The CNN Republican Debate

A lot has already been said and analyzed concerning last nights Republican candidates' debate on CNN.  All I can add is my impression of who did well and who didn't.

I think pretty much everyone did a good job of representing themselves - even CNN did a good job, probably because it was Jake Tapper running things. 

I was most impressed with Fiorina, Carson, Rubio and Kasich (at least his list of accomplishments impressed), but others all represented themselves fairly well.  Trump did better than I expected, as did Bush.  Rand Paul defined his positions well and he will certainly appeal to a segment of Republican voters. He was of course well spoken and reasoned, but I find myself less inclined to consider supporting him than before.  Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee both did well but while the former came across as almost too polished, Huckabee, who would not be in my top 5 choices, came across in a connected, approachable way.

This is still early on, and things will change, but it will be interesting to see how this changes the polling.

Super Tuesday Winners Ahead of Time

Not exciting.

I'm not all that excited about Super Tuesday because it could turn out to be the Romney show and guarantee his nomination.  I still believe he is the antithetical candidate for a Republican win against Obama in November.  Rich, out of touch and stiff, he'll be easy fodder for the Democrats to portray as a cardboard candidate without real values and without empathy.  He'll be demonized in the ceter, the same place Obama is trying to shore up his own credibility.  He's very, very vulnerable in November, and a Super Tuesday win for Romney is more likely than Santorum or Gingrich to seal the fate of the GOP chances of losing the presidency in 2012.

That is not an exciting prospect.  Super Tuesday has me as uninspired as a David Hasselhoff made for TV movie. It's not something I want to see, but because of all the hype, it's going to be on a bunch of channels.  Who knows, maybe the Germans will be excited about it.

All that said, here's how I see tomorrow playing out.

Post Debate Thoughts

Next debate: Bean bag chairs.

Unorganized, here's a stream-of-consciousness series of thoughts on the final GOP debate before Super Tuesday.

The audience in every Romney - Santorum exchange early on seemed to be members of Mitt Romney's immediate family.  Those tense exchanges made Santorum look underwhelming and made Romney look arrogant and unfriendly.  Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul probably benefited by staying out of the way and letting that train wreck happen on its own.  But when they spoke later on both Gingrich and Paul came across well.  Gingrich was the most statesmanlike.  He also had some clear and well-spoken points.  He won the debate, but he did not dominate.  He just did well, while Santorum and Romney came across poorly.

The right tactical move but bad strategy

Different time frame, but same principal.

Mitt Romney backed out of the CNN debate just prior to Super Tuesday (which is on March 6th). He was followed by Ron Paul and Rick Santorum in a move clearly designed not to let Newt Gingrich back into the race just prior to a mass of delegates being allocated by voters.

Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum decided to skip the March 1 debate that was to be co-hosted by CNN and the Georgia and Ohio state Republican parties, their campaigns confirmed Thursday.

CNN decided to cancel the debate after being left with a single confirmation, Newt Gingrich, who would have been left to square off solo with moderator John King. Gingrich’s camp is unlikely to be happy with the turn of events as the former House speaker has used the nationally televised spectacles to savage the media and twice revive his lagging campaign.

It was the right tactical move for that objective. After all, Newt clearly has the best debate skill of the bunch. But for at least two of the candidates, it was the wrong strategic objective.

Celebrities capture candidates qualities succinctly

Not like this.

Celebrities can be pretty vacuous, but there actually a number of them who have supported and do support conservative candidates, sometimes quite surprisingly.  What's more surprising is that sometimes left or right, they nail it in describing the candidates.  

Now, I'm not talking Alec Baldwin or Sean Penn here.  Sure, they get the most attention because of their outlandish opinions, but they aren't the ones who are capturing the essence of the candidates.  

Here are a few examples.

Quick stuff worth noting

A few quick highlights in the news today, since I won't be posting again.  Here are a few items to watch.

Nevada caucus discrimination?

But near the table where participants were to sign an affidavit stating under penalty of perjury that their religious beliefs precluded their ability to vote during regular caucus hours, a cluster of voters who did not meet that requirement slowed the line as they were turned away, one by one. Most had come at the urging of the Ron Paul campaign, which had placed calls to its supporters informing them of the "second chance" to vote Saturday night.

"I received probably 10 phone calls today saying if you didn't make it this morning to your caucus, you can come down here - 30 minutes away from my home - and they would let you vote, get a second chance at it," said 23-year-old Henderson resident Michael DiCicco, a Paul supporter who said he was not aware the late caucus was reserved solely for those who practice certain religions. "It's discrimination."

Romney admits mistake on anti-poor comment.  No word on an apology for Romney-care.

“I misspoke,” Romney said Thursday in an interview aired on KSNV, a CNN affiliate in Las Vegas. “When you do I don’t know how many thousands of interviews, now and then you may get it wrong, and I misspoke.”

Romney made the original comment in an interview with CNN on Wednesday morning, in which he said he was not "concerned about the very poor" because there is a safety net in place for them—but added, "if there are holes in it, I will work to repair that."

Egypt's version of the Arab Spring goes horribly awry. More stuff Obama won't claim credit for now.

The son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is among 19 Americans being referred to criminal trial for allegedly receiving foreign funds illegally and being involved in banned activity in Egypt, several news agencies reported Sunday. In all, Egyptian officials say 44 non-governmental organization workers will be put before the court after investigating judges claimed they had reason to try the democracy and rights workers.

In case you are living in an area with an unusually warm winter like me, don't get all global-warming-hysteria on everybody again. It's not like that.

Bitterly cold weather sweeping across Europe claimed more victims on Sunday and brought widespread disruption to transport services, with warnings that the chilling temperatures would remain into next week. 

At least 200 people have lost their lives as freezing weather sweeps across the continent westwards, while airports in Britain and France saw disruptions from new snow.

Romney - rude

So I'm watching CNN and out comes Anne Romney and the boys. The victory speech did not wait for the concession speeches from Paul, Gingrich and Santorum.

Rude.  Slick campaign maneuver perhaps, but in poor taste.  Just saying.

It was by all accounts, a squeaker

The GOP caucuses in Iowa yesterday were unbelievably close.  Romney won with 30,015 votes (24.6%) and Rick Santorum came in second, a mere 8 vote back, with 30,007 (24.5%).  Ron Paul came in third with 26,219 (21.4%) and Newt Gingrich was fourth with 16,251 (13.3%).  Everything pretty much went according to expectations as far as who the top four were, although the exact positions and the closeness of the top two were a surprise - to me at least. I thought Santorum had enough momentum to overtake both Paul and Romney, even though he was still well behind the two in the polling averages at RCP in the last week. Boy was I close - off by 8, or rather 9, votes.  I also thought Ron Paul would drop off further than he did and would place fourth behind Gingrich, who I thought would perform a few percentage points better than he did (I was thinking 15% to 16%).

Part 2a - GOP primaries – The Wildcards

Matrix-like: There is no spoon.

NOTE: This is a continuation from Part 1.

There are three big wild cards in the GOP presidential nomination race, and one minor wild card. The three big wild cards include two personalities not in the race – Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin. The in-the-race wild card is Ron Paul and the minor wild card, also in the race, is Rick Santorum. 

Each of those four individuals has some concrete or at least a potential part to play in this election cycle. Each one has the potential to make a significant difference or to be a non-factor depending on what they decide to do. A look at what they bring to the process is in order.

The march is on

The day after tomorrow the Iowa caucus kicks off the primary season for the 2012 presidential election.  It's the start of an almost year long march towards the election.  Less important than the implications of that march are the predictions of who might eventually win.  While I intend to look at the overall implications of the race this month, let's start with something less meaningful, since it's less effort on a January 1st morning.

Avoiding the nightmare scenario

I just posted about Mitt Romney's defense of the indefensible.  I was thinking there'd be nothing worse than Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee.  Of course that's wrong on a number of levels.  Ron Paul would be worse, because he'd be eaten alive by the press in the general election.  But there's an even worse scenario.  Regardless of the name of the eventual GOP nominee, Robert Reich outlines the real worst-case, nightmare scenario.  It's worse than four more years of president Obama.

Romney - Last man standing in Virginia

Politics is blood sport.

It now looks like only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates to qualify for the ballot in Virginia.  Everyone else did not comply robustly enough with the 10,000 signatures requirement to be on the ballot in that state.  Except that they did.  They didn't have enough to cover off the disqualified or contested signatures, which typically apparently means that to net out at 10,000, 15,000 signatures are required.  That didn't happen. Gingrich is the latest one to fall;

Washington (CNN) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich failed to collect enough signatures to appear on the Virginia primary ballot, the Republican Party of Virginia announced Saturday morning, leaving the longtime Virginia resident without a place on the state's ballot and raising questions about his campaign's organization.

Gingrich, as well as Texas Gov. Rick Perry, did not meet the state's requirement of 10,000 signatures and, therefore, did not qualify for the ballot, the Virginia GOP said via Twitter.

The state GOP announced Perry's failure to qualify late Friday.

The news from the Virginia Republicans is a significant setback for Gingrich, who clamored earlier this week to gather enough voter signatures in the state. Gingrich utilized paid staffers to comb Virginia, asking voters to sign petitions that would allow him a place on the ballot.

On Wednesday, Gingrich ensured a crowd of supporters he had met the threshold for appearing on the ballot, saying he had gathered anywhere from 12,000-14,000 signatures.

Virginia requires candidates to obtain 10,000 signatures from registered voters, with 400 signatures coming from each of the commonwealth's eleven congressional districts.

Gingrich's spokesman said Wednesday the effort to secure a spot on the Virginia ballot was meant to showcase the campaign's ground game.

Allahpundit at Hot Air has the exact exit question that we should be asking for Perry, but it applies to each and every candidate not on the ballot;

Exit question: Is this a disqualifying mistake on Perry’s part? If you can’t trust him to do his ballot homework, why trust him to run a tight ship in the general election against Obama?

My first instinct is that this is an establishment move to ensure a Romney win in Virginia.  It's much easier to win with far less competition.  Dirty pool?  Maybe.  But regardless, the rules are the rules and failure toy play the game properly does call into question organizational and leadership skills.  It should serve as a wake up call to every candidate who considers themselves serious about the GOP nomination.

National Review Editors lose touch

The Editors of National Review give a well worded explanation of whom they feel is an acceptable candidate, and in doing so, lose all credibility.

Next time, think things through. If there is a next time.

GOP 'crowdation'

With Newt Gingrich surging to the top of many polls, clearly his momentum has caused other candidates to try to take a different tack in order to gain, or regain, some traction.  Oddly, it seems like everyone who is trying to differentiate themselves is taking the same sort of approach.

Romney Zombies on the loose

I just finished a fantastic steak dinner at Toronto's Harbour 60, and decided there was no better time to start thinking about zombie metaphors and how zombies can be related to the current political situation in America.  Of course - doesn't the thought process follow? Steaks, zombies eating brains.  Well, it made sense to me at least.  Now, I've talked about zombie democrats before. Collectivism is suited perfectly to zombie metaphors and Democrats have shifted pretty far into that territory.  But that's sort of stale now.  There's some zombification happening in the GOP primaries as well.

What to look for in CNN's GOP debate tonight

CNN is hosting another in a series of seemingly endless GOP primary debates tonight.  The topic: foreign policy and national security.  This will be the second foreign policy debate, and it provides candidates one more opportunity to make an impression on voters for better or worse.  There's two things I'd expect to see in the debate tonight.

Pragmatism versus one-horse-zealotry

Heated.  Things in the GOP primary are getting heated. R S McCain is on an anybody-but-Newt tear in contrast with Ed Morrissey who thinks Gingrich would be a good battler for conservatives and a formidable foe for Obama in 2012.  Elsewhere in the blogosphere and tweet-osphere, I've seen rabid backers of Cain, Paul and Perry tear apart those who prefer another candidate.  Even Romney backers have been dismissive of supporters of other candidates.  This is a primary season, and heated is to be expected.  Everyone seems to have a horse in this race and that means they are engaged.  That's good. Uncivil behavior on the other hand is another story.  While for the most part, criticisms have ranged from viable to less than robust, the  civility has been been present.  It has not been universally so.

GOP foreign policy debate: No real winner

In the first hour of the South Carolina GOP candidates debate, there was no clear winner. In the bonus on-line time, there wasn't much difference. Everyone did well, and as Newt Gingrich pointed out, everyone on that stage would be an improvement over president Obama.  Everyone handled themselves as expected, and there were no real surprises.

The Michigan GOP Debate Deconstructed

How did the Michigan GOP debate go?  It went well.  It was a quality debate, on quality topics. CNBC had a good slate of questions.  Perhaps not all of the questioners were the best choices but overall they were pretty good.

The precis on Social Security during the break was an admirable attempt to bring the issue to those who may be unaware of the issues with the program, but it was probably an over-simplification and and under-representation of the severity of the problem.

What about the candidates?  They all seemed to have their specific focus and game plan that they were pretty much able to stick with.  Whose game plan worked, whose didn't?

Republicans' Least Objectionable Option

That title can apply to a lot of things but what I have in mind is the GOP candidates for president.  With a very short window until the caucuses and primaries start, it's about time conservatives start getting serious about who to suggest as the eventual nominee in the race to face Obama.  Let's face it, there is no Ronald Reagan in the race this year.  But that's not to say each candidate doesn't have something that they bring to the table.  But since there is no Reagan, a lot of conservatives are thinking they have to hold their nose and select their best available choice.

Who might that be?  The candidate has to be the most conservative, but electable according to William F. Buckley.  I'd expand on that latter category by saying that the candidate has to be charismatic, a great communicator and debate-ready.  The candidate has to go head-to-head with Obama in debates and come out on top.  That's really important.  Obama has to go - at all costs.