Yet another Republican presidential candidates’ debate takes place tonight in Washington. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer will moderate as eight candidates discuss foreign policy: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Senator Rick Santorum, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, and Representatives Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul.
A foreign policy debate should allow Paul to stand out from the crowd. My guess is that Santorum will take the lead in challenging his call to negotiate with potential enemies and end most U.S. military interventions.
The latest CNN/ORC International nationwide poll indicates that Newt Gingrich is indeed the new Republican flavor-of-the-week, leading Romney by 24 percent to 20 percent. I expect several rivals for the “not Romney” niche to take Gingrich on tonight. Romney will probably sail above the fray.
Share any thoughts about tonight’s debate or the Republican presidential race in this thread. UPDATE: I posted a few thoughts after the jump.
Paul demonstrated why he has a ceiling around 10 to 15 percent support among the GOP base. A lot of what he said made sense: the PATRIOT Act undermines civil liberties, the U.S. shouldn’t be involved in so many foreign wars, the federal war on drugs is a total failure, and so on. But there’s no getting around the fact that he isn’t telling your typical Republicans what they want to hear.
I thought Gingrich had a good night. As usual, he sounded confident and knowledgeable, and came across as qualified for the job he’s seeking. I expected the other candidates to go after Newt more than they did. Other than the segment of the debate on immigration, he mostly got a free pass. He didn’t run away from his past support for granting legal status to some undocumented immigrants, and he framed that concept in terms of moral values: not splitting up families and disrupting the lives of people who have become part of American communities. I also respect the fact that Gingrich stood by these ideas in his post-debate interview.
Perry didn’t have as much courage as Newt on this issue–he sort of endorsed the idea of letting some undocumented immigrants stay in this country, but emphasized that we should focus on “securing the border” before we talk about any kind of amnesty. Perry talked tough on lots of other issues. I get such a negative vibe listening to him that it’s hard for me to imagine that other people find him convincing. But obviously, I’m not his target audience.
Romney mixed it up with Gingrich a little during this debate, but he wasn’t very aggressive, which was probably smart. I couldn’t shake the sense that Romney didn’t mean what he was saying about illegal immigration. He’s too close to the business community to believe that stuff. I also found Romney’s demagoguing against defense cuts unpersuasive, but maybe Republican voters will go for that pandering. Overall, Romney wasn’t the center of attention tonight, but who cares? He can wait until the latest not-Romney fails.
Santorum fancies himself a foreign policy expert, but I don’t think he said anything tonight that will set him apart from the rest of the field.
I feel the same way about Huntsman’s performance. Clearly he is knowledgeable, but he’s not a top-tier candidate and not going to become noe.
Bachmann sounded strong to me. My hunch is that Republicans leaning toward her didn’t hear anything that would change their minds.
Cain was clearly out of his depth.
3 Comments
well
I watched about 40min of this one. What I saw:
Romney (!) and Huntsman had virtually no face time. It was all Newt & Paul, followed by Bachmann and Santorum and then Cain/Perry.
I thought Ron Paul did poorly. He’s very good at ridiculing current policies but offers little detail about a path forward. This is also true for his economic and social policies. I’m not sure how kill this, cancel that and leave to the states makes for an effective presidency. I agree with a number of his criticisms, but he is not making the alternatives clear.
From a “grasp of the facts” perspective, I thought Newt and Bachmann did well. I also thought Bachmann’s DMR interview was well done, irrespective of whether I agree w/ her positions or not. A crucial Newt moment was the observation (which went by quickly) about the time scales involved in the development of govt programs like weapon systems vs the rapid pace of technology improvement exemplified by Apple.
I found myself tuning out while Cain spoke.
Santorum’s insta-sneer is a turnoff. If I were a Republican voter, I would have little use for a candidate who was beaten so badly for Senate re-election. It was not even close. His campaign does not address how he can be effective as a leader when he turns off so many people. I noticed (at TIR, I think) that he was praised for responding to all issues within a “biblical worldview” — well, whatever works for BVP does not work for me and many, many others.
I only saw a partial debate, so YMMV.
albert Tue 22 Nov 9:42 PM
Agreed
Herman Cain does not realize that all Presidents are going to consult with people, this still requires a person to take a policy position.
Ron Paul in my view has very few solutions and that is his platform. Paul is the candidate for those Coolidge Republicans who became disgruntled at the raging liberalism of Hoover, if we had just stayed on the path of Calvin Coolidge the world would be okay and we’d all be living in blissful harmony and prosperity.
I’ve heard Newt give better answers on immigration, he shouldn’t have gotten tripped up by Bachmann on immigration and he truly should have just ignored Ron Paul’s foreign policy positions, he was starting to gain some admiration from the Paul folks on the Federal Reserve.
Romney was solid, the question is whether Romney will have to wait for everyone else to lose or whether he’ll make numerous statements that other candidates can really jump on.
Huntsman is someone who should be considered for VP, he’s got a solidly economically right of center view and he’s an endorser of a pragmatic foreign policy, not in the Ron Paul camp and he isn’t really in the John Bolton, Bill Kristol camp either.
moderateiadem Tue 22 Nov 10:05 PM
immigration
It is a shame to see Iowa Republicans squander “first in nation” when it comes to this topic. I realize many of the IA-GOP would disagree, but a hardliner against immigrants will not win the presidency.
I missed most of this part (I think it was very near the end), but I was amazed to see in TIR’s chat that the crowd was all “Newt! Newt!” until immigration, where he was derided as too permissive. Somehow, I doubt that.
A Bachmann-like stance is completely out-of-touch with the reality in America outside of Iowa & other states with a hard core anti-immigrant component.
albert Tue 22 Nov 10:51 PM