Welcome ladies and gentleman to the upteenth debate between a bunch of conservative candidates who have no hope of winning. It's a beautiful day here in New Hampshire, perfect weather for a pointless exchange of ideas that will have no bearing on anyone or anything. They're in the gate and they're off. Pawlenty and Santorum stumble badly out of the gate, as Pawlenty trips over his own words and Santorum seems lost and confused as to where he is exactly. Cain is the lead with Newt, Bachmann, Romney and Paul close behind. Wait a minute, Cain is showing some trouble as the Tea Party finds out that Cain is both black and a CEO. Newt closes in on the rail, oh bad luck, he has somehow lost his saddle, reins, stirrups, clothes, rider and horse. Paul, Bachmann and Romney are neck and neck, but Paul is falling behind as he tries to repeal NAFTA. Romney pulls away from Bachmann, who must have taken all her lithium to remain this competitive. And the winner is...... Romney by three lengths. The real winners were anyone not watching this dribble.
Three people came out of this with some kind of dignity and the host, John King, was definitely not one of them. Asking the most inane questions I have ever heard, the GOP hopefuls were peppered with such hard pointers as "Leno or Conan," "Spicy or Mild," and, my favorite, "Blackberry or Iphone." This kind of nonsense was causing me to ask myself "barf bag or toilet." Really, was there nothing else you could have asked? I didn't realize all the world's problems have been solved and we can waste our time with such trivial matters. Oh wait a minute. It hasn't. There are real problems out there that most of us want to hear what these potential world leaders are going to do to solve them and you actually waste time asking what type of wing sauce they liked. You suck John King. Go back to sports or infomercials or whatever rock you climbed out from under. Is there really no one in news who knows how to do a debate anymore?
Romney was the clear winner in this debate as the others all paid some sort of weird worship his way by failing to criticize him in any meaningful stance. Pawlenty shrank behind Romney, refusing to even address his "Obmneycare" remark that he talked up and down the Sunday news shows. When the subject was brought up, Pawlenty had that deer in headlight look her gets whenever he's asked a question he doesn't like, and danced around it with the grace of Kate Gosselin. Stammering and avoiding questions are sure way to wind up like Gingrich, whose entire team quit this week in the face of certain defeat. Oddly, Gingrich is reading the electorate better than his competitors and would be doing better poll wise if he wasn't such a blowhard. He is the only person speaking out against the Ryan plan, albeit in more muted tones than earlier.
He has taken fire from conservatives for his statement that the Ryan plan amounted to "right-wing social engineering." This incredibly unpopular bill is still being touted as the new thing from the GOP and it's going down as well as New Coke did back in the eighties.
"If you're dealing with something as big as Medicare," Gingrich said, "and you can't have a conversation with the country where the country thinks what you're doing is the right thing, you better slow down."
"Remember, we all got mad at Obama, because he ran over us when we said don't do it," he continued. "Well, the Republicans ought to follow the same ground rule."
Santorum, whose name sounds like a place he should be committed too, went right for the crazy by appealing to the Tea Party, shut-ins and the mentally insane with his special brand of nonsense. In his brave new world, abortion would be illegal, gays would be hunted for sport and Christianity would be the all encompassing religion for us all. Good luck with that platform.
Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather Pizza and who has never been elected to anything in his life, has spent the last few weeks talking about the dumbest of things. He has called liberals the dumbest of the dumb, said Obama was born in Kenya and the piece de triumph at the debate, supports both the Ryan plan and the privatization of Social Security. Run on those ideas and watch the number fades into the sunset.
Only Paul and, most surprisingly, Michelle Bachmann came out mostly unscathed. The only two in the debate that currently serve in government, they both came across better than you would expect. Bachmann in particular spoke in complete sentences, didn't avoid questions, looked into the right camera for once, and didn't come across as crazy. Rick Santorum did that all on his own.
Romney emerged the clear winner though as his perfect hair and smile stole the show from the forgettable others. A Boston Globe poll put him up over 30 points from his closest competitor in New Hampshire for the primaries. Even in Iowa, where he has no plans to compete, recent polls put him the lead for the caucuses as well. For the moment Romney is the one to beat. Let's just hope John King is nowhere around to question him.
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