|
Some quick thoughts: Rudy keeps getting better and better. He went straight at the Democrats on terror, and did so credibly, unlike Hillary, who shifted the focus to Bush to get out from under an Edwards attack. He was the only one to lay a glove on McCain on immigration, broadeningit into a critique of Washington. His rejoinder on what the billactually said about IDs was an effective put down, and showed the difference between an executive and a lifetime legislator. His lengthy critique of the Fitzmas farce, complete with Blitzer interruptions, showed leadership.Before Rudy, none of the candidates said they would pardon Scooter Libby. After him, most of them said they'd consider it. He also showed how you can talk health care and please the base. John McCain helped himself too, I thought. In past debates, McCain was so programmed he seemed animatronic. Sticking to talking points can only get you so far, especially when primary voters don't buy your message. If you're the maverick, you need to show unscripted flashes of authenticity with the goal of getting voters to respect you when they don't agree with you. McCain did that twice tonight. First in his moving response to the sister of the fallen soldier. (Giuliani and Hunter did very well on this question too). And second in his tribute to the immigrants who've fought in our military. McCain probably didn't change any minds on immigration tonight, but if his goal was to get people to at least listen, he did that.
Mitt Romney set a high bar for himself in the first debate. I'm not sure he cleared it tonight, largely because Rudy and McCain are coming into their own as debaters. He failed to seize an opportunity lying on a silver platter by not laying into McCain-Kennedy. His health care plan is the kind of big idea that Republicans need to be debating, and he defended it well, but otherwise, he didn't make much of an impression. The rest: I'm sorry, but I'm not getting the Huckabee vibe like everyone else is. The folksy schtick makes him a great Rotary Club speaker, but he lost me when talking about "dogs" and "fight" in the middle of an answer about jihad. I continue to be impressed by Duncan Hunter. It's telling that a largely unknown Congressman from San Diego would make a more plausible Commander in Chief than any of the Democrats.
The format: I thought this was a good debate, despite moderation from the dry and dull Wolf Blitzer. You can see how most of the candidates are getting better the more they do this. It was certainly livelier than the snoozefest Sunday night. How the candidates stood up and addressed the questioners directly let them command the stage and appear Presidential. None of the Democrats had the presence of mind to do this.
Having back-to-back debates like this was very instructive. The Democrats dithered on how to take out Osama bin Laden, and spent minutes on nonsense ideas like boycotting the Beijing Olympics over our Africa policy, and trying to explain why we should act in Darfur and not act in Iraq. None of them seemed to have a clue of how to manage the global jihadist threat, with the possible exception of Joe Biden. The irony here is that the Republicans are much better credentialed to run a war than George W. Bush was in 2000. At least four of them (the Big Three plus Hunter) seem to offer a more competent, articulate, and responsive approach to wartime leadership. By electing a Democrat in 2008, we'd likely be replacing incompetence of the right with incompetence of the left. And leaving the option of competence and strength on the table. Let's hope the voters won't be fooled.
|