Thoughts on tonights Republican Debate

After watching the debate of the Republican presidential candidates this evening, I have come to the conclusion that the clear winners were Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney once again provided clear and thoughtful answers, did not get upset or riled by the attacks leveled against him and basically acted presidential. Gingrich showed the level of his insight in viewing and solving the problems of the country.

Herman Cain and, to a lesser extent, Rick Santorum had good performances. Cain was met by an onslaught at the start of the evening against his 9-9-9 plan. Most of the attacks demonstrated that those making the attacks (like Michelle Bachmann) did not understand Cain's plan. Cain stood his ground well, but I thought he was a bit wounded later by the question about negotiating with al Qaeda. Santorum had some excellant answers, particularly the one about judging Romney by his religion. Santorum, however, went a bit far with the petty attacks like his raising some letter that Rick Perry wrote in 2008 with regard to TARP.

It was not a good night for Rick Perry, Bachmann or Ron Paul. Perry again had a few answers where he seemed to forget in the middle of the answer the point he was making. Bachmann used her normal mantras and did not add much more. Indeed, when we got close to the end and she had failed to say that Obama would be a ONE TERM PRESIDENT, I thought she had forgotten. Of course, it was the last thing she did say. Paul was his usual incoherent self. Indeed, Paul caused the worst moment of the debate when he announced that Reagan had traded weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages. Of course, Paul was confusing the release of the American hostages held by Iran on January 20, 1981, the day Reagan took office with the Iran/contra affair which involved selling weapons to Iran in 1986, some five years later. None of the other candidates called Paul on this, however, so the false impression remains that what Paul said was correct.

The other really low point in the debate was Perry's attempt to use some old story about Romney hiring someone to mow his lawn who turned out to employ illegal aliens. It was sad to see Perry sink to this level in his attempt to salvage his clearly sinking campaign.