Which of these six candidates from Saturday night’s debate would you most prefer be opposite President Obama for three 90-minute debates in the fall? Former Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Gov. Rick Perry turned in sharp performances, with the latter using the downed drone in Iran to launch a devastating attack on the president that had to have at least a few of his early supporters thinking, “Well, not so fast here…”
“Newt Romney,” so named by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, was the central match-up, and they did not disappoint, each turning in strong performances mixed with an awkward moment underscoring their general election vulnerabilities.
Romney’s offer of a $10,000 bet struck the Planet Twitter like a meteor, and MSMers and DNCers thought Romney had blurted out the equivalent of Sen. John Kerry’s “global test” from the first 2004 debate.
The party of Soros, Michael Moore, $35K fundraisers and Clintonian book deals won’t make that stick, but it was a flub.
Romney’s a rich guy, as he acknowledged in the “question from the audience” about the most recent time the candidates had been in tightened circumstances. In answering that question Romney cited his dad, born dirt poor, and the messages Mitt grew up with as a result, about work and merit and the opportunity to rise, previewing the fall campaign’s first line of defense against attacks on his wealth.
Again and again, Romney also turned his time into slams on the Obama economy, and seemed to relish the chance to make the Massachusetts care-Obamacare comparison and to defend the right of states to follow their own courses.
Very few voters who have been paying attention will be buying the idea that Romneycare birthed Obamacare, and they may relish the idea of that particular exchange occurring again and again in the fall. “I didn’t raise taxes, you did. I didn’t cut Medicare, you did. I didn’t change everyone’s insurance, but you did.”
Newt was Newt and there is no Mute Newt button in the world large enough to stop him from messaging even though ABC tried with its ham-handed question on marital fidelity. One tweet wondered if the question and the sequence was a bit of payback from George Stephanopoulos to the adversary of his old boss, one to chuckle over later in one of the famed conference calls between George, Paul Begala and Mayor Rahm.
The exchange between Romney and Gingrich on Israel was the most important of the evening, full of substance and style and deeply revealing.
Romney used words to describe his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like “sobriety,” “care” and “stability,” before declaring he was not a rhetorical bomb thrower and would not force Israel into confrontations Israel didn’t want or welcome.
Gingrich used the “historian’s license” as an excuse to slip the statesman’s restraints and speak truth to the world about the Middle East. There’s a market for that in the GOP primaries. Not so much in the general.
Romney appears to be the best general election candidate by far, with endorsements from people like John Thune, Chris Christie and Tim Pawlenty — hardly Beltway establishment figures tainted by decades of insiderism. Not perfect by any means, and the Left’s hyperventilation over the $10,000 bet telegraphs their assessment of his greatest weakness — his personal success.
Newt is meeting a deep felt need among conservative voters: To say what the MSM has refused to say or allowed to be said, and not just about the president but about the Middle East, Climategate, the destruction of the family and the collapse of urban education.
Newt’s a prophet, but what happens to prophets in elections? Ask William Jennings Bryan. Which is why Romney will be the nominee if the GOP wants to win.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
