Yep, Another Debate…
…and yep, I missed this one, too. Egads, I’m falling down on the job lately!
Fortunately, Chuck Todd of National Journal fame caught it, and he runs down the winners and losers:
Let’s start with the winners: Thompson came out a winner within the first five minutes thanks to the moderator’s opening question about the candidate-to-be’s decision to go on Jay Leno instead of showing up for this debate. The fact that every candidate (including Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee and even McCain) took potshots (a few of which were even a bit cheap) reinforced the idea that the entire Republican field views Thompson as a major candidate, a major threat and one of the frontrunners. The Thompson folks could not have asked for a better setup.
As for the two winners of the debate who actually participated, Giuliani’s performance was particularly strong, perhaps his best debate to date. He’s clearly comfortable being the frontrunner; he absorbs the attacks from opponents without looking as if that opponent matters. His strongest answers were in defense of NOT signing the no-tax pledge and on guns. Judging by how Giuliani treated his opponents on stage, one gets the sense the only candidate Giuliani fears is Thompson since he’s the only candidate Rudy truly engaged.
Huckabee doing well at a debate is about as common as the sun rising in the east. In particular, the exchange with Ron Paul where Huckabee got to defend McCain, defend the surge and also call Iraq a mistake was, dare I say, a mix of Reagan and Clinton. He was just smooth and showed himself as someone who is a good conservative Republican who could be a very electable Republican nominee.
The big loser tonight (of the top tier candidates) was Romney. He certainly didn’t have any friends among the debate questioners and the diner patrons and that kept Romney on the defensive all night. (Will his campaign question how much they’ve been sucking up to Fox, btw?) In all seriousness, Romney’s got to figure out how to turn all these attacks into a positive; Wednesday night was not a great night for the candidate purported to be ahead in the early states.
Anybody catch this one? Does Todd have it right?…
I watched it, and obviously I come from a different perspective, but I’ll give Huckabee this: on the exchange with Paul, he clearly won among GOP voters. He gave the insane base of the party exactly what it wants. The problem, of course, is that Paul cleaned his clock on the merits, which is basically why the average Republican candidate holds a position the war that virtually eliminates him from consideration among Democrats and independents – and why whoever wins the Republican nomination is going to lose big-time next year.
Obviously, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9sA5FQfE1E