The Reagan Debate

Rick Perry,the new Golden Boy, didn't impress me. He looked dissolute and did not have the ruddy Western look that usually sells Republicans. I also felt there was a nastiness to him that I don't think will wear well. But remember this was his first time out. He was coming off the Texas firefires and Obama saving his ass this afternoon with FEMA aid. In time, he should improve as a performer.

But I feel it's going to take longer than party officials expect. This means the Perry people will have to abandon the dream of closing the primary process down by the end of February. Earlier in the day, the audiotape of David Koch telling a collection of millionaire that the battle against President Obama was the Greatest of All Battles mimicking Saddam Hussein. At that meeting was Rick Perry. The Koch Brothers have given funds to Michelle Bachmann and have also championed New Jersey's Chris Christie. I would bet the Koch dream ticket is Rick Perry and Chris Christie, both men being nasty and foul-mouthed.

Willard was trying not to be a floorwalker today and was trying to act "warm." I agree with Josh Marshall he looked positively orange tonight. Perhaps this is the new John Boehner touch. I felt that from a general election point of view, Romney won the debate because of his defense of social secuity and Perry doubled down on saying it was a "Ponzi scheme". For primary voters, this may be a winner but as Karl Rove said earlier in the day Perry's words were toxic.

The first question off the bat was how to get the economy working again. Here we were entertained by Romney, Perry and Huntsman claiming experience at creating jobs. Brian Williams did a good job at elaborating about the negatives of Perry's job record and the proliferation of low-paying jobs in Texas. For the general audience, I thought Romney handled the Bain Capital the best he could and tried to wiggle out of the fact that thousands lost their jobs by his strategies. This was an area where they all zinged each other.

But the general prescriptions for the economy were: lift all the regulations; cut corporate taxes: lower wages; and basically do whatever corporations want. Then Voila, millions of jobs appear. Having heard this so much recently from these characters, the news media should convene the Conference Board or a group of businessmen to answer the specific question:"If these regulations were lifted, how many jobs are you willing to create?";"If your tax rate was zero (as some proposed), how many and how quick would you commit to 2 million jobs?" It seems to me these prescriptions so far are ideological with no basis in fact. If tax cuts and lack of regulations created jobs, we would have had millions added during the Bush years and the first two Obama years because nothing new had been added.

But I fear that the corporate media will continue to allow these guys and gal to keep saying this without any pushback. After the last 30 years, the American public basically believes this to be true but without any evidence. I can see lowering corporate tax rates and eliminating loopholes to enhance revenues but so you have talking points about having one of the lowest corporate tax rates but as I have often written only 26% of our large corporations pay any tax whatsoever.

The attituide to Obama was that he's a nice guy but unfit to lead a great nation such as ours. They had to emphasize Nice because a whopping 70% of Americans, even with his polls dropping, like the President. And they wanted to take the sting out of the teabag racism. Romney is actually the slimiest toward Obama. He is condescending, a trait that caused the Mormons to be shot earlier in our history. He wants to say that Obama was never in the private sector which has a higher moral value than Obama forsaking a high-paying legal salary for work as a community organizer. And Romney again mouthed the sentence that "America needs a President that believes in this country", a more sophisticated way of saying Obama is Other.
A few candidates mouthed the line about Obama always apologizing for America.

Strangely, Newt stood his ground for his previous support of supporting Obama on charter schools and did not back down from saying nice things about the President. Perry, who had called the President a "liar" about the safety of the borders,actually made a point that the President should be congratulated for killing bin Laden.

But overall we are in the situation where are because we did not have a "strong" leader like Ronald Reagan. I thought being at the Reagan Center tempered the remarks of the candidates. Mrs. Reagan was in the audience and I believed they avoided some of their nuttiness from the previous debates.

It was interesting that too much time was wasted on FEMA and Ricky Cantor's belief that FEMA assistance should be conditioned on more budget cuts. There were few takers on this subject. So Brian Williams made a point to call on Ron Paul to talk about why FEMA should be eliminated. Paul also talked about eliminating a whole lot of departments and allowing the private sector to monitor itself.

Deficits were not that high in the candidates' vocabulary this evening. If you listened to them, you would know why. For instance, everyone said they would elimimate Obamacare the first day in office. The Affordable Care Act was the hottest topic of the night. Of course, if you did that, which they can't, this would result in a deficit of $250 billion. If you costed out Romney's economic plan, you would have another sea of red ink. So they all wisely stayed off this. Lucky for Rick Perry because he has a whopping $26 billion in budget deficits.

I felt the optics of the debate were Romney--Perry--Huntsman. And Ron Paul was your crazy uncle in the attic. Newt actually showed up this evening and spoke about the legislation he p;assed and how it applied today. He also tried again his trick of attacking the moderators for trying to get candidates to fight among themselves when they were committed to defeating Barack Obama.

Frothy Mix Santorum actually made a good observation which was that many of the candidates were isolationists and he warned against that. Huntsman vocally said we should be home from Afghanistan. Ron Paul is always against intervention. Rick Parry was challenged on his criticism of interventionism.

They all attacked Obama on Libya. Santorum wrongly said that Obama waited until the United Nations requested him to act. Truth--Obama and Hillary Clinton rounded up a Security Council vote in record time. It was their initiative. None of them really wanted Gaddafi to go. It was a dreary moment.

On the question of the Arab Spring, all of them confused military intervention with democracy promotion. Understandable when you were taught by the Bush-Cheney crowd.

They all said we were in greater danger than before 9/11 because of Obama. I don't think that really sells to the public. They accused Obama of gutting our military, even though defense spending is still obscene. They also said that we used to be the one who policed the world or something to that affect and now we weren't because of Obama. On foreign policy I thought they all sounded like gibberish.

Romney's strange moment I felt when he almost suggested we should enter into a trade war with China. Huntsman went after him on that.

I'm sure the press will have all the bloops and gaffes. Perry is obviously a novice at foreign policy and defense. He doesn't have a clue about what he is saying or its implications. He's being advised by Doug Feith, Rumsfeld old aide. I also think he doesn't want to be identified with George W. at all.

By the end of the Democratic primaries last time, you were weary from hearing the same things. The problem is that we are at the start of this political season and I'm totally fatigued from listening to this. They are all quick studies and have improved. They have all now read the talking points and culled the salient points from the teabaggers but have tried to moderate the rhetoric. So you have to actually think before you realize they are crazy.

For the last few days, I've picked up vibes that Perry doesn't have the staying power. I can't explain. I don't think he personally has a rationale for why he's doing this. There is no burning cause or any sense of principles he's fighting for. Of course, for Romney, this has been his job for over a decade--running for President. So he's comfortable with the process, but not comfortable in his own skin.

Michelle Bachmann is doing this because she believes she's the Queen of the Teaparty.

Don't be surprised if you see some other candidates enter. Overall the field is still weak and Perry didn't show me anything to indicate that he wasn't beatable in the primaries and in the general election.

Romney must be one of the most boring candidates of all time. It's too bad Pawlenty dropped out because now this flaw really is magnified. The other flaw is there doesn't seem to be any strength of character.