Belated Debate Post-Mortem

Let me start out by saying that the current "controversy" being hyped by Michelle Malkin and her outrage brigade over the political allegiances of some of the YouTube questioners is self-evidently stupid. If the questions themselves were somehow grossly unfair or loaded or the questioners were giving shout-outs to various Democratic campaigns, that would be one thing. But they clearly weren't. The questions were perfectly fair and reasonable and were echoed by many of the other 5000+ YouTube questions that weren't selected. It's not at all surprising that among the people who care enough to record and submit a debate question, many will be politically active and have allied with themselves with someone's campaign, even (gasp!) a Democratic campaign. And only a small fraction of the 30 or so questioners who appeared during the debate are even alleged to be affiliated with Democrats. Is there some rule that says that Republicans can only be asked questions by fellow Republicans? Is CNN supposed to conduct an investigation of every questioner? If anything, Democratic questioners will be more objective. They have no dog in the race. I would think the real concern from a fairness standpoint would be having questions asked by undisclosed supporters of a particular Republican candidate.

With the exception of the idiotic song at the beginning, I thought the debate format was pretty good and far more entertaining than most debates. It was far more informative and discussion-provoking than the debates where some pretentious gasbag like Chris Matthews or Tim Russert moderates. If only Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter's invitations had been lost in the mail, it might have been ideal.

As for the candidates themselves, I stand by my previous contention that Mike Huckabee is being significantly underestimated. I thought he mopped the floor with his opponents. He was the only guy out there (with the possible exception of John McCain) who didn't come across as an angry yahoo 90% of the time. He comes across as thoughtful, optimistic, and reasonable, and as someone who has genuinely-held beliefs. By contrast, Mitt Romney comes across as someone who has completely out-sourced all thought to some sort of RNC-designed computer program.

From what I can tell, the conventional wisdom about Huckabee seems to range from a belief that he can win Iowa but not the nomination to a belief that he can win the nomination but would get creamed in the general election.

As I explained in my previous post, I think he has a perfectly plausible path to the nomination (at least as plausible as Rudy's), but more than that, I think Huckabee would be a formidable general election candidate, potentially stronger than anyone else in the Republican field. Though he's very conservative on social issues, he has a way of coming across in a very nonthreatening way. He's also more of a populist on other domestic issues than the typical Republican and has not wedded himself to Bush's foreign policy like his opponents have. That would give him a lot more room to maneuver in a general election. Combine that with the fact that he's an excellent orator and an unrelenting optimistic and I think any Democratic candidate would have his/her hands full.

Conventional wisdom also seems to hold that Rudy Giuliani would be the strongest GOP candidate in a general election. I think that's mistaken as well. Giuliani could potentially be a strong general election candidate, but he's also a risky one for the Republicans. First, there's a real risk that if he's the candidate, the religious right conservative base would choose to sit this election out or support some third party alternative. Moreover, Giuliani strikes me as being the candidate most likely to suffer a scandal or gaffe-induced meltdown. Giuliani's personal life is a disaster and his years as mayor appear to be an un-mined treasure trove of scandal fodder. And temperamentally, Giuliani is prone to bizarre tirades and otherwise juvenile outbursts (see, for example, this embarrassing display). He often seems more like a baseball manager than a politician.

If the idea is to nominate someone with a proven track record of success in blue parts of the country, Mitt Romney is a much safer bet. He's better looking, more polished, has a model family and a squeaky clean history. Yes, he's been shamelessly pandering to the Republican base for the last year or so (though only slightly moreso than Giuliani), but I think he would turn on a dime and start looking more like the old Mitt if he managed to win the nomination. And Romney's ace in the hole is the Massachusetts health plan. Though it doesn't do him much good in the GOP primary, it would likely feature prominently in a Romney general election campaign and might effectively inoculate him from criticism on that issue (given that the Massachusetts plan is very similar to those proposed by the leading Democratic candidates).

I also think McCain, if he could somehow manage to win the nomination, would be a formidable general election candidate. Ditto for Fred Thompson (though his chances of winning the nomination seem even smaller than McCain's at this point). In other words, it is FAR from clear to me that Rudy is the most "electable" Republican in the field. I'd personally rank him 3rd or 4th.

Back to the debate, I was struck by the look on McCain's face during the entire immigration discussion. He looked like somehow who was completely embarrassed by what his party had become. Tancredo was right; they were all trying to out-Tancredo him. How embarrassing. I also couldn't believe that Mitt Romney chose to attack Huckabee for his eminently reasonable point that we shouldn't punish children because of their parent's actions. To me, that point in the debate signified the complete abdication by Romney of any attempt to analyze issues in terms of his own personal beliefs. I am certain that Romney the person and even Romney the politician up until last year would have agreed with Huckabee. But Romney the RNC automaton was the only person on that stage. And so he chose to attack Huckabee and seemed completely oblivious to the fact that this made him look like an angry tribalist yahoo.

McCain seemed much more reasonable than his opponents until the topic turned to foreign policy, at which point he devolved into a hawkish demagogue, shamelessly asserting that he was speaking on behalf of the troops when criticizing Ron Paul (who, by the way, gets far more campaign contributions from active military members than anyone else on the stage) and offering the standard right-wing revisionist tripe about the Vietnam war (we only lost because of the dirty hippies at home!).

Overall, I thought the debate was pretty informative and far more entertaining than usual, and I think Mike Huckabee came away as the clear winner.