I watch debates — so you don’t have to

August 6, 2007

(This post was delayed until I could track down a reliable transcript.)

The Republican field met for only its fourth debate yesterday, the first in two months, at a relatively low-key event in Iowa. As the early-morning debate (8am local) got underway, George Stephanopoulos told the candidates, “Our goal today is to get a real debate going among all of you, to find out where you stand on the issues, but also to figure out the real differences that separate you.” If that was the goal, the debate was a spectacular failure — on most questions these guys didn’t want to disagree on anything.

I can’t blame Stephanopoulos for that; he tried to draw distinctions. Indeed, in the very first exchange, Brownback was asked about this robo-call making its way throughout Iowa:

Mitt Romney is telling Iowans that he is firmly pro- life. Nothing could be further from the truth. As late as 2005, Mitt Romney pledged to support and uphold pro- abortion policies and pass taxpayer funding of abortions in Massachusetts.

His wife, Ann, has contributed money to Planned Parenthood. Mitt told the National Abortion Rights Action League that, “You need someone like me in Washington.”

Brownback defended it, Romney called it “desperate,” and I put in my notes, “These guys are going to kill each other after 90 minutes.”

And then … nothing. Asked which of the candidates would support Bush’s democracy-promotion foreign policy, all nine Republicans declined. Asked which of the candidates would support expanding S-CHIP, all nine declined. Asked which of the candidates would utilize their Vice President the way Bush has utilized Cheney, all nine declined. (McCain said, “I would be very careful that everybody understood that there’s only one president.” It was one of the more veiled attacks on Bush of any GOP debate thus far.)

In this sense, Giuliani and Romney are bound to benefit. If these debates just trudge along, and no one makes a serious effort to question their candidacies, the lower-tier candidates might as well get out of the way now.

Other observations:

* Romney: He’s ahead in the polls, and like Hillary Clinton, he comes to these debates extremely well-prepared. Regrettably, his most memorable line was when he suggested Ron Paul “forgot about 9/11,” because he wants to withdraw from Iraq. No, it didn’t make any sense to me, either.

* Giuliani: The former mayor showed a decent sense of humor when he said he’s had so many mistakes, he needs a priest — but it only served as a reminder that this guy’s personal life is a soap-opera mess. Giuliani fared well overall, just so long as facts have no meaning (he denied his own recent comments from a Charlie Rose interview on Pakistan, he exaggerated his NYC adoption numbers, and he exaggerated his role in protecting New York’s bridges). At one point, Giuliani insisted, “The last time we raised the capital gains tax, and you can go back and check it, from 20 to 28 percent, we lost $45 billion.” So, folks went back and checked it — Giuliani’s claim was completely wrong. For voters for whom facts have no meaning, he’s the ideal candidate.

* McCain: The senator acknowledged the mistake of the Keating Five scandal, which was an apparent attempt to get back to the “straight talk” he’d abandoned. That said, over the course of 90 minutes, McCain didn’t do much to distinguish himself.

* Paul: He benefited from having quite a few fans in the audience, but his disdain for the Bush administration’s policies is a) coherent; and b) antithetical to modern-day Republican politics. With every passing debate, he seems to be doing more to push himself even further from the GOP mainstream.

* Hunter: At one point, he said, “Let’s get back to freedom.” He seemed pleased with himself, but it didn’t make a lot of sense.

* Tancredo: The guy is not only a nut, he’s proud of it, telling everyone how glad he is that the State Department found his Mecca comments “absolutely crazy.” What’s more, Stephanopoulos largely (and understandably) ignored Tancredo for most of the debate. His most memorable answer came towards the end, when he was asked for his most memorable mistake, which he’d learned the most from. “I have no doubt of what the greatest mistake in my life has been,” he said, “and that is that it took me probably 30 years before I realized that Jesus Christ is my personal savior.”

* Huckabee: Probably the best pure debater on the stage, Huckabee continues to show impressive qualities. If he had any money and Republicans liked this guy, I might even worry about him.

* Brownback: He tried something a little different yesterday and tried showing more of a nasty attitude. Brownback has been the pleasant, pious Kansan; in this debate, he was the angrier conservative. I don’t think it worked — when Romney said, “I get tired of people that are holier than thou because they’ve been pro-life longer than I have,” in relation to Brownback, it seemed to resonate.

* Thompson: Has taken Gilmore’s slot as the Memento Candidate — everything he says is immediately forgotten. I suspect he’ll fare poorly at this weekend’s Ames Straw Poll, and will drop out before the next debate.

* Obama: OK, so the Illinois senator wasn’t actually part of the debate, but he was mentioned repeatedly. John Edwards was mentioned once, Hillary Clinton wasn’t mentioned at all, and Barack Obama was referenced six times, including Mitt Romney’s obviously pre-planned assertion, “In one week he went from saying he’s going to sit down, you know, for tea, with our enemies, but then he’s going to bomb our allies. I mean, he’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.”

Hilarious. Romney doesn’t believe in diplomacy and won’t target terrorists in Pakistan. For some reason, he thinks this is a winning pitch.

Regardless, Obama benefits by being the top GOP target, because he a) gets to position himself as the Dem that Republicans fear most; and b) got plenty of media coverage responding to the GOP attacks: “A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Bill Burton, said: ‘The fact that the same Republican candidates who want to keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war couldn’t agree that we should take out Osama bin Laden if we had him in our sights proves why Americans want to turn the page on the last seven years of Bush-Cheney foreign policy.'”

Yes, Giuliani’s priest. Is also a reminder of more of which is wrong with the GOP, and their sexual issues:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/23/2007-06-23_rudy_wont_ax_scandal_priest.html?ref=rss

  • Sure, when Tancredo says “I have no doubt of what the greatest mistake in my life has been,” he said, “and that is that it took me probably 30 years before I realized that Jesus Christ is my personal savior” those of us in the reality based community think he is nuts.

    But remember he is following an example that, from his view, is a proven winner. In the run up to 2000, at a debate that was also in Iowa, none other than George W. Bush was asked who was his favorite political philospher. Other candidates had discussed intellectual heavyweights like Locke and Mill, others went all patriotic and named Founding Fathers. Dumbya said “Jesus Christ.” I’m not sure if he was pandering, or whether that was an exasperated interjection rather than an answer. I’m positive it was the only name he knew, and I’m not sure I’ve heard JC referred to as a political philosopher before or since.

    But Bush got the last laugh: he won. So it is a little hard to fault Tancredo for seeing if perhaps lightning will strike twice.

  • Which Thompson? Tommy? Fred? Meldrim? This is as bad as a Tintin book….

    (O.K., the last one is dead. But a governor who wanted his National Guard to be nuclear-armed, presumably to face down the Clamshell Alliance, would fit right in with this posse.)

  • Favorite Romneyism: “And I take my inspiration from my dad, from Ronald Reagan […]”

    Who’s your authoritarian daddy?

    Favorite Ron Paul moment of clarity amongst rampant knuckle-dragging:

    “I would restore openness to government. I do not think in this country we should have secrecy of government. The purpose of government is to provide privacy for the people. I would never use executive privilege to deny information to the Congress, with the full realization that you protect security information, but in the very general sense, we should be very, very open. We want a transparent government. And currently I believe we could improve on that matter.”

  • I don’t know that McCain’s remark was a jab at Bush. Maybe he just wanted to make sure everybody involved in the debate understood that the United States does not permit nine presidents. Therefore, simply doin’ the bobblehead and saying, “Me, too” was not going to get anyone anywhere.

    Then again, maybe the new Constitution the Republicans are writing will allow nine presidents – who knows?

  • I actually watched the debate – the first one I’ve seen, and I think if I were a Republican, I would be very pessimistic about my party’s chances in November, 2008.

    With Romney, he keeps harping on the mind-changing event of considering the fate of embryos used in stem-cell research, but I have to ask why no one asks him about the event he says made him pro-choice to begin with: the death of his brother-in-law’s sister from a botched abortion some years ago. Is her life suddenly not meaningful? I mean, I don’t know how you abandon a position that he says was based on an even that happened to someone he actually knew. How does a guy who claims to be pro-life justify putting his dog in a crate on the roof of his car? Dogs’ lives not so precious?

    McCain looked like he might just put his head down and cry – the man has no energy, no dynamism – he just seems old and very, very tired.

    Giuliani – someone needs to call BS on him, and soon; is no one going to challenge the nonsense he spouts? And why not address the elephant in the room – his messy personal life that is antithetical to GOP values and platform. Ask him what the significance is to the term “Islamic terrorism.” Let’s see if he understands the difference between a tax deduction, a tax exemption and a tax credit.

    Tancredo is certifiable.

    Ron Paul is in the wrong party; he probably doesn’t belong in the Democratic party either, but he sure doesn’t sound like a Republican. He can keep making noise, though – I like the way it makes the others twitch.

    All in all, an eye-opener for the lack of presidential material. Romney wins the beauty contest, hands down, but that’s the best I can say aboout him.

  • Thanks for watching, CB, so I don’t have to.

    I would rather go three rounds with Mike Tyson than watch Republican candidates “debate.”

  • I noticed your comment about Ron Paul and the points you provided…. I would disagree with your summary based on a confident review of GOP history. The GOP has been traditionally a small government party, limited intervention, etc.

    The issues we face in the GOP is the assumption that the NEOCON agenda is the leading method for the GOP. In fact if you look at Dr. Ron Paul it’s easy to conclude if you compare what the population desires and what Paul offers you would note he is the only candidate who supports the people.

    Aside from party issues our nation will fail if we adhere to primarily party topics… Instead the unity of the law of the land protects as all so we a bicker and fight later.

  • Note that Giuliani’s back-up claim about capital gains, that he meant to say that the 1986 rise in capital gains rates caused a 44% drop in revenues, is also wrong (or to the extent it’s right, a complete distortion). In the 4 years prior to 1986, with CG rates at 20%, revenues averaged about 20,000M annually. In the four years after the raise, they averaged about 33,000 annually, a 65% increase over the prior period. Thus, the Reagan tax increase cause a revenue increase even greater than might have been expected.

    This leaves out the year 1986 itself, however, in which, in expectation of the Reagan tax increase, there was an immense wave of gains-taking. In that year, revenues were 52,000M+ (an increase of 160% over the preceding years). So technically, revenues then dropped about 40%+ from 1986 to 1987, but only because of this one-time gains-taking. But characterizing kind of drop as the likely permanent result of a gains increase is nothing more than a crafty lie. Even if one averages this windfall into the prior four years’ revenue at 20% rates, the average is about 26,000M, and the subsequent period still sees a 30% increase in revenues. By any reasonable measure, capital gains revenues increased significantly after the 1986 tax increase.

  • Good to see this site standing up for Steph. Perhaps you’ll also support the fact that the word “immigration” or any variant thereof was not mentioned even a single time during the whole “debate”.

  • which thompson? tommy? fred? meldrim? this is as bad as a tintin book….
    (o.k., the last one is dead.

    tintin is dead???

  • For anyone interested, I gave a thorough thrashing to Rudy’s factoid here:
    Smartest Boy in a Dumb, Dumb Class

    And for the record, I believe Ron Paul is just your basic libertarian. The real type, not the Instapundit type (ie, Republicans who call themselves libertarian so they can attack Dems without always having to defend Repubs). Paul just calls himself a Republican as it’s the only way he could win office in Texas. As a reminder, Paul was the Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1988. And while he might have been the most sane person on that stage, he’s still a kook.

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