Posted by Tina Grazier
I didn’t get to watch tonight’s republican debate so I offer the quotes below from a few prominent blogs:
Mitt Romney won this debate. He looked crisp, sharp, had facts at his command, and exuded confidence.
McCain not only looked old and tired, constantly leaning on his arms and speaking in a monotone, he made a very poor showing in trying to falsely stretch a Romney quote from April into an endorsement of a withdrawal. That's not only ridiculous, it's blatantly a smear. As I pointed out earlier, John McCain in January 2007 actually did talk about ending the mission if surge milestones didn't get met by the Iraqi government, making this a pretty dumb choice for a line in the sand. And even Anderson Cooper had to talk over John McCain to tell him he got it wrong. ** I liked the format. Anderson Cooper did better here than he did at the YouTube debate, and it obviously allowed the candidates to mix it up. I'll have more in the show, but the actual debate probably won't move the needle much. Romney won the last debate, and it didn't do him much good later in Florida.
“Power Line” - John Hinderaker
Businessmen, in my experience, are generally more idealistic than politicians. Businessmen really do make deals with a handshake. No one would dream of doing that with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or the Clintons. Turning a businessman loose in the political world is basically a mismatch. That's the sense I get of McCain's reaction to having Romney as his last serious rival. He can't believe his good fortune; Romney is an amateur. McCain can poke him in the eye, knee him in the groin, and the rule-following businessman has no idea how to respond. ** I don't view this as an argument in Romney's favor. As President, he wouldn't be dealing with honorable, law-abiding businesspeople. He would be going up against the Vladimir Putins, Osama bin Ladens and Harry Reids of the world. This is not a game for amateurs. I think we should recognize that professional politicians bring important experience and skills to the table, and that one of those skills is the ability to knee an opponent in the groin and get away with it. It's not pretty. But, compared to politics, business is beanbag, and politics is the game the Republican nominee will have to play.
“Michelle Malkin”
This debate is illuminating not for any of the questions and answers so far, but for the opportunity to watch the demeanor of the candidates in a high-stakes setting. Romney is doing fine, but there’s no aggression, no fight in him. He seems resigned and subdued. I think he is too nice and too fundamentally decent to dethrone McCain. Accordingly, McCain has settled comfortably into The Anointed role. Huck hasn’t drooled at his feet yet, but there’s still 30 minutes left. Paul worked his EMPIRE and military-bashing talking points in. Mission accomplished.
“Little Green Footballs” open thread
One commenter said the following, and Dan, this one’s for you!
Monica Lewinski’s boyfriend’s wife for president.
Another said this:
wow I was watching the feed on CNN and the ratings they had for the audience skyrocketed when Mitt was talking.
Well, Kathryn, since most of the gang seems to have turned in early (too demoralized to opine?), I might as well chip in. I'm getting a bit tired of Senator McCain's anti-business shtick. The line about serving "for patriotism, not for profit" is pathetic. America spends more on its military than the next 40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined: Where does he think the money for that comes from? ** As for his line about "some greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished", aside from being almost entirely irrelevant to the subject under discussion (the subprime "crisis"), it reveals, I think, one of the most unpleasant aspects of McCain. For a so-called "maverick", he's very comfortable with the application of Big Government power, and the assumption of Big Government virtue. Undoubtedly there are "greedy people on Wall Street". Why should he and his chums be the ones who decide whether they need to be "punished"? If greed is to be punishable, why doesn't he start with a pilot program applied to, say, the United States Senate and report back to us in five years how that's going? Mark Steyn
I think I can say that Romney was the clear winner in the debate. He showed an admirable fighting spirit, though it's probably too little too late. McCain was very intemperate, and I'm with K-Lo in that his "for patriotism, not profit" line is just unacceptable. So was the suggestion that Romney's business experience is somehow tainted because he had to lay people off. ** McCain clearly doesn't like Romney personally, and it came through tonight in a bad way. That's not the way a frontrunner should act. Romney kept his head about him and remained gracious even as a number of his charges against McCain stuck. – Mark Hemingway
And Romney might want to ask McCain when he first became aware of al-Qaeda and why he didn't make as much noise about protecting the military from cuts during the Clinton administration as he made noise about passing campaign-finance reform. – Mark R. levin
Leave a comment