Today we feature a good amount of coverage on last night’s GOP Presidential debate at the Ronald
Reagan Library in Simi Valley. We have post debate ‘spin’ from representatives of the three ‘front-runner’ candidates — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney — as well as a note from Duncan Hunter’s campaign. As of my writing this, a couple of members of our FR team have penned their observations over on the blog page, and we, of course, feature on the main page an extensive listing of articles from around California (and a few nationally) about the debate.
I will make a few general observations about the debate.
- With the field of candidates so wide (ten), there was not enough time in an hour-long debate for any one candidate to really take command and leave this debate in a substantially better position than before.
- I was really impressed with Sam Brownback’s performance. That was the most notable surprise to me. I think because I don’t really know him, and this was my first opportunity to check him out a bit.
- McCain, while he started out a little slow, really got into a groove and while I wouldn’t declare him the ‘winner’ (which is more of a function of the debate format, where no candidate had enough time to "win" anything) — I thought that he came across extremely well. As a conservative, I was pleased that he injected some rhetoric into the discussion about how our GOP Congress had "lost its way" and that over-spending was a major factor in losing the House.
- Stepping back, it seems like Mitt Romney gained the most from this debate by just being himself, but in a forum that is allowing him much broader access to the GOP electorate. McCain and Giuliani are virtually household figures amongst GOP voters already.
- I admit that I was a little under whelmed by Rudy Giuliani. Part of this is due to my high expectations having seen him speak candidly and up close in a more relaxed setting, I really didn’t feel like this format was good for him. I wouldn’t over-react to this criticism of mine — because relatively, he did just fine. He’s safely "on base," but this was no "extra-base" at bat for the Mayor. Of course, I was unhappy with his rhetoric on the abortion issue, but that was to be expected.
- Of the "seven dwarves" (seems like a good enough moniker for seven candidates who seriously need a financial kick-start if they are going to compete nationally), I though that two of them demonstrated that they are too ‘charisma challenged’ for this kind of debate — Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul (by the way, I probably admire Paul as a Congressman more than virtually any other House member — but that’s for his convictions, not his charisma). The ones that stood out most to my perception were Jim Gilmore, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter.
- Normally I am a big fan of Chris Matthews — mainly because when I watch his shows, he typically asks the questions that I would want asked of the people whom he is interviewing, and when they try to respond off-point or evasively, he dives in to get a real answer, or at least make it clear that the subject is dodging the question. I don’t know if it was the multiple non-Matthews questioners, or the limited time frame, but I was underwhelmed by Matthews. A great example of an unasked question would be to Senator McCain, asking him why he has a record of voting against tax cuts. McCain, of course, has an answer, but he was never asked the question…
In summation, I thought that this was a great opportunity really get an ‘overview’ of many of the candidates, but that the number of candidates and the shortness of time really kept us from seeing any real opportunity to ‘get to know’ any of the candidates better. This, of course, is mostly bad news for the seven lesser-funded candidates, who need big events like this to get out their message. I will end by rank-ordering the candidates based my feeling of how they performed in the debate, from best to worst, with an understanding that this is not a ‘who won’ and ‘who lost’ — and it is combining all factors from content, style, demeanor, etcetera.
1. Sam Brownback
2. John McCain
3. Jim Gilmore
4. Mitt Romney
5. Duncan Hunter
6. Rudy Giuliani
7. Mike Huckabee
8. Ron Paul
9. Tommy Thompson
10. Tom Tancredo
That’s my take and I would certainly welcome public comment (below) or private comment to my e-mail!
Jon
P.S. Tonight’s appearance by Fred Thompson at the Annual Dinner of the Orange County Lincoln Club should be interesting. Given that this speech will be covered live and heavily reported on as well, Thompson will have a big leg up if he is seeking to define himself to the GOP electorate. Thirty minutes divided by one is a lot more than sixty minutes divided up by ten (sharing those sixty with the debate facilitators)…
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