8:00 CST – Brian Williams just asked the audience to refrain from reaction…we’ll see how that plays out.
8:03 CST – An opening softball to Newt. At least Brian Williams learned from John King’s error.
8:07 CST – How much does Huckabee’s critique damn Romney? I’m unsure. It might mean more if Huck was working with Newt. That probably isn’t going to happen. I don’t envy the Evangelicals right now. They have to decide between a Mormon and a (at least presently) Catholic. That can’t be fun for Evangelicals.
8:09 CST – So, are Santorum and Ron Paul here? It’d be cool if they could maybe speak. Oddly enough, I’ve found FOX pretty fair and balanced when it comes to moderating the debates.
8:12 CST – Oh hey, Santorum. His path to the top? Sweatervests. For only 100 dollars, you, too, can own one.
8:15 CST – Alright…that’s enough Santorum. Geez.
8:15 CST – Ron Paul’s first question. ”When are you going to drop out?” ”Will you support Newt?” “Are you going to run 3rd party?”…Yeah. Nice job, Brian Williams.
8:21 CST – Mitt wants to lower taxes on corporations to help people. I’m actually beginning to think he really believes that corporations are people.
8:21 CST – Mitt just admitted that all of his earnings are capital gains, more or less. Which means, at most, he’s getting taxed at 15%. Provided he’s not using any loopholes. He said that if the capital gains tax was 0%, he wouldn’t have paid any taxes. Meanwhile, he wants to tax people who have finally gotten jobs again.
8:25 CST – I like Rick Santorum’s attack here on the bailout. This a good move. It puts some heat on both Romney and Newt for advocating the bailout (which is still not all that popular).
8:28 CST – So, Newt and Mitt’s approach to Rick Santorum’s question. Dodge it, and fight with one another over whether or not Newt was a consultant. This is why laissez faire debate moderation is not the best way to generate a meaningful discussion. Welcome to the first of many, many, many, circles.
8:31 CST – Brian Williams sucks at debate moderation.
8:32 CST – Man, I thought Newt was going to deliver much more a haymaker here. He measured Mitt up, and then went on defense. Bizarre. So, it’s been 10 minutes since Santorum and Ron Paul last spoke. Have I mentioned that Brian Williams sucks at moderating debates?
8:33 CST – Oh hey, Brian Williams finally stepped in…to bring us to commercial. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum haven’t spoke in over 10 minutes.
8:36 CST – Brian Williams makes John King look like Jim Lehrer.
8:38 CST – Santorum sighting. He’s trying to go back to bailouts. Were I him (which would be a sweatervested fate worse than death), I would try to hammer Newt and Mitt on the bailout issue at least one more time.
8:39 CST – Ron Paul sighting. This question is actually suited to Ron Paul’s holistic style.
8:41 CST – ‘Gentleman, 30 seconds please’ Oh Brian Williams, you so funny.
8:42 CST – Mitt just said that the market was under-regulated prior to the collapse…head scratch? He’s not wrong, but I don’t think this is going to play with the crowd (who have, to NBC’s credit, stayed quiet).
8:44 CST – Reveling in Castro’s death? Always a classy move. Nice job, Mitt. (That actually got applause)…*sigh*
8:45 CST – Newt, not to be outdone, implies Castro is in hell. Apparently, Mitt’s soft on reveling. And he wants Obama to get involved in the politics of Cuba?
8:46 CST – I like how Ron Paul turned isolationism around on Mitt and Newt. This was a nice rhetorical move. And a hearty round of applause, too for “I think we’re living in the Dark Ages when we can’t even talk to Cuba” I think Ron Paul actually is winning this line of questioning (in regards to Cuba…not Iran. The base hates that stuff).
8:48 CST – Rick Santorum wonderfully illustrates with his answer here how the War On Terror is the new Cold War when it comes to drumming up fear.
8:51 CST – ‘The American people have no interest in going to war anywhere?’ – Newt. Really? Really?
8:54 CST – “I think it would be the most foolish thing in the world right now to take on Iran” -Ron Paul.
8:55 CST – Apparently, Brian is bringing in the posse when we get back from commercial break. Oh boy!
9:00 CST – I’m really glad we gave Santorum time to have a crack on the Iran thing. He’s making the case that we’re already at war, and we’re being attacked by Iran. *sigh* Rick Santorum proves Newt Gingrich wrong. ’The American people have no interest in going to war anywhere?’-Newt. Yeah…not so much. Bellicosity is still well within the mainstream of American politics.
9:03 CST – Newt got asked a tough question on English as the official language of government, and he actually did a nice job answering. I think that the structural logic of the question asked doesn’t follow, either. Just because one’s campaign is putting out press releases in another language means that that would automatically extend to national policy. That’s a big leap.
9:07 CST – Newt’s immigration policy, while seemingly humane, is really confusing. There’s a lot of ins and outs.
9:08 CST – Awesome question from Adam Smith. Romney wants people out of the country ‘at the back of the line’ but doesn’t want to deport them. I’ve never understood how this makes sense to him. Romney’s answer: Self-Deportation. This might come back to haunt him. Even the word ‘Self-Deportation’ got laughs.
9:10 CST – Wow…Self-Deportation. I’m repeating it because it bears repeating. Self-Deportation.
9:12 CST – Mitt is advocating for NASA.
9:13 CST – Ron Paul is definitely moderating his ‘slash everything’ position. He was asked if he would cut funding to the Everglades, he said, in effect, no, because it is small potatoes compared to the wars and other things.
9:18 CST – Terry Schiavo is being re-hashed. When is America going to finally come around to the idea that suicide is a basic human right that the Government shouldn’t be involved in? Incidentally, Rick Santorum essentially argued for ‘legislating from the bench’ by saying that the courts should have decided this. This would, in effect, establish precedent.
9:23 CST – Space Coast sounds like Space Ghost.
9:24 CST – Newt doesn’t seem to appreciate that what he calls ‘sitting around in a room and talking’ is what got NASA to accomplish incredible things. Aeronautics, in particular, has always been a lot of ‘sitting around and talking’. This is because if you don’t do enough of that, people die during flights and expensive planes, rockets and shuttles are lost. Not good.
On another note, ‘sitting around and talking’ is pretty much the basis of diplomacy.
9:30 CST – Governor Romney: What have you done to advance conservatism?
1) I had a family. (Seriously?)
2) I ran a business. (Meh)
3) I became a governor. (Decent. Why isn’t this #1?)
Well, one out of three ain’t bad. In Baseball.
9:33 CST – Newt is re-making the case that he’s the best debater against Obama.
9:34 CST – Santorum is telling us the two biggest threats to the country.
1) Obamacare (I really, really, really, thought he was going to say Iran)
“When push came to shoved, they got pushed” (Dammit Santorum, I say that. Might as well go buy a sweatervest now.)
I thought there was going to be a 2). There wasn’t.
9:37 CST – Ron Paul remade his consistant conservative case. Meager applause.
9:38 CST – Mitt Romney’s spin on losing to Ted Kennedy cracks me up.
9:40 CST – Governor Romney, you talk about restoring America’s greatness. When was America last great?
“It still is.” This man has never met a cognitive dissonance he didn’t like.
9:42 CST – “David Gregory in the Spin Room” Gotta love it when the media is up front with it. The only thing that would be funnier if he introduced people like “And here to give the Repubican talking points, is ______” and “and with us now, delivering the Democratic spin, ______”
9:45 CST – I never thought that I would live to see the day where the Newt Gingrich would strike fear within the Republican establishment.
Post-Game Analysis:
This was, essentially, two different debates. The initial Brian Williams laissez-faire round, while not illuminating, favored Gingrich. Romney needed to either score quickly on the lobbyist issue, or move on. He did neither. Since Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were non-factors during this round, it was essentially Newt in a 1 on 1 with Mitt, debating. This is the exact opposite of what the Romney campaign wants.
Mitt Romney was actually debating against Newt tonight (as opposed to his previous tactic of debating against bizarro-Barack Obama-in-absentia). This was an improvement from his previous strategy, and yet, oddly, a concession to the fact that he is no longer the frontrunner. Mitt can certainly hold his own in short exchanges with Newt, but, the prolonged unmoderated stints in the first hour were extremely advantageous for Newt.
During the second round, when Brian Williams was joined by others, the candidates had to answer some fairly tough questions. Legitimate questions, but tough ones. Mitt bombed this. ’Self-Deportation’ may be the takeaway phrase of the night. That’s not good. Additionally, he has had days to prepare for the “What have you done to advance the cause of conservatism?” question. In fact, Chris Christie (Romney supporter) was asked that very question this weekend on Meet The Press, which is on NBC. ’I started a family’ is not a strong answer to that question.
While Mitt made some solid adjustments in his debate approach during this debate, both his offense and defense still come off as timid. When Romney was the frontrunner, he could play off his unaggressive approach as the behavior of a frontrunner, claiming he’s trying to be above the fray. He no longer has that luxury. Should he fall to a decided second place behind Gingrich, if he continues to attack and defend timidly, he’ll quickly find himself in third place.
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