the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, opposed it. After a vote by Bachmann to strip the bill of the cigarette tax failed 47-19 in the Senate, she ended up voting for the final deal.

Pawlenty’s campaign deflected assertions that he went after Bachmann too hard.

On his blog, Prof. David Schultz of Hamline University notes that Pawlenty has a history of going after female candidates:

The Bachmann/Pawlenty feud is the media highlight of the debate. Both came off looking petty and small. Pawlenty is correct that Bachmann has no real legislative record, Bachmann is correct that Pawlenty has switched on many issues. Leave it there. But both felt they needed to dig at one another, underscoring the deep animosity the two h ave always had toward one another, not only enhanced by their rival Iowa strategies. Yet Pawlenty came off worse. He was given a second chance to criticize Romney and again soft-peddled it. Thus, he was too weak against Romney and too aggressive and petty against Bachmann. This attack reveals a deeper sexism with Pawlenty.

Recall in 2006 his attacks against DFL Lt. Gubernatorial candidate Judy Dutcher when she blanked on a reporter’s question about E85. At one point DFL Gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch stated about Pawlenty: “Look at how desperate he is, he is attacking a woman.” Hatch took heat for that statement but in retrospect he seems prescient. Pawlenty’s sexism is his inability to confront and challenge men, preferring to pick on others he perceives as weak, such as women. This is the the wimp factor.

Pawlenty told Politico after the debate that his attacks on Bachmann had nothing to do with her gender.

Pawlenty said, “It’s not about gender, it’s about the issues. Representative Bachman likes to assign herself the label of leader. Well if you’re going to be a leader, you have to be accountable for results.”

“I, Amy Myers, do hereby challenge Representative Michele Bachmann to a Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics,” Myers wrote, according to a report at City Pages.

Politifact rated Bachmann’s statements about the U.S. Constitution’s census requirements in 2009 as “Pants on Fire” false. CNN’s Anderson Cooper dinged Bachmann back in January for her revisionist history regarding the U.S. Constitution’s racist past.

Here’s Myers’ full letter:

Dear Representative Bachmann,

My name is Amy Myers. I am a Cherry Hill, New Jersey sophomore attending Cherry Hill High School East. As a typical high school student, I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted. The frequency and scope of these comments prompted me to write this letter.

Though I am not in your home district, or even your home state, you are a United States Representative of some prominence who is subject to national media coverage. News outlets and websites across this country profile your causes and viewpoints on a regular basis. As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.

Rep. Bachmann, the frequent inability you have shown to accurately and factually present even the most basic information about the United States led me to submit the follow challenge, pitting my public education against your advanced legal education:

I, Amy Myers, do hereby challenge Representative Michele Bachmann to a Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics.

Hopefully, we will be able to meet for such an event, as it would prove to be enlightening.

Sincerely yours,
Amy Myers

Mitt Romney. Not coming. No way.

Donald Trump won’t be there. His proto-candidacy is likely finished in the wake of the unveiling of the “long form” birth certificate last week and the humiliation of the White House correspondents dinner, where his reality TV accomplishments were effectively set against the Obama-led mission-in-the-works that killed Osama bin Laden. (“Well played, sir. Well played.”)

Mitt Romney, the apparent frontrunner in the GOP presidential field and a man who has been campaigning for months already, is having nothing to do with the debate.

Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann have yet to pull the trigger on their candidacies. All of them so far seem to appeal to a fairly narrow set of voters.

Indeed, the Koch brothers and other major GOP financial backers aren’t committed to any of these people, including Mitt Romney, who has been reportedly wooing donors by telling them he had secured David Koch’s support.

Steve Kornacki at Salon describes what Fox has in store for us tonight. Besides former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, he says, the candidates are “strident ideologues with niche appeal, nonexistent victory prospects — and absolutely nothing to lose.”

* Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. Cain has run for office before, finishing a distant second (with 27 percent of the vote) to Johnny Isakson in Georgia’s 2004 U.S. Senate primary… To the extent Cain has distinguished himself on the ’12 trail, it’s probably through his pledge to engage in hiring discrimination by barring Muslims from working in his administration.

* Rick Santorum: Santorum was drummed out of the Senate by Pennsylvania voters in 2006, losing his bid for a third term by 17 points to Democrat Bob Casey. Other modern era presidential candidates who lost Senate races before setting out to run for the White House… won a total of zero primaries and caucuses. Santorum won’t do any better, but he is passionately opposed to abortion, gay rights and President Obama — and he’ll have plenty of time to prove it tonight.

* Gary Johnson: The former New Mexico governor… is an authentic libertarian who wants to dismantle government but who also supports legal abortion and pot. Obviously, he’ll barely make a dent once the primaries roll around…

* Ron Paul: His presence figures to foster th[e] same dynamic… it did in 2007 and 2008 — when no GOP debate was complete without one candidate using Paul as a punching bag [on social issues and defense] in order to look courageous and principled in the eyes of the party base.

Most of the country will watch this debate as presented by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the Comedy Channel tomorrow.

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The debate will be held in the Orpheum Theater in Sioux City.

“Iowa is once again taking center stage as Republican voters embrace their responsibility of starting the nomination process, and I am proud to bring an historic piece of that process to Siouxland,” said Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn. “No longer will Republicans in Northwest Iowa have to settle for watching high-profile caucus debates hosted hundreds of miles away, they will be active participants in the process.”

This will be the second debate organized by the Iowa GOP and Fox. The first will be held Aug. 11, two days before the Ames Straw Poll.