Richelieu, being an aristocrat, indeed a French aristocrat, may scorn the “vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes” that we saw asking questions tonight, courtesy of CNN and YouTube. We Americans don’t dare scorn our fellow citizens (at least not publicly). We recognize that parade as … the electorate. In any case, what did we learn from how the five major Republican candidates dealt with the electorate tonight? That there are five major candidates. Based on what we saw tonight, I don’t expect the two front-runners, Romney and Giuliani, to pull away from the field. Either could of course win. But what was on display in this debate were Romney’s and Giuliani’s weaknesses more than their strengths. It’s a fact that Giuliani is the most liberal of the major Republican candidates. One saw tonight how easy it’s going to be to remind people of un-conservative aspects of Giuliani’s record, on issues such as guns and immigration, over the coming weeks. It’s a fact that Romney has the thinnest record of the major candidates, and a somewhat inconsistent record at that. One saw tonight how his rivals will be able to highlight this. Both men are in many ways impressive – but tonight the other three performed better than the top two. McCain seemed by far the most plausible commander-in-chief. Thompson reminded people that he is a steady, consistent, and thoughtful conservative. Huckabee showed off his considerable candidate skills, including his sense of humor and his ability to seem sincere. Each has a decent chance to gain ground in the next few weeks (Thompson and Huckabee in Iowa, McCain in New Hampshire), at the expense of Romney and Giuliani, while those two engage in some heavy-duty mutual assured destruction. McCain, Thompson and Huckabee each has a chance – in my view, not that much less of a chance than Romney or Giuliani – to be the Republican nominee.
