The FOX Debate and State of the Race
Written by YellowJacket on January 7th, 2008I just wrote a response to an email from my father concerning the FOX News debate, the state of the race right now, and where each candidate goes from here. Without meaning to, I wrote what turned out to be a pretty comprehensive review of the situation, so I’ll put the bulk of the email right here:
Here’s how I thought the candidates did:
1. Mitt - he pushed back against attacks against him pretty well without looking mean (like McCain). He made a fool out of Huckabee by forcing him to acknowledge that he raised taxes in Arkansas by a net of $500,000.
2. Fred - he didn’t get his fair share of speaking time, but when he did he was his same laid back yet knowledgeable self. He schooled Huckabee on Habeus Corpus in the U.S. versus Gitmo, and looked like a law professor chiding a “know-it-all” student. His answer on immigration was great and had substance behind it concerning Mexico, which Mitt completely missed in his immigration opinion. Mitt had more at stake in this debate, since he’s battling McCain for NH and Fred isn’t running in NH at all, so Mitt gets 1st.
3. Rudy - His answers were pretty good, but he is like McCain on immigration. He managed to stay out of the Huck-Mitt-McCain brawl but still got some good material in. He is waiting for Florida to compete so he didn’t really have much to gain or lose in this debate.
4. McCain - he came across as a bully (even more so Saturday night, don’t know if you saw it, but he tempered it Sunday night). His retort to Romney about leading for patriotism rather than profit was a cheap-shot and unnecessary and childish. Patriotism and military service is all well and good, but so is creating jobs and managing a giant company. He is still terrible on immigration and taxes since he voted against both Bush tax cuts. If he loses NH to Romney he’s toast.
5. Huckabee - he came across as ignorant on foreign affairs. He’s clearly the lightweight in this race since all he does is spew populist John Edwards-style rhetoric. He was owned by both Thompson and Romney concerning Guantanamo and taxes respectively.
From here, Mitt has to win NH and if he loses he’s not quite out, but severely damaged after losing 2 states that he poured millions into.
Rudy has to hope that his waiting-til-Florida-and-Super-Tuesday strategy works. For him he wants different candidates to split victories in IA, NH, SC, and MI so that there is still no “frontrunner” when his strong states come into play.
Fred has to win SC or get 2nd within just a few percentage points to be seen as a viable candidate. He has a Southern State strategy so SC is crucial and will determine whether he continues or not.
Huckabee needs to be stopped at all costs. He is terrible on economics (trade policy, taxes, spending, bashing CEO’s and corporations like a Democrat) and I personally really dislike him for blatantly exploiting his religion and having a holier-than-thou attitude while acting innocent. Evangelicals better wake up to realize they are being exploited, not embraced, by Huckabee. Huckabee is alllll about big government.
UPDATE: I realized something I left out and also emailed my father this quick email:
One more thing - if I here the words “Ronald Reagan” (especially from Giuliani, who must have a shrine to Reagan and a requirement to say his name 10 times daily) or “change” one more time I’m going to throw something.
7
AM
I have not seen the entire debate yet–hopefully today. But it sounds like your analysis deserves a RedState “5″. Well done. By all accounts, Fred was more or less shut out, but responded very well.
If it were not for Huck in this campaign, I think this would be a wonderfully fun campaign.
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PM
Gotta agree with the update
“If one more person says shenanigans I’m going to pistol whip them…”
Good analysis… although I think you missed that Chris Wallace seemed to be promoting a fight between Romney, Huckabee, and McCain… it wasn’t quite spontaneous I think thats part of why Fred didn’t talk as much.
Also Rudy just didn’t seem his usual fired up self. Maybe it’s because he didn’t have to lecture ronpaul this time.
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You’re right about Wallace, that’s what I was alluding to when I said Fred didn’t get his fair share of speaking time.
It was refreshing not to have Paul there to pretend that if we just played nice the Islamofascists would quit caring.
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It is not the same not seeing Rudy flog Ron Paul during the debate.
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Uh, excuse me.
But, Ron Paul just got 10 percent of the vote in Iowa. He might get more than that later today in New Hampshire.
He’s got as much media buzz as any other GOP contender. He’s raised more funds in the last quarter than any of ‘em. And, his volunteers are the most energized that I’ve seen for any candidate since 2004.
It’s time to start showing Ron Paul and the policy questions that he is raising some respect.
If only because the Republicans NEED the Ron Paul supporters to win in November.
Instead of making snide comments to and about Ron Paul, maybe it’s time for the “establishment” candidates to start figuring out how to keep his troops — with their money and energy — from eventually going over to Barak Obama.
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Good analysis, Langley. I just wanted to say that as a law student, I love watching Fred speak. His answers to question and his depth of understanding only comes for knowing the laws of this country and understanding legal history really really well. That discussion between him and Huckabee was great because it was so obvious that Huckabee knew nothing, and Fred was politely informing him of the way the law works in this country. It’s true that 3 out of the 5 men in the debate have law degrees. But, really, the only one I see consistently referring to really well-thought-out legal analysis is Fred.
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Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us, Socrates. Perhaps you should collect all of your personal emails in a bound volume to preserve them in perpetuity.
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If Ron Paul’s supporters migrate to Obama in the general election, then they were never conservative, and they never cared about the future of the country.
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It has been awhile since I’ve been back to STG (in large part because I’ve been, once again, out of the Blogosphere), but I’m glad that this site is still going strong [I hope all the past comments and trackbacks are still intact, despite the design change], and it’s convenient that I don’t have to go and retrieve my login info, to post comments (or log in again). Thanks for all that you guys have done, and continue to do.
Is there a good weblog or website where we can track the exit poll, during today’s [still-running] big primary voting?
As for the Fox News debate - without Congressmen Paul and Hunter - I doubt it was worth watching.
Who will win today?