Romney wins final GOP debate before Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Tuesday, but who cares
Posted on January 31st, 2008 at 10:32 am by Jason Wright, EditorI was in the midst of a riveting, emotionally moving recap and analysis of last night’s GOP debate when I stumbled across this piece from Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard. Why reinvent the blogowheel; Hayes says precisely what I thought as I turned off the set last night and moved the rabbit ears to the upstairs TV.
HAYES: THERE WAS GOOD news and bad news for Mitt Romney from the debate last night in California: He probably won, but it’s not likely to matter.
Amen, brother. Romney looked strong, and certainly more presidential and commanding next to Senator Snark. But every second spent generally on Iraq or specifically on the Surge is a second lost for Romney. The governor can’t win on that issue, never will. These issues are in McCain’s proverbial wheelhouse. Romney was very effective on every other issue, but it was the Iraq exchange(s) that dominated the post-debate debate.
Last night Romney looked better, sounded better, explained his positions better and had much better hair and skin tone, but he won’t win the nomination unless McCain has the greatest five day collapse in history.
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This last debate was interesting, however I don’t believe that Romney was the clear winner. CNN political pundits say that they believe Huckabee was the winner and I tend to agree with them. He was more personable and less childish than both McCain and to a lesser degree Romney.
I also think that Ron Paul was more effective than he normally is. This is coming from someone who is absolutely NOT a Ron Paul supporter. He came across as a person with good ideas and a strong economic sense rather than a person who relates everything to the “billions of dollars we are spending in a war….” I specifically like his final answer as to why would Reagan endorse you and his answer to do you approve of the O’Conner nomination.
In the Olympic spirit of the other post we have been doing…
Gold- Huckabee
Silver- Romney and Paul
Bronze/Blew it - McCain
Will it matter… Nope. I agree with Jason, Unless McCain has a gigantic collapse in record time then this primary season is set in stone.
Romney won? What were you watching, Jason? He and McCain were acting about as un-Presidential as I’ve even seen in a debate. Even worse than the Hildabeast debating Obama. I expect a President to be more calm and mature and not get into such a petty argument. Ron Paul got it square on in his comment about their petty little fight.
And, shame on CNN for encouraging that discourse!!! IMHO, I think CNN did that intentially just to discredit the GOP candidates.
I liked Huck’s line about Gov Romney endorsing Huck for President, based on governors being more qualified than senators for the office of Preseident. That was priceless!
As much as I’ve made humor of Ron Paul, I loved him scolding McCain and Romney like a father would scold his kids after their snit over “timetables and milestone”s.
And he got a pretty loud round of applause for it.
With more of these people out of the race you will actually hear Ron Pauls message. He might pick up a state or two.
I am a Conservative. I will never support John McCain; even if that means President Clinton.
Please help me not vote for a democrat in November! McCain is already the candidate of “more war,” “your jobs aren’t coming back,” and “the illegals aren’t going home!”
I so agree about Romney, he needs to ignore McCain’s “timetable” harassments and focus on the Economy. If McCain wins, I will be voting Democrat - even if that means Billary.
That’s at least 4 people who won’t vote the party line. GOP is in trouble, no doubt about it.
DW: Which debate was I watching? The same one that Stephen Hayes was watching. That’s why I linked to his article. I disagree with those that say Huckabee won. I agree he’s generally done well in the debates, but more and more he looks small to me. He looked and sounded irrelevant last night, like a guy who’s desperately trying to make the varsity debate team. He’s full of quips and rehearsed one-liners, but he’s worn thin. Even his hold on evangelicals is slipping. So no, Huck didn’t win just by being more grownup than McCain and Romney.
Also, I agree with those who say Ron Paul was effective last night. I thought it was probably his best performance.
But I have to ask Troy, what states are you suggesting Paul could win?
The states of “Straw” and “Poll”
Nice! Glad I wasn’t driving for that one
To be honest, no real clue. But if enough people rally against the “top three” who will they turn to?
Why would people start rallying against the big three now? (at least enough so to give Paul a win)
They rebuked Mitt and Huck and since it seems most people don’t like John I figured he would be next (again)
Troy: Make that 9 people, me, my wife, my brother and his wife and at least one of my co-workers are committed to vote for the Democratic ticket if McCain is the nominee. We would rather see the GOP take a beating than reward the party by electing a liberal Republican. George Bush was bad enough. I will no longer support the GOP if all they can do is put up liberals. Better to have a Dem in office so the Republicans in Congress will be on thier toes. Maybe we would win a few seats back once the Democrats begin to destroy the economy, the Constitution, and the border…wait, never mind, the Republicans have already done this…I guess it doesn’t matter who we vote for…