The Republican primary campaign now has one question: Can anyone beat Mitt Romney? Last night’s South Carolina debate gave a few clues. Here’s how the candidates fared last night, and where they stand.
Mitt Romney: At times an inartful dodger, at times reasonable but uninspiring, Romney continued last night to run out the clock, losing the debate, but hanging on to his lead in the nomination battle.
Romney leads by 25 in national polls, 15 in Florida polls, and more than 7.5 points in South Carolina polls according to the Real Clear Politics average. He is the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination. However well his opponents do in the debates, and however little he revs up the crowd, Romney can’t lose without a major misstep. With that objective in mind, give Romney an A- for Tuesday night.
Romney fought his fellow Republicans only when necessary, and focused on Obama whenever possible. That’s the privilege of the front-runner, and Romney used it.
Newt Gingrich: Gingrich has secured the GOP nomination for president of the debate club. He has the best knowledge of policy and history (the latter is why Freddie Mac paid him so handsomely, after all). Possibly the smartest man on the stage, Gingrich certainly has the highest opinion of his own intelligence.
Once again, last night, Gingrich won on points. The former Speaker got the largest ovation of the night when he (on the second try at least) hit back hard at Juan Williams’ charges of racial insensitivity.
But if winning debates were enough, Gingrich would be running away with this nomination battle. His task last night was to convince Santorum supporters, Perry supporters, and undecided anti-Romney voters to unite behind him. That’s incredibly heavy lifting for a debate, and it’s hard to imagine Gingrich pulled it off Tuesday.
Rick Santorum: Santorum delivered perhaps the best instance of debating by any candidate this election on felon-voting, hitting him with a left jab (why should felons still be punished after serving their time?) before luring him in for a right hook (why did Mitt let felons vote before finishing their sentences?) and then a body blow (the flip-flopping charge).
When Santorum hits Romney, he’s not primarily trying to hurt Romney — he’s trying to prove himself the best anti-Romney.
Consider it the first round of a three-round playoff. Santorum and Gingrich (and, barely, Perry) are competing to be the anti-Romney conservative. The winner gets to play Romney for the right to face Obama.
Santorum’s comfort with the issues — he’s second only to Gingrich on this score — shows the value of being a dreaded “Washington insider”: undoubtedly, his 16 years in Congress helps him on this. So what does Santorum have on Gingrich? Conviction. That shows in the debates, but it’s on the stump, not on a debate stage where Santorum will have a chance to beat the former Speaker in the Wild-Card playoff round.
Rick Perry: At some point, a candidate has to move beyond boilerplate and talking points and discuss his agenda with some level of detail — or at least demonstrate that he is familiar with some level of detail.
Some candidates (think Ron Paul) trip up on this point by getting too far into the weeds. Rick Perry is not one of those. So far in this race, he has not only failed to offer specifics, he has also failed to show any signs he understands the details of his own agenda.
Asked to describe what regulations he would do to prevent what he has called “vulture capitalism,” Perry evaded the question. He instead suggested, as he nearly always does, that unspecified government regulations should be abolished. Challenged with a question about federal Voting Rights Act interventions in the election processes of states with a history of discrimination, he retreated to the generality of states being “at war” with the Obama administration.
How else to put this? Perry’s candidacy is based heavily on prepared talking points. He was sure to include one about the Marines who filmed themselves desecrating the corpses of the Taliban enemy — even here, he needed help from a moderator to clarify what he was talking about.
Perry has a few subjects with which he is comfortable on at least a surface level. Move away from those, and he gets lost. Asked a question about Turkey, Perry produced the worst gaffe of the night by asserting that the NATO ally is ruled by Islamic terrorists.
The worst part of all is that this might have been Perry’s best debate yet. But standing next to candidates so comfortable discussing issues — especially Gingrich and Santorum — Perry looked like a business major thrust into a debate on quantum physics.
Ron Paul: Paul’s flaw is the opposite of Perry’s. He has such great faith in the strength of his ideas, and such detailed explanations to go along with them, that he doesn’t bother to package them in ways that anyone will understand. In a disorganized and incoherent fashion, he spouts details and moves far too comfortably from one subject to another in a way that most viewers cannot follow. Sometimes he gives arguments in short-hand, as if everyone is already familiar with the various doctrines of Austrian economics and he need only refer to them in brief.
He did this again and again last night, producing, by far, his worst debate yet last night.
That is not to say that Paul did not deliver a few excellent answers — the best one pertained to negative ads, for which he voiced strong support. Moreover, a bad debate performance cannot kill off a candidate like Paul, who has a devoted following and is sure to stay in the race until the convention.
