After any debate, the first and most natural question is “who won?” Last night, the winner was obvious: Ronald Reagan.
Look, I know Reagan is the only president of the 20th century that Republicans really like. And I know that the debate was being held at the Reagan Library in California. But over the course of 90 minutes, the candidates specifically referenced the 40th president 20 times. If you count more oblique references (Gilmore thanked “the president in whose name this library is named”), the number climbs to 25. If you include references to Reagan by debate moderator Chris Matthews, well, we get pretty close to triple digits.
This just isn’t healthy. If this was a drinking game, players would have been three sheets to the wind within the first half hour. Even Peggy Noonan, who is second to no one among Reagan worshipers, explained in her column today that enough is enough.
[T]he media’s fixation with which Republican is the most like Reagan, and who is the next Reagan, and who parts his hair like Reagan, is absurd, and subtly undermining of Republicans, which is why they do it. Reagan was Reagan, a particular man at a particular point in history. What is to be desired now is a new greatness. Another way of saying this is that in 1960, John F. Kennedy wasn’t trying to be the next FDR, and didn’t feel forced to be. FDR was the great, looming president of Democratic Party history, and there hadn’t been anyone as big or successful since 1945, but JFK thought it was good enough to be the best JFK. And the press wasn’t always sitting around saying he was no FDR. Oddly enough, they didn’t consider that an interesting theme.
They should stop it already, and Republicans should stop playing along.
They should stop, but it’s not the media that’s fixated on Reagan; it’s the party. No one forced the candidates last night to repeat his name two dozen times.
As for the candidates who were actually on the stage last night, it seemed fairly obvious to me that Mitt Romney had the strongest performance, followed by Mike Huckabee. They were both extremely well prepared — Kevin accurately described Romney as “the perfect Stepford candidate” — and came across as confident and articulate. The other eight struggled to keep up.
For a relatively uneventful debate, there were a variety of interesting angles to explore — too many for one blog post — but I wanted to emphasize that I was struck more by what the candidates didn’t say than what they did say.
Before watching any gathering of Republicans, I have certain expectations about predictable rhetoric. Indeed, yesterday the Campaign for America’s Future recommended viewers play Conservative Failure Buzzword Bingo, in which viewers were to watch out for phrases such as “Cut and Run,” “Sanctity of Marriage,” “Culture of Life,” and “Tax and Spend.”
Except it didn’t happen. Of these four phrases, there was a total of one reference (Huckabee referred to the “culture of life”). Literally, just one. In fact, these guys were filled with the standard talking points, but they were actually surprisingly reserved. There were a total of only four references to 9/11, none of them particularly exploitative, which is far less than the typical Tony Snow press briefing.
For that matter, there was hardly any red meat for the far-right base at all. The word “liberal” wasn’t used once. There were sporadic references to “Democrats,” but primarily to highlight candidates’ claims that they can appeal to all voters in a general election. There was one reference to Nancy Pelosi, and one to Harry Reid.
These guys were so well behaved, Chris Matthews eventually had to put a piñata in front of them and hand them each a club: “Would it be good for America to have Bill Clinton back living in the White House?” It was easily the most moronic question of the night — what, exactly, was the point of this inquiry other than to get some Democrat-bashing into the debate? — and it finally garnered some of the responses the base craves about those evil Dems.
But the fact that Matthews had to play t-ball with these guys was, in and of itself, telling. They were on their best behavior — they didn’t bash each other, Dems, gays, women, Muslims, the poor, trial lawyers, or any of the principle right-wing boogeymen. The only group they felt comfortable going after were immigrants, but even that talk was mild by Republican standards.
It was Reagan’s 11th Commandment taken to its extreme — thou shalt not criticize anyone. I, for one, appreciated their restraint. I didn’t have to reach for the Maalox once.