I thought it was:
Posted on 09/26/2011 7:04:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Republicans’ presidential debate Thursday night sponsored by Fox News and Google gave primary voters and caucus-goers at least one good reason to reject every candidate on the stage. The interesting question now is whether someone else will enter the race — at just about the same point in the election cycle in which Bill Clinton entered the Democratic race in 1991.
The spotlight was hottest on Rick Perry, the frontrunner in national polls since he announced his candidacy in Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 13, the same day that Michele Bachmann won the straw poll in Ames, Iowa.
Perry’s problem was not just that he punted on the tough question of how to respond to a terrorist takeover of nuclear-armed Pakistan. Even the smooth-talking Mitt Romney might have had trouble with that nightmare scenario. And Perry was right to cite our informal alliance with India as a source of leverage.
The problem was that Perry couldn’t respond cogently to utterly predictable questions and was unable to articulate his pre-scripted criticisms of Romney. A case can certainly be made that Romney has flip-flopped on issues. But Perry failed to make it.
Perry defended his order requiring HPV vaccinations by citing his talks with a woman with cervical cancer — but they took place only after his order. He failed to fend off attacks on his criticisms of Social Security in his book Fed Up!, saying he was only endorsing the longtime exemption from the program for state and local public employees.
He failed to explain why Texas, with its large legal- and illegal-immigrant and young populations, has a high percentage of people without health insurance.
He was eloquent in defending Texas’s in-state college tuition for children of illegal aliens, but his stand is hugely unpopular with Republicans outside Texas. And he failed to point out that it helped him win a respectable 38 percent from Latino voters in the 2010 election.
Mitt Romney clearly benefited from his greater experience over the years and his superior preparation in recent weeks. But he also benefited from the fact that no one challenged him convincingly on claims that he is unlikely to be able to sustain.
He sloughed off Perry’s accurate charge that he supported the Obama administration’s Race to the Top education program — a defensible position, but not a popular one for Republicans.
He repeated now what has been his standard defense of his Massachusetts health-care program. But someday someone is going to nail him on his insistence that its individual mandate to buy insurance covers only 8 percent of the population. It actually applies to everyone.
He avoided Perry’s claim that he deleted defenses of the program from the paperback edition of his book. He won’t be able to deftly dodge that forever.
If he overtakes Perry in the polls — a likely possibility after the Texan’s stumbling performance — he will likely become the piñata for the rest of the field, a role he figured to play before Perry entered the race.
None of the other seven candidates on the stage made a convincing case for advancing to the top tier. The closest was Rick Santorum, who was eloquent and knowledgeable on foreign policy. But his answer on gays in the military was cringe-inducing for people on all sides of the issue.
Michele Bachmann refused to back down from her statement relaying the claim of a woman who approached her saying that the HPV vaccine caused retardation in her child. Bachmann has made headway by championing the instincts of ordinary hardworking citizens over the supposed wisdom of experts. But on vaccinations the experts are right.
Pundits are fixated on designating a frontrunner, but the polls in this race — witness Romney’s rise and fall and Perry’s rise — have all the solidity of cotton candy. Bachmann’s numbers peaked in July, Herman Cain’s in June, Ron Paul’s and Newt Gingrich’s in May — and not at high levels. Santorum’s haven’t peaked at all.
Could another candidate give a better performance than Perry and deliver more sustainable responses than Romney? To judge from their performances in various public and private venues, the answer is yes for Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, and Chris Christie.
Each has taken himself out of the race. Each still has time to get in. Most voters are ready to reject Barack Obama. But not necessarily for one of those on the stage Thursday night.
— Michael Barone, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics
If the campaign is turned into an endoscopy of any candidate the Republicans put up, Obama wins as the media will magnify all their flaws and ignore their virtues.
If the campaign focuses on the evil deeds of the miscreant in the Oval Office, any GOP candidate should win.
The GOP needs a candidate - in about 11 months from now.
And besides the RINO Romney? You would just be trading 1 evil for another evil, and still have evil in the end. You either get a Socialist or a Marxist. Socialist Romney does NOT entice me to vote for him. The creator of Romney Care the fore runner of 0’care.
Bull, Newt, Bachmann, Cain and/or Santorium can beat obummer. Anyone that thinks otherwise, needs to review where Reagan was in the standings at this point in time of the election cycle. Newt would be the weakest, because of his train load of baggage. This crap of some clown in the media, are some bot, picking the winner has got to stop.
I personally would rather hear the candidates being focused on issues like how they would fix the economy, how they would get Americans back to work, how to reform the federal government to encourage growth, and maybe get a budget rather than the nonissues like these debates are doing. I think it’s fine to say deport 10 million illegals... but how actually would you do that? How the heck would you even begin to go about doing it? And where would you suggest we get the money? I agree it’s an important issue, but is it issue #1? States like Texas are left with a mess because the federal government is unwilling or unable to enforce the laws already on the books.
If unemployment continues to worsen, Casey Anthony could defeat Obummer.
Which is why all the MSM usual suspects are pushing Romney, propping him up at any cost.
Cain!
That's where it's going to be. BJ has been in the limelight and kissing up to Hussein far too much lately for Hillary not to be in the running.
That is my problem with Romney - I am not convinced that it would matter. Both are big government liberals, and the fact that Romney doesn't hate America or white Americans like Obama does may not matter if Romney is cementing Obama's legacy in place.
I'm waiting for the candidate who would matter to announce, and I hope to hear from her soon.
I thought it was:
I think so too.
Look out with BJ Clinton. He is trying to get close enough to knife him in the back...
The Clinton tactics are easily read unless you are so full of yourself you think “everybody” just loves your sorry azz.
I’m waiting for the candidate who would matter to announce, and I hope to hear from her soon.
Herman Cain can deliver.
This is true. However, you also don’t want to nominate someone we KNOW can’t win (or have a pretty good idea cannot).
Remember Goldwater in ‘64? He’d have made a great President, but there was no way in hell he was EVER going to win. It did pave the way for Reagan 16 years later...but as of right now, I fear we don’t HAVE 16 years left to wait for the next Reagan...
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