Everybody Was Good; Fred, Rudy, and Huck Were Best

The Campaign Spot ^ | October 21, 2007 | Jim Geraghty

[jellybean]

Everybody Was Good; Fred, Rudy, and Huck Were Best

Wow. By far, the best debate of the cycle in either party. Just about everybody came out swinging, took some lumps, countered, made the crowd laugh, spurred applause, and jabbed at the moderators. The crowd was fired up, and the moderators took an aggressive tack that shook any lingering lethargy out of the candidates. Feel confident, Republicans. One way or another, the GOP is going to have a good debater representing it next year.

Winner or winners? Tough to call, because I think we saw just about every candidate at their best tonight, even the no-hopers like Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo. So I’ll classify the participants a bit differently this evening:

Helped Themselves a Lot Tonight:

Fred Thompson: Frankly, he needed it. He really should have gotten a bigger chunk of the vote at the Family Research Council summit straw poll, and let’s face it, we had been waiting for any speech, any debate appearance, any event with Thompson to be a “wow, that was fantastic.” Well, tonight was that moment we’ve been waiting for, maybe none better than his answer to Wendell Goler’s question/accusation of laziness. His answer on the lobbying for the abortion group was strong, too – ‘look at my votes, and the pro-choice folks I worked for are pulling this out now because they fear me.’ Finally – finally! – we’re seeing what we wanted to see in Thompson – homespun, able to make his case simply, directly, and clearly, and with a bit of humor here and there.

Rudy Giuliani: The first time I thought Rudy Giuliani could be president was at his 2004 convention speech, where he hit all kinds of emotional notes just right. Similar performance tonight – maybe heavy on laughs - but it worked. Pugnacious, quick thinker on his feet, engaging. And, as usual, if you lead the polls, and nobody walks out of a debate talking about your gaffes or bad answers (and other than a slightly weird joke about not being sure that he didn’t accidentally perform a gay marriage, Rudy didn’t have many bad moments) you won. Rudy won’t lose ground; this is a candidate and a campaign hitting all cylanders at just the right time. He took some shots, but the attacks were probably old news to those following the race day in, day out.

Mike Huckabee: After the FRC summit, he’s the social conservative choice, and if he gets the nomination, Hillary won’t know what hit her. This guy can sell ice to Eskimos. Kept his momentum, and played against his "the funny one" typecasting with his argument, "there's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton as Commander in Chief."

Probably Helped Themselves a Little Tonight:

John McCain: Some great lines, and once again, a candidate felt the need to salute McCain’s service in the miltiary as well as in the Senate. We’ll see if this performance does him good in the polls – he did a great speech at the FRC, and it got him nowhere. I think the aspect I liked most was that he could jab at his rivals, but it never seemed too nasty or cranky. He’s got stature. He’s a well-established brand name, and I wonder if he’s turning into everyone’s second or third choice.

Mitt Romney: One of his strongest performances, but it seemed like somebody put a “kick me” sign on his back right before he went on. On the other hand, it’s a sign of where he is in the race that Thompson, Giuliani, and McCain see value in attacking him at this moment. Kathryn said he could have used the PowerPoint slides on one answer. But great jabs at Hillary, and seemed to feed off the crowd's energy.

Oh, and I vote for the mussed-up hair.

Thanks For Playing: Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Ron Paul. Come back when you’re at ten percent in one of the early primary states or a national poll.

UPDATE: In my e-mailbox, every campaign thinks their guy won. I know this will come as a great surprise to you. I pledge, any campaign that sends me an e-mail: "EXPERTS AGREE: OUR GUY LOST, BIG-TIME; PUNDITS CALL PERFORMANCE 'CATASTROPHIC' AND 'EMBARRASSING" I will print in this space in its entirety.

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[calcowgirl]

Huckabee mentioned LOST and loss of sovereignty somewhat mildly in the debate but really went after it with Colmes in the post debate interview. I want to hear those same words from some of the other candidates.

The same goes for Global Warming. So far, I haven’t heard anybody come out strongly against that and am disappointed with those who will go-along with regulating greenhouse gases because it’s popular. It will destroy our economy, IMO.

[ellery]

Thanks for the info. It would be good to see a breakdown of bettors based on national origin — if this mostly reflects the opinions of folks overseas, I think it’s a less-valuable measure than if it reflects mostly the opinions/investments of Americans.

Of course, I’m sure Intrade doesn’t want to publicize it if they’re getting US-based bets through back-channels. :)

[Rick_Michael]

Anyone know where to watch this online? I missed it. :/

[Kevmo]

Here’s the results from the latest FR poll. Unless Huckabee is employing the same number of spammers as Ron Paul, he is gaining the most.

Republic Opinion Poll: (10/21) Which GOP presidential hopeful did the best job of advancing his chances in tonight’s debate?

Composite Opinion
Fred Thompson 32.0% 151
Duncan Hunter 18.6% 88
Mike Huckabee 14.6% 69
Rudy Giuliani 14.0% 66
Ron Paul 11.2% 53
Mitt Romney 6.8% 32
John McCain 1.5% 7
Tom Tancredo 1.3% 6
100.0% 472

Member Opinion
Fred Thompson 34.6% 88
Duncan Hunter 25.2% 64
Rudy Giuliani 11.4% 29
Mike Huckabee 10.6% 27
Mitt Romney 9.1% 23
Ron Paul 5.9% 15
John McCain 2.4% 6
Tom Tancredo 0.8% 2
100.0% 254

Non-Member Opinion
Fred Thompson 28.9% 63
Mike Huckabee 19.3% 42
Ron Paul 17.4% 38
Rudy Giuliani 17.0% 37
Duncan Hunter 11.0% 24
Mitt Romney 4.1% 9
Tom Tancredo 1.8% 4
John McCain 0.5% 1
100.0% 218

[calcowgirl]

I really liked McCain tonight. I liked his demeanor and his experience came through in spades.

Unfortunately, then I remember his maniacal outbursts, CFR, Immigration Reform, his coziness with Teddy Kennedy, etc. If we could just clone the best parts of all these guys! LOL.

[calcowgirl]

You are the Queen of Giuliani archeaology. :)

When it comes to Giuliani's past, digging through dirt is unavoidable. ;-)

[jellybean]

McCain was talking about stopping Hillary’s earmark, and then he commented, “I didn’t attend Woodstock .. I was tied up at the time.” I loved it when the audience caught on to what McCain meant - he was tied up - in a prison in Vietnam.

Personally I was put off by McCain's reference to his time as a POW. It reminded me too much of John Kerry constantly referring to having served in Viet Nam. The audience loved it, but I think McCain had better lines.

[Kevmo]

It’s really hard to imagine a bunch of foreigners getting together to give the bump to... Mike Huckabee. I think this is reasonable for a face-value estimate of who made the biggest impact on the debate.

[Liberty Valance]

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HA!

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[DoughtyOne]

I know it looks like disaray now, but we’ll get there.

This process doesn’t appeal to me, but it’s the way we learn about the candidates and select the best man during the primaries. I just hope it doesn’t work out to be the one with the best machine. If it does, we’re probably in trouble.

[jellybean]

Thanks for the heads up on the poll! I never think to look at them unless someone points them out. Voted! :)

[txhurl]

Hey, the ‘certifiably insane’ dude was myfavoriteheadache.

[jellybean]

Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix: Thompson Scores Against Leading Debate Foes

By Craig Crawford

ORLANDO — John McLaughlin, the pollster for Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign, almost jumped out of this chair with glee last night at the start of the Republican debate. And that was before his candidate had even gotten a chance to speak.

Watching with reporters in the media center, McLaughlin was ecstatic because Fox News Channel’s Chris Wallace had just opened the debate by quoting Thompson’s recent belittling of the conservative credentials presented by his chief rivals. Taking turns reciting Thompson’s complaints about Rudy Giuliani, and then about Mitt Romney, Wallace ended each inquiry with the same question to both hopefuls: “Who is more conservative: you or Fred Thompson?”

After Giuliani and Romney were put on the defensive and gamely tried to spin their conservative records, Thompson took full advantage of his first chance to respond. Noting that Giuliani has supported federal funding for abortion, gun control and havens for illegal immigrants, Thompson said, “He sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues.”

That slam underscored the Thompson team’s main line of attack against Giuliani’s implied argument that his liberal social views would make him the more electable GOP nominee. “If we run as the male Hillary, we lose,” McLaughlin said, reaching for his portable e-mail device to compare notes with other happy Thompson aides.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.

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I'm gonna hafta go to bed soon or there won't be anything left to post on The Daily FRead tomorrow. :)

[longtermmemmory]

Huckabee is a mole just to drain Thompson from MSM attention.

Huckabee is just the successor to ronpaul.

If we go by MSM analysis then Tancredo and Hunter tied with Huckabee.

Giuliani did not give his deathblow.
Romney did not give his deathblow. (but cutting back on the hair spray prevented the confusion with a disney animatronic)

Huckabee did NOTHING that was not done by Hunter.

Tancredo had the worst day.

the one winner who was not there was barack obama. He cn now use the Hillary is unelectable line.

Ronpaul needs out of the race and will probably be uninvited. Huckabee is being proped up ronpaul style to keep the GOP race a cluster copulation to help the Ailes pal Giuliani.

[Kevmo]

That’s all well and good, but it’s your opinion. That’s why I post the Intrade results, because it’s the closest thing I can find to an unbiased opinion of who won the debate.

Of course if it were up to me to determine a winner, it would be Duncan Hunter, hands down.

[longtermmemmory]

If Romney has the brain he claims,

he should pick up on the Giuliani IS HILLARY theme.

Thompson and Romney can berate hilary and eliminate Giuliani WITH THE SAME ARGUMENTS!

[PeoplesRepublicOfWA]

Welcome to Free Republic. Back up your idiot assertions with facts, please. Just how did Fred Thompson aide and abet Bill Clinton? Hmm?

Fred Thompson had an opportunity to vote to convict Bill Clinton at the conclusion of his trial in the Senate following his impeachment in the House. Sen. Thompson decided that his high crimes and misdemeanors were not high crimes and misdemeanors. Not only is he a liberal apologist, he's a piss poor attorney and historian.

[ellery]

Huckabee mentioned LOST and loss of sovereignty somewhat mildly in the debate but really went after it with Colmes in the post debate interview. I want to hear those same words from some of the other candidates.

I Tivo'd the debate, so I haven't seen it yet (I did read along with the live thread and of course had to jump in here to see what everyone thought). I wish I had thought to Tivo the after-debate interviews, too. I agree that I would like all the candidates to talk about sovreignty. I do think federalism is one of the best bulwarks against loss of sovreignty (since power concentrated in 50 state capitals can't be sold off by one guy in DC). But it's a vital enough issue that it would be good to hear it directly and frequently addressed.

The same goes for Global Warming. So far, I haven’t heard anybody come out strongly against that and am disappointed with those who will go-along with regulating greenhouse gases because it’s popular. It will destroy our economy, IMO.

Agreed, absolutely. I did like one of Thompson's commentaries that pointed out the "global warming" on Mars, but for the most part the issue seems to have just dropped off the map. The only think I could find in the actual senate record was this: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205 -- since it was a 95-0 vote, I don't think it tells us very much. Thompson was a co-sponsor, while McCain was not...but there were 67 co-sponsors, and everyone voted for it except for Bryan, Feinstein, Grams, Harkin and Reid. So, a non-controversial bill doesn't really address much one way or the other about a candidate's willingness to take a strong stand on the issue.

Romney apparently spent the first part of his term pursuing a greenhouse gas pact with 9 other eastern governors, before backing out at the 11th hour in late 2005. I'm sure you always enjoy a mention of your pal Arnold :):

All this is being translated into political action - often led by major Republicans. This month, Massachusetts has adopted aggressive measures to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, making Mitt Romney the third Republican governor of an important state (after George Pataki of New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California) to depart from the White House line. The states responsible for most of the US emissions - mainly in the Midwest and South - remain unmoved, but a dozen others have now either adopted such measures or promised to do so, creating a political momentum that is already affecting national politics.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200405170020

I haven't checked the records of Giuliani, Hunter or Tancredo yet -- I know I shouldn't assume, but I'm guessing that Giuliani was for government solutions to global warming, and am almost certain that Hunter and Tancredo are opposed.

I'm not sure why this hasn't been covered in the debates, with all the hoopla over the Goreacle...??

[longtermmemmory]

The begining defined the debate.

Thompson’s pointing out Giuliani and Hillary have the identical views was a most missed highlight of the Debate.

Giuliani’s “you have got to be kidding” in avoid denying he and hillary support the same views on gun control and abortion was the most pathetic. (see french)

[PeoplesRepublicOfWA]

You can add Trent Lott to that list!

Oh Trent is on the list, along with any other senator who ignored the law and evidence and aided and abetted Clinton's crimes. I had the pleasure of helping to vote Slade Gorton out of office shortly after he split the baby and cast one vote to convict and one to find him not guilty. (I hope Slade is enjoying retirement. He appeared again rather briefly to shame America by his spineless role in the 911 hearings, which merely served to justify my voting against him in the wake of Clinton's trial.) Unfortunately I don't have an opportunity to vote against Lott, but I will take pleasure in voting against Thompson. Anyone who supports Thompson is nothing less than a Clinton supporter.