The debate was much better last night with fewer time limits and more in-depth answers (as I suggested it might be several weeks ago). After sleeping on it, here are my impressions:
John McCain
McCain came off as a surly old man who was devoted to his talking points no matter how tired they sounded. I can't count the number of times he mentioned being one of 'Reagan's foot soldiers', but it got seriously annoying after 90 minutes. He also looked very petty when Anderson Cooper questioned him on his week-long attack on Romney's timetables for Iraq. Romney called him out, asking how McCain could be the expert on Romney's own words, but McCain refused to budge from his position. Not his best moment. He had some good answers on national security, of course, but looked very weak on amnest...I mean, immigration. I think he's been irreparably damaged by his actions on that one. He's saying the right things now, but even his biggest supporters have to wonder if he would actually carry through or not. Given that his top staff are open-borders fanatics, I'd be shocked if he did actually close the borders like he promises, and it would all be downhill from there. He also seemed a bit weak to me on taxes - at one point, he said we needed to make Bush's tax cuts permanent, but then turned around within minutes and defended why he voted (twice) against Bush's tax cuts. Overall, this was not McCain's best performance. His only clear strength is national security, and as long as he can focus the conversation there, he looks good. Conversely, when he is forced to confront his own record -- especially on McCain-Feingold, amnesty, and tax cuts -- he tanks.
Mitt Romney
This seemed to be a pretty good outing for Romney. He got a chance to express his frustration about McCain's recent attack ads and explain the facts behind his opponent's implications. He explained how the study McCain cited that showed Massachusetts losing jobs actually included his predecessor's term; he gave detailed figures on the budget situation he left in Massachusetts; he blasted McCain for his complete misrepresentation of the timetable mess. Romney seemed to show the right mix of professionalism and fire, and came off looking like the closest thing to presidential in the room.
Mike Huckabee
Huck's got to be irritated by this debate! The questioners made it pretty clear that this is a two-horse race, and Huckabee is no longer one of the prime time guys. At one point, Cooper promised he would 'shower' Huckabee with questions, but quickly moved back to McCain/Romney. Later, Huckabee commented that the spigot must have been turned off, which was a pretty good laugh line. Huckabee is clearly the most gifted orator of the bunch, and gave a couple of answers stirring enough to inspire an army to attack the Black Gates of Mordor, but he faces a similar problem as McCain - what he says now doesn't match his record. While it's one thing to switch positions on a single issue due to study and experience, Huckabee is struggling to explain several questionable positions, including illegal immigration, tax hikes, and clemency for criminals. He did score some major points against his Congressional brethren when he talked about why Governors are more qualified to be President, drawing the similarity that running a state is a microcosm of running the country. He explained very well how the total understanding and handling of a state's workings would prepare a governor for the total understanding and handling of the country's workings. He's right, too - very few Congressmen become President, but governors often do. Overall, Huckabee looked like a brilliantly silver-tongued also-ran.
Ron Paul
Where does this guy get his money? I have no idea who is supporting him, but they must be hardcore because this guy's a nut. He's very solid on smaller government and cutting taxes, but his foreign policy would plunge the world into a 3rd world dictator's dream. He advocates pulling our military out of the entire Middle East (and most of the rest of the world, it sounds like) regardless of the cost. He doesn't believe we should have gone to war in Iraq, and would immediately bring our troops home (the only GOP candidate to agree with the Dems on this point). He has to be pretty ticked off about this debate, too, because at one point Cooper cut him off and promised to come back to him, but I don't recall that that ever happened.
So, what were my overall impressions? I'm still not sold on any of them. Ron Paul is completely out of the question - the primary responsibility of the President is to protect America, and using the military abroad (which he will not do) is critical. Huckabee sounds terrific, and I have no doubt that he'd wipe the floor with either of the Dems in a live debate. He's also got the executive experience from his decade of being Governor of Arkansas, but his weakness is that his positions don't match his record. Similarly, McCain would be okay as a liberal Republican, but he keeps insisting he's a conservative's conservative, and his record simply doesn't bear that out. I hate it when politicians lie to me -- especially to my face...does he really think I'm too stupid to figure it out?! -- and that's exactly what he's doing. Not cool, not cool. He would be the most likely to steal votes from Dems and Indies, but isn't the point of this process to gather as many Rep votes as possible? He's got a history of alienating his base when it most counts, and that makes him a suspect candidate at best. And that leaves us with Romney. While I'm uncomfortable with his position on abortion and a couple of other things that appear to be position changes (depending on who you listen to), he also has the governorship experience, and he must be doing something right to be a Rep Governor in a very Dem state. He's also got the business savvy that seems to be missing from most career politicians, and he's absolutely correct in his talking point that Washington is broken and needs an outsider to fix it. Overall, to me, he seems like the least bad choice. With all of these guys (except Paul), I think the big question we as voting Republicans have to answer is whether we believe what the candidates are saying now or what their records show. If nothing else, it shows you their consistency and character (if they lie or spin about past actions), and that alone is something worth voting on.
I'm still not sure who I will support next Tuesday. Do you?
There's my two cents.
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