Five Republican candidates participated in the GOP Candidates Debate in Florida tonight. Rather than rehash everything covered during the 90-minute event held on the campus of Florida Atlantic University campus in Boca Raton, I’ll offer a handful of highlights:
The biggest buffoon of the night was MSNBC’s Tim Russert. Based on the tone and content of many of his questions, I nearly mistook him for the gay retired general and Hillary Clinton operative who showed up at an earlier debate.
The best observation of the night was Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor expressed worry that recipients of each of the 116 million checks issued as part of President Bush’s short-term stimulus plan would spend their part of the $150 billion short-term stimulus package on Chinese-made goods.
The best line of the night came from Mitt Romney, who said, “When Republicans act like Democrats, we all lose.”
The stupid comment of the night was made by John McCain who spoke as if he truly believes that buying and selling carbon credits actually makes sense.
The candidate most devoted to his cause is Ron Paul. Unfortunately, too many of his ideas — aside from a return to truly Constitutional government (which I like) — just won’t fly with the American people.
The best rebuttal of a set-up question came from Huckabee after McCain asked him to explain what he senses as public interest in the FairTax and to explain how poor folks won’t be hurt by a FairTax. Huckabee’s masterful explanation made McCain appear as if he might have been on Huck’s campaign staff.
Finally, the most hopelessly optimistic candidate tonight was Rudy Giuliani. He said that, like the New York Giants last we, his campaign would come from behind and win the Republican nomination — even if he had to do it with Spanish-language ads and implementation of a tamper-proof national I.D. card system.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Phil Dillon // Jan 25, 2008 at 8:15 am
You’re absolutely right about Tim Russert. And Brian Williams was almost as bad.
The tone of these modern day debates has been degraded by those moderating. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go to a Lincoln-Douglas type format and let the candidates sort out the issues, etc. I’ve spent some time judging these types of policy debates here in my home town and find them refreshing. They reveal whether or not those debating have a grasp on policy, can communicate their positions, and demonstrate the merits of their candidacy vis a vis the opponent(s).
2 Alexander // Jan 25, 2008 at 9:52 am
Thank you! Didn’t get to see it, so thanks!
I like Mike!
3 Speedzzter // Jan 25, 2008 at 10:32 am
MEDIA MITT-GASM IGNORES FLIP-FLOPS DURING FLORIDA DEBATE
It’s not as if MS/NBC didn’t try their best to throw the debate to Mitt. At one point, the moderators asked Romney at least three questions in a row. Repeatedly, the moderators asked Romney soft-ball follow-ups that dovetailed into “Romney 3.0′s” canned stump speech.
Of course, the only reason anyone is talking about a focus-grouped stiff like Mitt Romney (who before this year had only one successful election under his belt and less than five years of elected experience) is his “Citizen Kane” act – attempting to buy the election with tens of millions of his own dollars.
Yet serious watchers of the debate noted that Romney’s almost legendary ability to flip-flop was on stark display in the Florida debate.
For example, Governor Huckabee (a rock-solid gun rights candidate) asked Mitt-the-Flip a simple question: Do you support the “so-called assault weapons ban and the Brady Bill?” (Huckabee’s question was technically correct because t the ban wasn’t really about true military assault weapons, but about scary-looking assault-styled semi-automatics)
Mitt’s struggling answer was a salient window into the vacuity of Romney when he’s off his stump speech script. First, Mitt extolled his support for renewing the ban (ignoring that the proposals he supported could have affected virtually all ordinary semi-automatic shotguns and other common weapons), and lamented the failure of renewal. Then Mitt proclaimed the glories of the Massachusetts “assault weapon” ban.
But in a breathtaking flip-flop, Mitt then said we don’t need any more gun laws.
Huh? Did Romney forget the first couple of paragraphs of his answer that touted his support for more gun laws?
Another bizarre moment for Romney came when he endorsed a “national” catastrophic property insurance fund to address the Florida insurance “crisis,” but then said that people in Iowa shouldn’t have to pay for it.
What exactly does “National” mean to Mr. Romney? Is Iowa not part of the Nation? Obviously, if the fund is only paid for by people in hurricane states or regions, it’s not a “national” program.
Finally, “Citizen Mitt” refused to say how much of his own fortune he’s pouring in to buy the Florida election. He claimed that it was for strategic reasons that he wasn’t sharing the information with the other campaigns.
What! Is Mitt somehow afraid that the cash-strapped campaigns of Rudy, McCain and Huckabee will take that “strategic” information about Mitt’s personal donations to his campaign and suddenly hit up all the South Florida payday lenders and pawn shops for more campaign cash? Everyone on the ground in the Sunshine State realizes that Mitt is going “all in” to win with a massive blitzkrieg of paid media.
At least in Citizen Mitt’s paid media, he can stay on the script and avoid his apparently natural tendency to flip-flop.
4 hotoffthepress2 // Jan 25, 2008 at 11:20 am
Speed — It appears you really really really don’t like Mitt.
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