Final Notes On The Republican Debate As S.C. Goes To The Polls

As promised, I want to complete my analysis of the Repub debate before we spend the next two days slicing and dicing the results of today's South Carolina Democratic Primary. But first these two items to consider:

McClatchy Newspapers covered a scary story this week about American citizens who are being detained or deported erroneously. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/25392.html. That's right, Immigration officials are getting their wires crossed, but insisting that they have the correct information to the detriment of hundreds and maybe thousands of Americans who have legitimate citizenship papers. It's the kind of bureaucratic nightmare we need to consider when we start talking about deporting 12 million illegals. Read this article.

In just a shocking development, Hillary Clinton's camp is now insisting that the Democratic National Committee reinstate the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Originally, the DNC shut out those delegates to punish the states for moving their primaries up in the calendar. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLINTON_FLORIDA_DELEGATES?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US Could this move have anything to do with the fact that she has a 2 to 1 lead over her rivals in Florida and the majority of votes in Michigan--where none of the candidates put their names on the ballot...well, except for Clinton? Naaaah.

I keep forgetting to mention the fact that the NY Times endorsed John McCain and Hillary Clinton in editorials Thursday. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri1.html?_r=1&oref=login and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri2.html Perhaps that's because in this unique election year The Grey Lady's influence is not quite as potent as it might be. Notable in McCain's endorsement is the scathing commentary on Rudy Giuliani. Yikes.

So now, let's take a last look at the Repub debate. I'll go down the list with some random notes on style and substance.

Romney
I'm not gushing here about his performance because I think there are serious holes in his candidacy, but forget Hillary, here's someone who really has found his voice. He is now more seamlessly incorporating his "I'm the conservatives conservative" message into his real strength as a competent economic manager. His stimulus package, which looked to create tax cuts on seniors' social security income and create permanent tax cuts for lower income families, was a far better combination of short term cash infusion and long term growth policy than the Bush proposal. He also effectively reiterated a portion of his stump speech that validates his statement that "I'll run away from the record of Washington". That section of his speech says that Washington keeps promising to do things and hasn't done them. But my favorite proposal was his pledge to create a "Welcome Home Bill" to attract more soldiers into the volunteer army and to overhaul the GI Bill. His weak moments were his positions on Iraq, his pandering to Huckabee's extreme position on gun control and his statement that Hillary is completely "out of step with the American people". Take your head out of the sand, Mitt. She leads in virtually every poll that pits her head to head with any Republican. Overall, though, an A-.

McCain
McCain's likable personality and "straight talk" persona gives him the advantage of never having to be as polished as the others. If he doesn't completely screw his words up (like in his victory speech in NH) and makes a few solid points, he looks good. That's what he did in this debate. He effectively explained, again, that his vote against the Bush Tax cuts was the result of protesting the spending in that bill. His position as the opponent of "pork" is a strong and consistent theme for him. He also parried a criticsim that he voted against a $200 billion dollar catastrophic insurance package because it contained no insurance reform. He was wrong to dispute his own quote about his lack of economic bona fides. He made the statement that economics wasn't his strong suit. It's in black and white. And he was labored in defending his economic expertise. He was also obviously not answering Ron Paul's question about the President's Economic Advisory Committee, giving the impression that he wasn't really sure what it was. And when Paul asked if he would like there to be "more sunlight" on the deliberations of that committee, McCain said, lamely, "I would like to see more sunshine". But again, McCain made the points he had to, and didn't look lost. Which was all he had to do. A solid B.

Huckabee
Again, Huckabee impresses with style points and good lines. His line describing others' reaction to his fair tax as people looking at me "..like I was the only guy at the UN without a headset", I thought was priceless. He also made two strong points about his economic strengths. First, he reminded everyone that he was the only one in the Michigan debates (before the economy went haywire) to say that the economy was not in great shape, especially for the little guy. Fair enough. And as I wrote in yesterday's post, his proposal to use highway construction to stimulate the economy makes real sense. His consistency on his Iraq position --that we can't walk away from a difficult situation now-- is solid. His explanation of the role that his faith plays in his life is also solid. But his analysis of the Fair Tax and it's impact on peoples' real rate of taxation was confusing--and specious. Overall, I give him an A-.

Giuliani
While Rudy was polished, his message, to my ears, has become stale and pro forma. He has fallen into the earlier Romney pattern of trying to be the conservatives' conservative by exaggerating his economic conservatism to compensate for his social liberalism. The result is a bland message that has no innovative talking points. His one proposal on catastrophic insurance was a total pander to the Florida voter. But his adroit explanation of the Wet foot Dry foot immigration/political asylum exception for Cuban immigrants (that allows any Cuban immigrant to achieve instant asylum if his feet touches the soil of the United States--when other immigrants from oppressive regimes have to more fully justify their presence in America) was a good moment. Also, his explanation of the scathing commentary by the NY Times in their endorsement of McCain was solid. Overall, a B+, but I don't know how this really helps him.

Paul
Let's face it, Ron Paul is the only guy with the onions to tell it like it is. Now, we can all say he's got nothing to lose, but the fact remains that he stakes out unassailable Republican positions. He stutters, he has a whiny voice and sounds like a wacko broken record--but he's right on many positions. He's the only one to talk about the devaluation of the dollar as an alarming trend. He's the only one to talk about the conflict between a healthy economy and the war in Iraq. He's the only one to say what we all know--that Al Qaeda was not an issue in Iraq until we got there. He's consistent on all of his positions, often enduring ridicule. Now, does anyone think he'd make a good President? I doubt it. But his presence in these debates is welcome. His weakest moment was his slight two-step on the Social Security issue. While he maintains that he would do away with it, he said he'd take care of the people who are currently on it. Huh? But he ended on a high note when he responded to the question of if he would abandon the Republican Party for an indie run, by saying the Repub Party was abandoning him by turning its back on its core principles. Good stuff. I give him a B+.

So there you have it. Tell me who you think won the debate and if you think the debate helped the winner in a meaningful way. Just hit the comment link below.