Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Peter Robinson ·
Aug 11, 2011 at 9:48pm
Under deadline this evening, I missed the Republican presidential debate in Iowa.
Could my friends here at Ricochet fill me in? Who gained the most stature? Who lost the most? Who had the best moment? Who the worst? Who got off the funniest line? Is Newt's candidacy still alive? Is that of Herman Cain? Is Jon Huntsman kidding or what?
Either I get my news here on Ricochet tonight, or tomorrow morning I'll find myself with no recourse but to open...the New York Times.
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Jun '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Peter - We missed your wit and wisdom. Check out Aaron Miller's posting in the Member Feed here: http://ricochet.com/member-feed/The-Debate-Feedback
Maybe it should be moved to the Main Feed? A humble plea.
Jun '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
BTW - Fox is replaying the debate right now.
Oct '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Who Gained: Romney, Santorum (by going after Paul), Cain, Bachmann, Gingrich, Huntsman
Who Lost ground: Pawlenty, Paul
May '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
My nod goes to Romney. He handled himself with poise and didn't take any serious hits. Helped along by the klutzy attacks of Tim Pawlenty, who (as I predicted! Quoted by Diane Ellis on Young Guns!) overcompensated by making tone-deaf, misplaced sallies and then trying to pretend he hadn't. I think he's done for, sadly. Had hopes.
Huntsman didn't help himself (bottom story of the day), Romney may as well have offered Cain the position of Treasury Secretary explicitly. Newt was on tonight, fulfilling his role brilliantly. And by God, if pretending he's running for President is what it takes to get him on stage, that's fine with me.
Really, the winner was Fox. Fair & Balanced, asking real questions that a GOP primary electorate wants to know. Chris Wallace is now the Don King of the GOP primary.
Perry wasn't there, and until I see him campaign and debate, not jumping on board. Got burned on Fred Thompson last time.
Jan '11
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Newt did surprisingly well at times, but then fell into his old bad habit of wonky condescension, and a new habit of whining about "gotcha" questions. Vastly improved his rhetoric but it's just not enough at this point.
Romney played it smart instead of bold, and stood back, letting everyone else stab at each other, and grinning coolly at the blood shed on the dais. He was cheery, upbeat, answered questions well, and stayed out of the fray mostly. Won't win over his detractors, but he didn't lose ground either.
Tim Pawlenty had a moderately good night, but it's odd that in response to critics saying he missed the opportunity in the last debate to go after Romney, he decided to go after Bachmann, who fought back well. In trying to win this battle, Pawlenty might have lost the war.
Ron Paul chose the wrong week to start smoking crack again.
Herman Cain stumbled ineptly on foreign policy, but deftly and confidently answered about domestic economic policy. He should lose the prez run, and gain an advisory role in whoever does win.
Not a whole lot changed. But it was terribly entertaining!
Jun '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
In baseball parlance: Romney got on base a few times, Bachmann got a couple of doubles, Ron Paul hit himself with his own bat...repeatedly, Cain got a single, Santorum argued with the umpire about whether he was safe at first, Pawlenty kept ragging his own teammates, Huntsman struck out, and Newt hit a homer knocking out the stadium lights first time at bat and then followed it up with a grand slam that nearly took off the Super Committee's heads in the center field seats.
Jan '11
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Kennedy Smith:
Really, the winner was Fox. Fair & Balanced, asking real questions that a GOP primary electorate wants to know. Chris Wallace is now the Don King of the GOP primary.
I completely disagree. Fully half of the questions were pointless, softballs, or plain childish. Whether Bachmann's Christian submitting to her husband being an problem? Ron Paul, how about you rant about the Fed please? Hey let's pretend we're not candidates, but pundits. Fox did a terrible job. The candidates did well despite Fox's ineptitude. It felt like Chris Wallace had infected all the questions with his previous penchant for trying to appear balanced by bashing our candidates as unfairly as the Left does.
May '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
What I gathered from watching Fox News' live stream:
May '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
SooperMexican
Kennedy Smith:
Really, the winner was Fox. Fair & Balanced, asking real questions that a GOP primary electorate wants to know. Chris Wallace is now the Don King of the GOP primary.
I completely disagree. Fully half of the questions were pointless, softballs, or plain childish. Whether Bachmann's Christian submitting to her husband being an problem? Ron Paul, how about you rant about the Fed please? Hey let's pretend we're not candidates, but pundits. Fox did a terrible job. The candidates did well despite Fox's ineptitude. It felt like Chris Wallace had infected all the questions with his previous penchant for trying to appear balanced by bashing our candidates as unfairly as the Left does. · Aug 11 at 10:32pm
My cable cut out an hour in, so I missed the whole submission brouhaha. For the first hour, at least, I thought the moderators were tough but insightful, highlighting the differences between the candidates, because they don't see conservatives as an antropological anomaly. Much better than CNN, which mainly asked "why are you people so weird?"
Aug '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Right. Or to swap sports, Gingrich stood out about as much as Kobe did in the Lakers' game against Toronto a few years ago (when he scored 81).
And yet this also seems right:
Richard Stewart:
Which I suppose, taken together, just means Gingrich has so damaged himself it doesn't matter how well he does.
Oct '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Richard Stewart: What I gathered from watching Fox News' live stream: · Aug 11 at 10:32pm
I don't know what Caddell is smoking. and with the exception of York question to Bachmann re submission, Kudos to FOX doing a wonderful job on the debates.
Aug '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
I thought Fox did pretty well. The question about submission was a cheap shot, but I have to say that Bachmann handled it very deftly. I don't agree with everything she has to say, but she really impressed me with her poise and her ability to handle some very tough questions.
Santorum violated a simple rule when he started whining about not getting as much air time as the other guys. Whatever extra few seconds that may have bought him was nowhere worth the price of announcing to everyone, "Hey! I'm the also-ran no one takes seriously!" It was a poor tactical move, and it also made him look thin-skinned.
Newt was Newt. He's a really smart guy, and knocked the wonkish questions out of the park. He reminded everyone that he's been around and has a ton of experience. But then he reminded everyone that he's thin-skinned and flaky by whining about the 'gotcha' questions.
Romney was cool, professional, and looked like a legitimate Presidential candidate. I have to call him the winner of the night - partly because he didn't do anything to damage his standing.
Aug '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Herman Cain: He alternated between very good answers and some very bad ones. He spent too much time talking about the mistakes he made. Saying that he's been educating himself on foreign policy just says, "I don't know much about foreign policy." Not a good move. But given where he already was in perception, I don' think he hurt himself.
Ron Paul: Oh, my. I'm a libertarian, so I should be sympathetic to his message. But other than one or two questions, his answers left me cold and I thought his comments on Iran were abysmal. I think he damaged himself tonight. He had the largest cheering section, though.
Tim Pawlenty: He did better than the last time. I think he helped himself, but not by much.
John Huntsman: I didn't get any strengths from him unique from anyone else. He's Romney-Lite. I can't imagine why you'd pick him over Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, and tonight he did nothing to raise his stature.
If I were ranking the performances, I'd probably say Romney, Bachmann, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Cain, Huntsman, Paul, Santorum.
Sep '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Fox was surprisingly inept. Perry was the real winner because the debate was between an embarassing cast of characters and a feeble pawlenty. It was absolute loserville. This country is finished if out of 310 million people the best leader we can find is one of these 8 or Barack.
Apr '11
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
I didn't watch the debate, but there is something I'd like to throw out. Does it matter who the Republican candidate is? Do we need the next Reagan? We've got control of the House, with guys like Boehner and Ryan and we've got the Senate with our Rubio's, and we will take back the Senate this time around. Why are we so down on the Presidential field? All we need to do is get a Republican in, any Republican and they will give a smart Republican congress the green light and we will get what we want. I'd love another "great communicator" but we don't need one right now, so long as we've got Ryan and Boehner and O'Connell and Rubio, all we need is a Republican in and we win... Thoughts?
Dec '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
We've had just a republican in the WH and a green-lighted republican congress. It didn't go exactly as expected. We need a leader. Romney might could lead, I just don't know to where.
Oct '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Double post
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 1:24amOct '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
Punumba- I have to agree with The King Prawn, and then some.I.e, getting people to sacrifice goodies will be a very hard sell, made worse by the leftist media, Hollywood and academia. So we will need someone open-faced and persuasive like a Chris Christie or a Paul Ryan. Since they are not running, I hope Perry is up to the task.
Edited on Aug 12, 2011 at 1:25amApr '11
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
But we will still have Paul Ryan and we will still have Chris Christie. No they won't have the pulpit the president has, I'd love to have a strong president, but Paul Ryan where he is has already given the sitting president a run for his money, he has incredible influence right where he is at and at the end of the day, Congress writes legislation, the president only chooses to sign or to veto. It is true, under President Bush the Republicans had majorities in the House and Senate and things did go horribly wrong, but things have changed, there was President Obama, there is a Tea Party. Congress, and Republicans in congress have to behave differently now.... Don't they?
Aug '10
Re: Could Somebody Around Here Fill Me In?
I had a good laugh at that line. Funny visual in that analogy.