Rep. Debate

The basic meme on last night's debate was that Romney won and that Giuliani was hurt.

I will say Romney looked sharper than I thought he might. He's got probably the best plan on health care out there. But he still strikes me as "off"--I don't know what it is exactly, robotic, untrustworthy (flip-flop?). It's not the Mormon thing for me. He handled the religion question well. I think it is the untrusthworthiness issue. He would make a good Treasury or Health Sec or EPA Head. But I can't see him as Pres.

I forgot from my time living in New York how bad Giuliani is in debates (and at schmoozing, fundraising events too btw). He just isn't personable. And actually I kinda dig that he doesn't fake it, that he just gives off that air of this is "bs" and I'm not gonna act like it's anything else. One point that was missed in his answer about abortion was that he actually got adoptions up significantly and abortions down by something like 16% during his tenure as mayor. That seems more important to me than the rhetoric about Roe v. Wade.

McCain was weird and as someone I was reading (forget who know) said he looked like the crazy old man down the street watering his lawn yelling at all the kids to not ride their bikes on the sidewalk.

After last night the Fred Thompson chorus is only going to grow louder. The Republicans could very well go for a movement conservative and get destroyed in this election a la Goldwater (AuH2O) in 1964 so that they can grow for the next election. I didn't believe it before but I'm starting to think Thompson maybe more for real. [Though he would get creamed in the general.].

This theory would gain steam if given, as seems more and more likely to me, Bush keeps basically all the troops in until he is out of office. He has said as much. The Democrat President is the one to pull them out. The Republicans by then have dis-engaged from Bush wholesale, the post-pullout fallout gets blamed on the Democrats and the Republicans gain the presidency in 2012.

Other thought:

wow, some real weirdos on the stage.....guys putting up their hands not believing in evolution, Tommy Thompson looked like death warmed over, Ron Paul is a way out there, Tancredo is beyond out there and really creepy to boot. This was not a good showing. And the Reagan lust was really a sign of how far they have fallen.

Although to be fair, given that George HW Bush was considered a heretic and therefore is bad mana, who else do the Republicans have to look to as model? Clearly not this president. Ford and Eisenhower were too moderate by the standards of the Buckley-ites. Nixon is of course out. Herbert Hoover?

Abraham Lincoln I guess. But Bush tried to wrap himself in the Lincoln as well as the TR mantle and that didn't fly too well, so I guess they are out as well. Maybe they should bring back McKinley as a model?

So the only one standing then is Reagan, who I still think is over-rated (I actually think in many ways Nixon was more important though paranoid and wack to be sure).

Instead of these grand comparison, narratives, it would be better if the conservatives got back to what they do best: protect families; argue for pro-life positions on state and local levels; promote free-r markets; competent disciplined governance; cut pork and balance budgets; and help re-build the now broken military and figure out a real achievable strategy for the future.

The best conservative in the crowd that evening was actually sitting next to a Reagan (Nancy): Gov. Schwarzenneger.

tags technorati : republican debate