I thought Thompson did well. He made good points, especially about addressing spending by attacking the entitlements. Killing Homeland Security won’t do a thing to get the budget under control, and he knows it.
I thought McCain had a good night. He was strong on Iraq, stuck it to Ron Paul, and even defended his anti-torture position well. He was consistent on his anti-spending position. I still don’t think he has a chance because of his pro-illegal stances, but hey, there’s gotta be something said for a guy who sticks with what he believes.
Giuliani had a little tougher night. It seemed like he was on the defensive all night: sanctuary cities, gun control. He did a pretty good job of defending his overall record, although I wanted him to nail that question on ‘restoring America’s standing with the Muslim world’, and for the most part he popped it up. Duncan Hunter, on the other hand, nailed it. He had the line of the night, I thought: “I will never apologize for America” or something like that. I thought Hunter was very, very good tonight. He’s got the right positions, for some reason he’s just not catching on. I guess because most people don’t know who he is.
Romney just seemed there to me, he didn’t do much to impress me. Ron Paul, fiscally correct, foreign policy WRONG. At least he’s not running third party. Huckabee, I really wanted to see him, as he’s getting big time traction. Wasn’t impressed. And then Tancredo, I love him. Where would we be on illegal immigration without him? Probably wouldn’t even be an issue. He nailed Huckabee on that Mars question. Some kid in a basement wants to know how much we’re going to spend to go to Mars, Huckabee says, more, more, more, Tancredo says, ‘see, that’s why we’re in debt.’ Beautiful. For me, I’m definitely leaning towards Thompson, although I thought the whole field for the most part acquitted themselves pretty well. I don’t buy this bit about having poor candidates. I think there are a number of people on that stage that would make good Presidents.
Mr. McCain does well when he talks about spending and Iraq, but he failed to give undecided voters a reason to vote for him. The guy who did the song at the beginning may have summed up his situation very well. Many people admire him a great deal, and the rest hate him. Unfortunately for Mr. McCain, his admirers only comprise about 20% of Republican primary voters, and maybe half of them are still going to vote for another candidate. Unless he can move some undecided voters, he loses. He needed to move some of those voters tonight, and he didn't. He can't afford to have events of this kind where he can't swing undecided voters.
I thought Mr. Romney's biggest improvement tonight was that he didn't back down from anyone. He started the attack on Rudy Giuliani and pressed the illegal alien scholarship issue against Mike Huckabee. He looked more like a front runner tonight than he has in the past. He's being pushed by the other candidates as if he's a front runner, but he responded well. He doesn't claim to have all of the answers, but he's a man who has made a career of assembling the right teams to find and implement the answers. For people who don't understand that a president's job is to assemble those teams, he may not come across as presidential, but the rest of us are impressed by his executive ability.
In any case, I appreciate your thoughtful analysis.
Bill