Posted on 05/16/2007 9:03:38 AM PDT by Reagan Man
Though otherwise almost perfectly valueless, the South Carolina debate did prove one thing: three of the top four candidates -- Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Mitt Romney -- are not conservatives by any reasonable definition. The debate was within reach of any of the three to win, and each nearly lost it. After the first Republican candidates’ encounter, in which Mayor Giuliani famously blew it on the issue of overturning Roe v. Wade, he had his big chance in Columbia last night. Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked him how he -- a pro-choice, pro-gun control Republican who once supported liberal Democrat Mario Cuomo for governor of New York -- could claim to be a conservative.
Giuliani danced around the question through his allotted time, and when Wallace extended the time for another thirty seconds “…so you can answer the question…”, the best Giuliani could do was to say that the important issue was to unite against the threat of a Democratic win. If it weren’t for Rep. Ron Paul (and Brit Hume’s later questions about terrorist interrogation) Rudy’s campaign might have crashed to a halt last night. But it didn’t. Giuliani is still in it, though more clearly than ever something other than a conservative.
Neither McCain or Romney did any better than Giuliani for one simple reason: when questioned about the core conservative issues, neither has a decent record, or even a decent answer.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul -- who by any rational measure shouldn’t even be on the stage -- said at one point that the terrorists attacked us on 9-11 because of our interference in Middle Eastern affairs. That insane comment resulted in a genuine eruption of outrage from Giuliani, who demanded that Paul retract the statement. It was a perfect Rudy moment, and in it he erased his earlier blunder. Giuliani survives, mostly because the other top-tier candidates have as little claim to the conservative mantle as he.
The McCain -- Romney match resulted in the best theatrical moments of the night, the two taking turns kicking at the other’s biggest vulnerabilities. Romney went after McCain for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that -- aside from being an attack on free speech (yes, save me the e-mails on the Supreme Court decision upholding it. We can talk about that after the court reconsiders it this term) -- is bad policy. He also took McCain to task for going along with the amnesty approach to the illegal immigration problem in last year’s bill and in the McKennedy bill that is now being muddled through the Senate without McCain’s open support.
McCain lashed back at Romney for being a flip-flopper, changing his position in “even numbered years” and “depending on the office” being campaigned for. This round was a draw: neither scored a knockout, but each did enough damage to the other to prevent much climb in poll numbers. There were no conservatives (except perhaps Chris Wallace, who was the questioner in that segment) involved in this part of the debate.
McCain got cornered on illegal immigration. Trying to defend his position on illegal immigration, McCain said that some of the Fort Dix Six (the Kosovars who are being held on terrorism charges, having been planning a massacre at the New Jersey army base) were here on expired visas. Reports have indicated, however, that at least three of the six were here illegally having sneaked across the border. McCain also said that he had never supported amnesty. But he did: the Senate illegal immigration bill in 2006 was amnesty enshrouded in a cloud of blue smoke that required fines to be paid and time waited.
The Fox News team did their best to make this otherwise boring evening a little more interesting. Brit Hume led the contestants through a fictional scenario, posing the following facts: that suicide bombers had attacked shopping centers in America, causing a large number of casualties, that another team had been caught and taken to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation, and that intelligence indicated that another attack was imminent. Hume then asked each of the contestants (candidates seems too dignified a term at this point) about interrogation and other “next scenes” in the scenario.
Sen. McCain -- in line with his so-called “anti-torture” amendment -- said he would not allow the “enhanced interrogation” techniques that former CIA director Tenet says (in his new book) produced valuable information when used on high-ranking terrorists. McCain said that acting too aggressively would mean we lose the battle for world opinion. Wow. At that point, McCain stood very much alone.
The best response came from Sam Brownback who, in his only good moment of the night, scolded McCain saying it’s more important to save lives than to worry about world opinion. (Rep. Duncan Hunter scored heavily then, too, saying it would take a “one-minute conversation with the Secretary of Defense” for Hunter to say the interrogators should “get the information.” Hunter wasn’t about to spare the horses.
Giuliani -- again in his element -- said that he’d tell the interrogators to use “every method they could think of” and didn’t shy away from the “waterboarding” that interrogators apparently used on Khalid Sheik Mohammed (and which McCain says is torture.)
To their credit, the Fox team covered three of the 10 most important issues: Iraq, illegal immigration and abortion and did so in a way that actually got some answers from some of the ten contestants who were doing their very best to escape and evade. It would be far better if there were many fewer contestants on stage. This isn’t a beauty pageant, it’s the process of winnowing the candidates for the most important elective office in the world. And these debates could be a very useful tool in helping voters decide. But that can’t happen with so many on stage.
Before more “debates” such as these, there must be some reduction in the number of people allowed to participate. At this point, at least seven months before the first primary, the only way to do this is by poll numbers. Fair is fair: choose a point in time, say two weeks before the next debate. Use the RealClearPolitics poll average, and invite everyone who rises as high to have the support of at least 10% of the voters polled. Let the rest just go away.
Excellent point.
Even when Wallace gave him an additional 30 seconds to try to answer the question, Giuliani couldn’t come up with a response as to why conservatives should vote for him.
McCain tried his sailor joke again. It wasn’t that funny at the first debate. McCain claimed that he never supported amnesty. [I guess he didn’t even read his own McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration bill.] McCain seemed only able to give canned responses.
They probably aren’t “conservative” enough by my definition but my definition doesn’t include having an opinion on Roe v. Wade.
The conservatives were ignored for the most part. The actors read their lines well.
The McCain -- Romney match resulted in the best theatrical moments of the night, the two taking turns kicking at the other’s biggest vulnerabilities. Romney went after McCain for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that -- aside from being an attack on free speech (yes, save me the e-mails on the Supreme Court decision upholding it. We can talk about that after the court reconsiders it this term) -- is bad policy. He also took McCain to task for going along with the amnesty approach to the illegal immigration problem in last year’s bill and in the McKennedy bill that is now being muddled through the Senate without McCain’s open support.
McCain lashed back at Romney for being a flip-flopper, changing his position in “even numbered years” and “depending on the office” being campaigned for.
Note the distinction? Mitt Romney gave several specific issues on which McCain was wrong. McCain came back with platitudes about "flip-flopping" and "even-numbered-years".
Romney is an intellectual giant in this group. He's smart, he knows the issues, he can cogently defend his positions. He's takes the conservative positions on most issues, and on some where he's not perfect he's imperfect in ways most who care about those issues have shown willingness to overlook for the greater good.
Why is this always the answer? The article goes into detail about why Brownback and Hunter had great answers to an important question, then winds up by saying they should not have been on the stage.
Mitt Romney did very well in the second debate. I thought he won it. Who knows, he might make a decent POTUS, but he’s no conservative. A centrist at best. That is the thrust of the article. I think the main goal is to continue working to knock out the full fledged liberal in the race for the GOP nomination. That would be Rudy Giuliani. Then hope Fred Thompson gets going and maybe even see Newt Gingrich jump into the campaign. Its still early and there is still time for a conservative to step into the fray and take control of matters.
I note that the headline isn’t much supported by the text, in the case of Romney.
Debate performances are only one small part of the overall campaign. Remember, we aren’t choosing the best debater, we’re choosing who will be the GOP nominee. Some candidates haven’t been able to garner a growing level of support. Its still early, but if people like Tom Tancredo -— who I really like -— doesn’t start moving up in the polls soon, he’ll be forced out for lack of funds. He basically said that last night after the debate to Hannity. Same goes for others who are now low in the polls. They have several months, not much longer.
A hillary vs. Giuliani match up would be interesting in that Giuliani may get the liberal northern states and Hillary the south.
Reasons: Giuliani is a liberal that the lib repulicans could vote for in the North...the Northern Rat may not have enough hilary support to overcome Giuliani’s northern appeal.
Hillary could take the south then because the Southern conservative would just stay at home giving the Rats in the South no competition.
But even if Giuliani won the Republicans would lose more southern seats in the Congress and not pick up any in the North.
Mitt does not have conservative positions on:
2ND Amendment
Abortion / Pro life
Illegals
Big government, Ref the Mass medical insurance.
Tax Reform
I concur. I was hoping to read more about Mitt so I could make an informed opinion, but all I had was hyperbole from McCain.
All Romney’s McCain-Feingold attack on McCain did was illustrate Mitt’s gross hypocrisy once again. At the time CFR was being debated, Romney supported even more egregious destructions of the First Amendment.
I disagree with the “cut off at 10%” based on poll averages methodology.
1) Many polling firms have a very liberal bias, tending almost to push polling. Should we turn even more of the conservative sorting process over to liberals?
2) Polls typically overstate the importance of non-voters.
This is the main reason that Republicans (who actually vote most of the time) often finish ahead of projections of even late polls.
3) Many polls include Democrat and Independents who (depending on the state) may not be eligible to vote in Republican Party Primaries.
4. Almost all polls are nationwide - which vastly over-emphasizes the importance of large urban areas, which are mostly located in large states where the Donkeys will win for sure.
Why let a bunch of New Yorkers and Angelinos pick the Republican candidate most attractive to them when it is the voters in Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and other swing states that we most need to attract to win.
5) At this point in the process the polls are an echo chamber. Big media tells us who they think are leaders, the polls then reflect what Big Media is saying. Mitt Romney is the poster child for this. He is neither more qualified nor obviously stronger than several other candidates, but has recieved reams more press coverage? Why? Could it be the big-media are familiar with and close to Mass, but, not say, Arkansas where Mike Huckabee is. YES.
Do we really want liberal big-media having even MORE of a roll in selection of our candiates.
In summary, the article is CORRECT that the leading candidates are not Conservative.
The reasons are that up to this point the process has had many built in liberal biases, including polling firm and methodology bias, media bias, and location bias.
The proposed solution is a bad one that reinforces these biases.
Can you give examples of each?
Is he anti-gun? Evidence?
I know of his flip-flop on abortion, but I’m not sure if he’s truly for Abortion or if he’s just another politician without backbone willing to say anything to get elected. Remember Mass is an extremely liberal state.
But the sad truth is all politicians will change positions if required to win an election. Doesn’t make it right, but who among them isn’t a politician?
That leaves Duncan Hunter is the only consistent Conservative with true presidential potential.
Yep, Hunter & later Fred. Ther’s the ticket.
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