Debate Awards
For what it's worth, here are my awards for tonight's debate:
1. Best Debate.
Tonight's. It featured more good answers - substantively intelligent and/or politically shrewd - than any other debate.
2. Best exchange.
Thompson-Huckabee. Thompson launched a powerful attack on Huckabee from the right. Huckabee responded with a strong defense of his record that would have appealed to less ideological voters. Both were high quality minutes-and-a-half.
3. Most improved.
Thompson. Woke up, smelled the coffee, and showed his stuff.
4. Best in foreign policy.
McCain. Very strong and eloquent on the surge.
5. Failed to do what he had to do.
Romney. He had to get some momentum in Michigan. But after McCain slapped him down in the first exchange, Romney was passive and not much of a presence.
6. Best political skills.
Huckabee. The guy's unusually talented, and still underestimated inside the Beltway.
7. Helped himself in Michigan.
McCain. Strong as commander in chief, and held his own on economics.
8. Helped himself in South Carolina.
Huckabee. Boffo answer on religion.
9. Best joke.
Thompson. Virgins.
10. Shadow of his former self.
Giuliani. Where did the zip go?
--William Kristol
Debate Recap
I had hoped Brit Hume's first question of Ron Paul in tonight's Republican presidential debate on Fox News would be this: "Where were you last Sunday night, Congressman Paul? We saw your supporters running around outside the studio in New Hampshire with cops chasing after them. We missed you in the debate." Paul, of course, wasn't invited to the Republican debate in New Hampshire, prompting him to complain bitterly and sending his backers into a tizzy. Alas, Hume didn't deliver.
But he wasn't exactly reverential toward Paul. Hume asked the Republican candidates how they felt about the response to harassment of American naval warships by Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz this week. Five of them backed the cautious response of the American commanders.
Then Paul sounded off, saying he disagreed with the belligerent talk of the other candidates. Paul said they wanted to put the country on the path to war with Iran. Hume was mystified. Hume asked Paul, whom was he referring to? The other candidates had advised caution, not a military response, Hume noted. Paul seemed perplexed and suggested he hadn't heard what his rivals had said. My guess is he wasn't listening.
That episode was the high point in the debate. But it wasn't the only thing of interest. Fred Thompson, now that his campaign is practically dead after he got one percent of the vote in New Hampshire, was far more energized than he had been in earlier debates. Who would've expected it? Not I.
And I was impressed with Mike Huckabee's continued ability to be witty. The former Baptist preacher, when asked a question on religion, noted that he's the only candidate to get such questions. He said he might as well pass the collection plate in the audience. Might as well "go all the way." His campaign could use the money. Okay, maybe you had to be watching to find that funny.
One more point. This was the third Republican debate in five days. Do we really need this many debates? The answer is no. I doubt the voters are demanding this many. I watched all three and I'm not demanding this many either. But I have to admit debates have mattered this primary season as never before. Without them, there'd have been no emergence of Huckabee as a leading candidate and perhaps no surge by John McCain.
For what it's worth, here's how I'd rank the performances of the candidates in the debate: 1) Huckabee 2) McCain 3) Thompson 4) Mitt Romney 5) Rudy Giuliani 6) Paul.
--Fred Barnes
Fredemption?
Clear winner? Fred Thompson. He was commanding, funny, articulate. His rat-a-tat-tat answer deconstructing Mike Huckabee's record was incredibly effective--a good actor can certainly memorize his lines. But Fred was good off the cuff, too. He does, at times, seem uninterested, especially when others are talking. He won the debate, but those cutaway shots don't help him. Still, Thompson has to have made strides among conservatives who are not yet sold on John McCain. He could have done more to engage McCain directly-- he did so once, but it was almost passive. Fredemption?
John McCain was a strong second. He is now the frontrunner, a position that has given him trouble in the past-- both in 2000 and early in this cycle. But if he is ill at ease with this status, he is not showing it at all. McCain seemed as relaxed as I've seen him in this format. He is not often the most articulate man on the stage or the most fluid, but he was very solid tonight. His answer on how he would have handled the situation with Iran could not have been better had it been scripted in advance. He reminds people often that he was for the surge before it was cool to be for the surge. It was interesting to see Rudy Giuliani, who needs to mitigate McCain's strengths on national security, play me-too on the surge. McCain said earlier that he needed to "own the surge," and he surely did tonight.
Huckabee's performance tonight was like his campaign: He did well on religion and poorly on everything else. Oddly enough, that could be enough to help him in South Carolina. His religion answer generated a ton of applause and could be a harbinger of the support evangelicals might deliver him on primary day.
Rudy Giuliani did fine, but didn't do anything to distinguish himself. Most of his answers were forgettable.
In my view, Mitt Romney struggled for the third debate in a row. It's enough to make me wonder if his subpar performances thus far have affected his confidence levels.
--Stephen F. Hayes
A Big Night for Huckabee
FOR THE THIRD time in six days, the Republican candidates gathered for a presidential debate in South Carolina on Thursday night. They say the presidential campaign isn't a sprint but a marathon. This week, it felt like a triathlon.
The pre-debate agendas for each candidate were clear. Rudy, Fred, and Mitt had to do something to lift themselves off the mat. McCain and Huckabee had to broaden their appeal while avoiding any catastrophic errors that would make a Mitt, Fred, or Rudy rebound more likely:
Oh, and Ron Paul had to stop embarrassing himself and the philosophy of libertarianism, something that seemed only slightly more likely than John McCain going the entire evening without saying "My friends."
So how did the contestants fare? In ascending order:
6) Ron Paul: Paul has become the Washington Generals of politicians, assuming the Generals had thousands of zealots who showed up every time they played the Globetrotters and cheered like lunatics whenever the Generals hoisted up a shot, regardless of whether or not it went in. Paul's sole function at these things is for the other candidates to point out his relentless silliness and score points at his expense. The cranky Texan provided a wealth of opportunities for righteous indignation this evening, and it was a sad commentary on the Republican field that only Brit Hume and Mike Huckabee effectively rebuked him.
5) Mitt Romney: The stakes were highest for Romney. He came into tonight's debate with a harsh, looming deadline. If he doesn't win in Michigan next Tuesday, he's pretty much done. Fred and Rudy at least don't have their respective final exams until South Carolina and Florida.
So it was an odd night for Romney to go invisible and say hardly anything original or inspiring. This was Romney's most lackluster debate performance of the entire campaign, and it came at a time when he could least afford it. If the guy who showed up in New Hampshire on Sunday showed up tonight, maybe Romney could have rallied. He still might, but this debate won't be the reason.
4) Rudy Giuliani: Giuliani has made himself utterly irrelevant. As if to underscore his irrelevance, his campaign sent out a photo during the debate of Rudy shaking Ronald Reagan's hand in the Oval Office. Wow! Gotta admit, that's pretty great. If that 25 year-old picture doesn't salt away Florida, I don't know what will.
3) John McCain: Tonight was like a microcosm of the senator's career. McCain is sometimes an inspiring and courageous leader. At other times, he seems to take a strange pleasure in being his own worst enemy.
McCain had some wonderful moments tonight. His role in making the surge happen can't be overstated. He also sounded great when talking about the Navy. It's not just McCain's biography that makes him a credible Commander in Chief. He really understands military matters, and that separates him from the field in both parties.
But there was also the other McCain, the one who seems to love to annoy conservatives for no apparent reason. Can anyone tell me why he opted to dance through the climate change minefield on his own volition? Why didn't he just go all in and offer some glowing praise for Al Gore's courageous leadership on that issue while he was at it?
As has been the case throughout his career, McCain had some good moments and some bad ones. The problem is his principal rival, Mike Huckabee, has good moments and great ones.
2) Fred Thompson: If he keeps this up, Thompson will wrest the title of most frustrating candidacy from Mitt Romney. When he asserted himself tonight, Fred was brilliant. But he doesn't assert himself nearly enough, especially for a guy with his standing in the polls.
Fred really has a great command of the issues. His comments on the economy were cogent and well-informed. He gets bonus points because his observations don't seem like the product of pre-debate cramming.
He had one of his best moments of his campaign when he attacked Mike Huckabee for some of his more liberal positions. Fred spoke for many Republicans who have qualms about Huckabee. Problem is, Fred was attacking an exceptionally skilled politician.
1) Mike Huckabee: Huckabee deftly parried Thompson's aggressive and spirited attacks early in the debate. It was a battle on terrain that was unfriendly to Huckabee, and Thompson attacked with skill. And yet Huckabee got out of the exchange unscathed.
The exchange with Thompson came early in the debate, and Huckabee was just getting warmed up. For the first time in this campaign, Huckabee looked like a credible commander in chief when the conversation turned to those Iranian speedboats. His normal joviality vanished, replaced by an appropriate gravity.
Then he got even better. He seized on a characteristic piece of Ron Paul idiocy to give a spirited speech defending America's commitment to Israel. Again, he looked credible as a commander in chief. But this was also an extremely shrewd piece of politicking. Conservative foreign policy types obviously loved it as did inherently pro-Israel people (i.e. Jews). But Huckabee's core audience of conservative Christians, a much larger segment of the society than either of the other two groups, adored it also.
Mike Huckabee's an exceptional politician whose package of skills is often sold short. He's a lot more than an affable dispenser of one-liners who only knows how to play to the home crowd. For people who might be inclined to dismiss Huckabee, compare his response to Thompson's adroit offensive with McCain's blundering into the climate warming thicket. These two are the likely finalists, and one of them is much better at politics than the other.
Here's what I said on November 28, the night of the YouTube debate, the night that catapulted Huckabee to his huge lead in Iowa: "Was this a seismic night? I'll give that one a big yes. Tonight heralded the arrival of Mike Huckabee as a force in this race. Not a spoiler, not a wildcard, but a force."
Although fewer people watched this evening's festivities, tonight was even bigger for Huckabee. For the first time, it was not only possible but easy to imagine Mike Huckabee as the leader of 300 million people. He combined this new-found authority with his old standbys of off-the-charts likability and a deft way of tapping into aspirational politics.
In the race for the Republican nomination, Mike Huckabee is going to be tough to beat.
--Dean Barnett