Tonight we saw the first GOP presidential debate in nearly a month, and what was the big surprise? Without a doubt, there really were no surprises. On the whole, the best debater of the evening was Newt Gingrich who was thoughtful and intelligent with consistently good answers. It began with Newt explaining the ways to bring down the national debt better than his opponents. It continued throughout to a great answer on how to deal with education. The problem for Gingrich, of course, is that he is damaged goods. He has twice risen to the top of the polls only to become self important and emotionally unstable. It is clearly too late for Gingrich to recover once again; too many folks have seen him in action.
Mitt Romney had a good night. He was more animated and more forceful than usual. He got in some good shots at Rick Santorum and also, for the most part, seemed presidential. Of course, there were two moments when he looked rather foolish. The worst of these is when he blamed Santorum's endorsement of Arlen Specter for re-election for the passage of Obamacare. Santorum endorsed Specter in a primary in 2004, some six years before Specter voted for Obamacare. Even forgetting the time lag in question, it is hard to imagine that Santorum's endorsement in a primary carried the day for Specter. Romney was trying to avoid being pinned down as the spiritual father of much of Obamacare, but using a six year old endorsement in a primary to turn the tables is just silly. Romney also looked foolish when he told John King that he did not have to answer the question that King asked but could give the answer he [Romney] wanted.
Rick Santorum also had a good night. He was at his best discussing Iran and Syria; Santorum showed a depth of knowledge about the Middle east that was impressive. Santorum also gets good marks for being honest. He did not try to wriggle away from his past votes and positions through distortions the way Romney does with Romneycare and Obamacare. He showed that he was both a principled and a pragmatic politician. Indeed, the criticism from Ron Paul about Santorum voting for things like title 10 showed why Paul has accomplished next to nothing in all his years in Congress and why Santorum got quite a large number of his proposals passed. Santorum understood that often he had to vote for bills based upon the entire package; he could not oppose each bill that had something in the body that he did not like. If you get 80% of what you want, that is pretty good. Paul, on the other hand, opposes anyone who ever votes for anything that has any provision in it that he did not like.
Ron Paul, indeed, showed why he is totally unqualified to be president. Imagine, Paul bragged at the debate that he had never voted for an appropriations bill aside from one funding veterans' benefits. For Paul, politics is an exercise in theoretical purity rather than accomplishment of the possible. This is a problem for Paul wholly apart from his frequent inability to speak coherently, although that problem too surfaced tonight as usual. Paul's explanation of how to cut the deficit was particularly rambling and confused.
Overall, I do not think there was a clear winner tonight. Romney reinforced his troops, but Santorum did the same too. If Gingrich has any troops left, they too must have been pleased. I do think that Santorum missed an opportunity to pounce on Romney when he made the ridiculous comment about the Specter endorsement, but that is not very important in the scheme of things. Each of these three did well.
One last note: I have to comment on John King of CNN. What is it with this guy? At his first debate, he asked questions like "Coke or Pepsi?" to the candidates. Tonight he progressed to the silliness of asking each candidate to describe himself in one word without explanation. These guys are running for president, not head of the comedy improv troop. And while we are talking about the CNN folks, why did there have to be a three minute introduction that looked like a promo for Survivor or some other reality TV show? Can't CNN even run a debate with dignity? I guess that by now I should know that the answer to that question is NO, but I still hope nevertheless.
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