Tonight's GOP debate was broadcast from the Reagan library in nearby Simi Valley - a site I used to ride my bike past all the time during Reagan's presidency. I have not been to the library, even though it was built years ago. Go figure. I watched the debate from Romney California headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga after reading they had set up shop and needed help running a phone bank to drum up support for Mitt. I drove out after work and there were about 100 people there. All of us watched the debate and ate pizza. I was looking up from a cubicle (it was a vacant office building) at one of several plasma TV's mounted on walls with a giant "Mitt Romney For President" banner next to it.
I thought Romney did pretty well in this debate, though I had hoped he would really cut loose on John McCain. He definitely got animated halfway into the debate (more on that in a minute), but not as much as he could have, I'm afraid. For his part, John McCain looked for the first time like he was already the nominee. He was completely fearless and looked more like the McCain so many of us are used to seeing: Not the friendly, down-home candidate but the gruff, arrogant, smirking senator who wags his finger in the faces of conservatives. He smiled broadly when Romney, sitting next to him, criticized his record, and confidently answered every single question by talking up his military service. He lobbed insults, engaged in class warfare, and dishonestly attacked Romney about something he alleged the governor said in an interview a year ago.
Mitt made the mistake of uttering the word "timetable" in an answer he gave to a reporter about the Iraq war, referring to our two governments getting together and working out various plans to evaluate our progress, which would of course involve (internal-only) timetables and milestones. He responded to the very next question by saying he would veto any bill that came to him demanding timetables for withdrawal. Pretty clear. John McCain, however, took that quote and extracted just a few words out of it, claiming that Romney then supported a timetable for withdrawal. This was, of course, a baldfaced lie, and McCain knows it. Every media outlet in the country (most of them liberal) even came to Romney's defense on this issue, disagreeing with McCain that this was Romney's intent in the quote. Romney, of course, given the chance to discuss this at the debate tonight, raised all these issues and even said McCain was lying and that it was dishonest. He also pointed out that McCain's doing this at the 11th hour before the Florida primary gave him no time to defend himself from the accusation, and that it (rightly) smacked of old-style Washington political shenanigans.
McCain, shockingly, seated 2 feet from Romney, smiled and actually had the gall to restate his smear right on stage! Romney was beside himself and for the first time, tried to interrupt McCain to defend himself. The two kept talking over each other until Anderson Cooper, the moderator, tried to step in, at which point Romney backed off but McCain kept filibustering. Eventually he'd get another smear out of his mouth and Romney would get all worked up all over again, and Anderson Cooper would try to stop them (again). McCain looked like an absolute jerk, and Romney looked like a class act who was being unfairly berated. It was at this point that I began to wonder if I really could support McCain in November if he gets nominated.
McCain also had a few other choice moments that jumped out at me. One was, in referring to the subprime crisis, that there are greedy people on Wall Street who should be taken to jail. Wall Street?? How about the greedy homeowners who wanted something for nothing, and who will be walking away from their obligations? The fraud involved on subprime loan app's was incredible. He also said that government needed to make some changes to the rating system that allowed these mortgage-backed securities to be rated as highly as they had been. Hello? Not the government's job. Let S&P and Moody's, as well as Fannie May and Freddie Mac take the blame for that and they'll clean up their own house. It reminded me of his comment in a previous debate that the pharmaceutical companies were "the bad guys." This is standard liberal demagoguery and anti-business mindset. And he claims to be a conservative.
I was particularly irritated by a response McCain gave when asked if he was qualified to run the U.S. economy (he's not). Romney had just been asked a similar question and had started his answer by praising and respecting McCain's service to the country. McCain, showing zero class, began his answer with a faux praise of Romney's business acumen, but it quickly turned out to actually be a slam against him, as he pointed out that he was sure that in his business dealings, people had lost their jobs. Romney was certainly aghast, but managed to just laugh it off. Loudly. People watching understood that McCain was again taking a cheap shot. By the way, McCain's answer to whether he was qualified to run the economy was that he was a war hero. That was pretty much his answer for everything.
Similarly, in one of his innumerable diatribes about his military service (he's starting to sound like the John Kerry broken record), he pointed out that he had not gone into the service "for profit," but presumably for patriotism, etc. The gist was that -- again, with the class warfare -- Romney was somehow bad for choosing to try his hand in business. It's amazing to me how liberal politicians tout job growth while simultaneously berating corporations and their CEO's.
McCain has not been a guest on any conservative TV or radio show that I frequent (and I frequent a lot of them); he and Huckabee have dodged them from the beginning. Romney, by contrast, has been accessible and a gentleman throughout this campaign. He is certainly the smartest guy running right now; has decades of successful business experience; has the strongest family life of any politician I have ever seen; and has a better and broader command of issues conservatives care about than any candidate out there right now.
And yet Florida handed a gut-wrenching victory to John McCain instead. With that victory, the real John McCain is emerging: arrogant (constant smirks and you-can't-touch-me looks); liberal (promoting class warfare); old (71 and invoking dinosaurs like Warren Rudman and Phil Gramm??) and completely unknowledgeable on the economy. Will voters figure it out before it's too late? Will they care? Where is our country headed?
Must-read piece by Power Line:
...if McCain thinks that invoking his military experience is going to
persuade voters that he can be trusted on economic issues, he should reconsider.
He’s starting to sound like Rudy Giuliani, who answered every hard question by
talking about New York.
Debate play-by-play by Michelle Malkin:
9:36pm Eastern. Debate’s done. McCain shakes hands with Romney.The word on the street is that Romney has decided not to advertise in any of the Super Tuesday states. This signals to me that he is preparing to give up. I hope not. I'd rather see him try and team up with Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is not going to get the nomination, no matter how much happy-talk he tries to put out there. This is clear. And yet he draws votes off of Romney. What if Romney offered to make Huck the V.P. in return for an exit and an endorsement? While we're at it, someone should tell Ron Paul to get a life and get the heck out of the race. He has no chance at all to win, and as Dennis Prager said today, the only plausible reason why Ron Paul would stay in the race at this time is ego. Newt Gingrich said on Sean Hannity's show today that if you remove Huck and Paul from the race before Florida, McCain potentially loses to Romney there, 60-40.
Hope Romney brought hand sanitizer.
Hugh Hewitt has comments on the debate, as well as a call for Romney to keep pushing ahead, past Super Tuesday, all the way to Minneapolis if necessary. If Huck doesn't pull out, I don't know how just how wise that advice will be.
It will be an interesting week. After tonight's abysmal and dishonest performance by John McCain, I seriously question whether I will vote for him.
Posts
|