Willard, You're Just An Errand Boy, Willard*

Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

The Winners of the New Hampshire Debate:
1. Barack Obama
2. Rick Perry
3. Sarah Palin

The Losers of the New Hampshire Debate:
1. Robert Gibbs
2.Tim Pawlenty
3. Ron Paul

The debate was beyond vapid. The same old tax cuts and reduce the deficits but don't say anything about what programs you would cut. That's why I thought Robert Gibbs was a loser. He used the Democratic line that was not a winner in 2010 about these are the policies that got us in the hole in the first place. All true but the Democratic messaging is simply awful. Two key elements were not mentioned throughout the debate--the Middle Class and Small Businesses. This was true in the 2008 GOP convention where no speaker even mentioned the two cornerstones of Reagan's rhetoric. Gibbs' failure to pick this up only legitimized the whole discussion.

Ron Paul no longer is the elderly crank who amuses by telling the occasional truth. His role has been provisionally taken by Newt Gingrich who now talks about colonies on the Moon and outer space. I hope Newt hangs on for a few more, playing the nutty professor.

If you are going up against Vanilla, it's useful to show some spark or coin an interesting phrase. Tim Pawlenty actually showed less dynamism than Romney, which is saying alot. Pawlenty punked out when he had his chance to skewer Romneycare. Backing down will be remembered.

Herman Cain showed a flicker of humanity when he said that children of illegal immigrants should be treated at an emergency room. Paul, now channelling his old time racism, as a doctor said he wouldn't treat them.

All of the debaters couldn't quite figure out what to do with gays and DADT. None of them could figure out anything about foreign policy either, which came up late in the debate.

All of the debaters are against abortion and are for Voucher Care, which should give the Democrats an opening they can drive through.

Mitt Romney from the sports analogy won the debate because no one took him on and they treated him like an Alpha Male. Mitt was playing on his vacation home turf and it is widely throught he must win New Hampshire by a large margin. Earlier in the day he released on his website a video implying that President Obama referred to the unemployed as bumps in the road. This is rich coming from a man worth $500 million. Mitt had his discipline down and kept hammering away at Obama and the economy. But Mitt has gone to the Dark side with his own economic plans, which would not survive a debate with President Obama.

Michelle Bachmann rather cagily used the occasion to announce her candidacy. No doubt this was the work of Ed Rollins, her campaign manager. It was a shrewd move. She showed the most life and got in all the coded messages to the Christianists and the teabaggers. She's take the country back.

But it was palpable that there was no real life to the party. Bachmann started strong but dulled by mid-way. And you were left thinking where is Sarah, who got praised during the debate. I can't believe that Sarah Palin doesn't believe she can win against these guys.

The other candidate not in the room--besides Greg Johnson and Freddie Krueger--was Rick Parry, who actually could claim some job creation and has the total Christianist credentials. I consider Parry one of the most dangerous possible candidates in years. And he had to be looking at Mitt as Richie Rich and want to take a swing at him.

While Romneycare may be a negative in the GOP primaries, Romney's weakness in a general election comes from his position of the auto loans, which will hurt in the Midwest,his terrible record of job creation as Governor during a boom economy, and his tenure at Bain Capital. His credentials as a businessman are being trumpeted by him and his campaign. This is his real Achilles heel.

Prior to the debate another bigwig in the hedge fund world said that Romney was known as a ruthless businessman. Any opposition research should look at the countless bankruptcies encouraged by Romney when he was at Bain and count up the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. In other words, he was an active cause of the current situation. I would then divide up the jobs according to locale around the country and run commercials with all the employees thrown out of their jobs. This was his bread and butter. Leveraging the assets of a company to assume more debt and then forcing it into bankruptcy. In other words, the precise skill he is campaigning on should be turned against him as a weakness. The Obama campiagn should take his smooth, All-American manner and turn it on him portraying him as a nasty, cutthroat man.

There are two other areas where opposition research should go. We had one of Romney's partners at Bain Capital run for the Governor of California. She kept some of her personal wealth in overseas bank accounts and used this as an excuse to push for eliminating the capital gains tax. We kn ow Mike Bloomberg's foundation keeps its money abroad. Why wouldn't someone of Romney's immense wealth do the same? If true, I think that would be explosive given the current economy.

The second issue is Romney's opposition to bailing out the auto industry and his position they should go declare bankruptcy. He has doubled down on this position even when he was in Michigan recently. Since his business M.O. was encouraging companies to restructure through bankruptcy, what was he planning at Bain Capital when the auto industry was going through its troubles? This was his father's industry. You can't tell me he wasn't looking for opportunities to get in on the business. If it turns out he had plans, this would also be dynamite.

The last business is that Romney will go racial on Obama but not directly or personally. He has tried some of this with his dog whistles about how he's an American--fill in the blank. He will use surrogates and he will authorize a Swift Boat type of campaign. This is his last chance at the Gold Ring.

The two obstacles Obama faces for relection are the election and the new restrictions on voting in about a dozen states. The first he can do some things about and the other it will be up to Eric Holder at DOJ to intervene where the restrictions are prohibitive. Obama's job council has just given him a list of things he can do to create jobs which will not require congressional approval. They estimate these measures could create 1 million jobs. The irony is that by the time of the election Obama may have created more jobs than George W and his father combined--12 years of Republican administrations. Yet that might not be good enough.

After the debate, it was clear that the Republicans will be hard pressed in a debate with Obama to defend their positions on healthcare, Medicare and Social Security. The other issue is the deficit and debt where all of their plans, including Mitt Romney's would only increase the debt and unemployment. Obama has many more things in his holster than the GOP really has considered.

After last night, Mitt will be triumphalist because he knows he can take the current crop of candidates. Last time he couldn;t because there were more heavyweights. It's just the psychology that Democrats should encourage because he is a walking Achilles Heel.