For those primarily concerned about the state of the Republican horse race, you can pretty much skip this post. This afternoon’s event in New Hampshire, billed as a Lincoln/Douglas-style debate between Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman, is unlikely to affect the outcome of the election, or even the state’s primary. There were no surprises and the event generated no major news. The candidates, who both see Mitt Romney as their chief rivals, had no reason to attack each other, and given the style of the debate, the moderator wasn’t there to instigate a fight. So the tone of the 90-minute “debate” was more like a panel discussion at a Washington think tank. As Politico’s Ben Smith put it on Twitter, “Problem is that Lincoln and Douglas disagreed on the great issue of the day. Here… just talkin.”
Going into the debate, it could have been viewed as a “no win” situation for Gingrich, as he risked the possibility of stumbling when he has no need to engage Huntsman in the first place. But given that he didn’t commit any major gaffes, he’ll get to claim that he’s willing to debate anybody in any format (something that Mitt Romney cannot say for himself). Huntsman perhaps gained more exposure in New Hampshire as a result of the debate.
As for the substance of the debate, here were some of the highlights, which focused mainly on foreign policy:
— Huntsman reiterated that he thinks it’s time to bring our troops home from Afghanistan and turn our mission into more of a counter-terrorism operation. He also said that we achieved “some very important outcomes” there that should make us “proud.” Gingrich was more pessimistic, focusing on the problem with our approach to the War on Terror, which is that we haven’t been willing to recognize the fundamental nature of the Islamist enemy, which he called a “willful denial of reality that is nothing short of breathtaking.” He noted that the FBI has stopped teaching radical Islam to its officers, which he compared to not teaching communism to those fighting it during the Cold War. He also pointed out that the fact that Osama bin Laden’s was living in a giant compound in a military area of Pakistan that a “substantial part of Pakistani intelligence” was protecting him.
— Gingrich said the fundamental question about Iran that everybody should ask is whether you think the world could live with the country having nuclear weapons. If the answer is “no,” then regime change is the only answer. He said that it was a “fantasy” to think a military attack could take out Iran’s nuclear program, and said regime change needed to take place through crippling economic sanctions. He said any Israeli prime minister staring at the threat of a nuclear Iran, would have to ask, “Am I going to take the risk of a second Holocaust?” And the U.S. has to be prepared to help Israel, or risk a nuclear war in the region. He called Iran the “biggest national security threat of the next 10 years.” Huntsman said “all options must be on the table” when it comes to preventing a nuclear Iran, because if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and “probably” Egypt would soon follow, creating an “unsustainable” situation in the Middle East. That said, he explained that we have to be “careful” about the way we define our interests in the Middle East. He said he opposed the Libya intervention because he didn’t see a national interest, but thinks we do have an interest in Syria because of its ties to Iran and threat to our ally Israel.
— On Egypt, Gingrich criticized President Obama because he “dumped” former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who had been an ally of the U.S. Gingrich argued that by dumping him so publicly, Obama sent a bad signal to other allies in the region, and suggested it would have been better to work behind the scenes to work for him to “retire with dignity.”
— On spending, Huntsman said everything should be on the table for cuts, including Medicare and defense. Gingrich reiterated his line that he was a “hawk, but a cheap hawk” and did think there were areas where the defense budget could be cut.
–Huntsman gave a long answer on China — breaking out into Mandarin at one point — to outline some ideas about how the U.S. could exploit some of the economic and social problems China is starting to run into. He also argued that America’s relationship with China needed to go beyond top leaders meeting in the capital cities, and extend to the “sub-national level” with governors and mayors in America interacting with their Chinese counterparts. He also called for more engagement with Chinese bloggers, some of whom have readerships in the hundreds of millions. Gingrich was very deferential, conceding that as a former ambassador to China, Huntsman, “knows a lot more about China than I do.”
