The NBC Republican Debate

The debate on Meet the Press is now over, and the results were not in line with last night's ABC event. To me, the best performance award goes to Rick Santorum with Newt Gingrich a close second. Mitt Romney did not shine like the night before, although he did well enough. The worst performance award goes to Huntsman with Rick Perry getting honorable mention for essentially a non-performance. Let me explain.

Gingrich was strong in speaking about the energy policy, the EPA, Romney's record and Romeny's "pious baloney" in claiming not to be a career politician. Indeed, until the last round of questions, I thought that Gingrich had won. Then David Gregory asked the Speaker about Romney's negative ads coming from PAC's. Gingrich came across at that point like a young child unhappy with the way things were going. At the same time, Romney was able to repeat all of the charges in the negative ads thereby forcing Gingrich to endure the attacks one more time. The exchange was bad enough that I could not declare Gingrich the winner of the debate.

Santorum performed at an elevated level. He spoke clearly and forcefully about his vote for prescription drug benefits in a way that showed his intelligence and his ability to forge compromises. He answered a ridiculous question about Iranian nuclear weapons (why they were dangerous and would he go to war to stop them -- in 30 seconds or less) with a cogent explanation that showed his true understanding of the problem. He made clear the disaster that a Ron Paul presidency would pose for America, thereby hopefully cutting away some of Paul's support in New Hampshire. His low point came when he criticized Romney for not running for re-election in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, Santorum had a very good day. There were no lightning strikes, however, that will catapult him ahead of Romney.

Mitt Romney went back to being the same person who had appeared in the other fifteen or so debates, not the energized and eloquent speaker of the night before. Don't get me wrong. He performed quite well and probably kept all his support for Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire.

At the other end was Jon Huntsman. Huntsman brought dishonesty into the debate in much the way that Obama uses the process when addressing political problems. First, Huntsman took umbrage at Romney's criticism of Huntsman last night for working for America. Of course, anyone who saw the debate last night knows that Romney never levelled any such criticism. Romney properly pointed out that Huntsman had been the American ambassador in China and that Huntsman plan to deal with China by talking alone was one in which Huntsman had already played a major role -- and that the policy had clearly failed. Later in the debate, Huntsman criticized the other candidates for attacking various groups rather than uniting the country as a leader. I would have liked to see Huntsman questioned at that point as to which candidate had attacked which groups, a question Huntsman could not have answered since there were no such attacks. Nevertheless, it was disgusting to see Huntsman lie about the other candidates so blatantly. He is no leader; he is more a fraud.

Ron Paul also lost this morning. His record of failure in his years in Congress was brought to the fore. Santorum's explanation of the disaster that a Paul victory would bring to America also hurt a great deal in my opinion.

That leaves Rick Perry. In many respects, Perry was almost not there. He did nothing memorable other than remember the three departments of the federal that he would close if elected.

I cannot close without noting the moderators for NBC News. Gregory was not the clear partisan that George Stephanopolous was on ABC last night, but his bias was nevertheless showing. Let me illustrate with this question: What is more important, gay rights including gay marriage or an Iranian nuclear weapon and possible nuclear war with Iran? NBC clearly chose gay rights since we had about 15 minutes of discussion of that subject while the possibility of war with Iran got a maximum of 30 seconds. Indeed, that 30 seconds was the only time devoted to foreign policy.