Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Peter Robinson ·
January 8, 2012 at 8:42pm
I missed the debate action--I'm sick in bed, and you may let my own aches and pains serve as a warning; folks, get your flu shots--but Steve Hayes has a summary over at the Weekly Standard. Steve's smart and fair, and I thought I'd post this link before crawling back into bed.
"On Sunday morning," Steve writes,
both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich may have done damage to Romney with their critiques. The attacks were not race-changing hits, but they nonetheless highlighted Romney's vulnerabilities in the GOP primary and in a general election if he wins the Republican nomination.
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Jun '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Sitting where Romney does, mediocre may be the right strategy. Boldness can lift you up, or knock you down. Hard to know which sometimes.
Dec '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
I'm sure Hayes is fair, but that's not what I saw.
Gingrich was pretty strong and did a fine job of rope-the-dope against the real competition, David Gregory, and Gregory's local hit men brought in for a painful segment.
What I saw was just the same, real, gantlet the GOP candidates will continue to face. It was just awful. Really, what GOP voter cares that much about "gay rights", or sits on the edge of their seat, wondering just which unfortunate citizen must bear the "pain" for correcting the overspending (actually repeated by Gregory, over and over).
Perry was pretty decent, in the 1 or 2 times they let him speak, between moderators.
Paul was hinky.
Santorum was OK, if delusional about his grand impact during his tenure in the Senate.
Huntsman needed a seat with the moderators.
From what I saw, Romney was OK, if his pandering self; Gingrich came off pretty well; and Perry didn't suck.
May '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
The biggest hit was on Romney's silly handling of why he didn't run for reelection in MA. It's obvious why he didn't run (because he could've or would've lost), but he should've swept the matter away with a laugh line/half truth: "Because I wanted to run for president. It was in all the papers." Instead he tried to dodge and got called out, embarrassingly so, but these things stand out mostly because Romney's usually adequately deft.
Fwiw: Last night pre-debates Romney was 82-ish on Intrade; this morning post-debates he's 83-ish. Earl Campbell plows ahead for three more yards.
FYI everyone: Tony Blankley died today. What a shame. Rest in peace.
Jun '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Scott Reusser:
[...]
FYI everyone: Tony Blankley died today. What a shame. Rest in peace. · Jan 8 at 12:04pm
...of stomach cancer apparently. He was a very smart man. If he'd been born in the US, he could've been in these presidential debates and done very well I'm sure. Less baggage than his boss.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Mediocrity can work in primaries/leadership contests, and it can work in multi-party general elections, but I don't think mediocrity cuts the mustard in a two-party general election.
The nominee needs to kick Obama's butt.
Mediocre boxers do not win the championship belt.
Mar '11
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Get well soon, Peter.
Aug '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
But, but, but, if he's stuck in bed that means he has more time to hang out with us here on Ricochet! ;-)
May '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
This is like the Tour de France, not the Indy 500. Steady performers win the race, especially since the media will be toiling hard for the opposition.
Romney is doing just fine. He will be getting sworn in on January 20th of next year because Independent voters don't want "fighters", they want competence.
We are getting a nominee that can win; we need to realize that Ronald Reagan isn't running...
Jul '11
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
There's a lot to dislike about Gingrich, but I do relish the fact that he's demonstrably unafraid to state what he thinks - which makes me yearn for a series of debates featuring Gingrich and Obama.
Gingrich pounced, calling on Romney to cut the “pious baloney,” to the evident delight of reporters in the press filing center.
Pious baloney, indeed. That's what we've been force-fed for 3-4 years now. Including a strong hint of condescension. I don't think that Gingrich will be the nominee, but there's certainly a big chunk of who he is that I'd like to place directly into whoever the final Republican candidate is - which is likely to be the one guy in the most dire need of a belly filled with fire out of the whole slate of candidates: Romney.
Dec '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
In another observer's recap, he seems to have seen similar things:
"After 15 debates, the GOP field has collectively become much better at avoiding the lefty moderators’ traps. For much of the legacy media, these debates have seemingly been about getting sound bites from GOP candidates that Obama and the Democrats can use in the Fall against them. In this morning’s debate, David Gregory mostly failed in this effort."
These debates have been, for the most part, against the moderators. In that field of play, Huntsman is the worst and, in my opinion, Romney may be steady, but also steadily disappointing. If the nominee, Romney will not just be up against Obama; he'll be battling against the media arm of the Democratic party. I have seen absolutely nothing in him that implies he might be able to stand up to the pitifull likes of David Gregory, or George Stephenopolous. He will be deer-in-headlights against the real competition and, likely, will never even have seen it coming.
Apr '11
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
CJRun:
These debates have been, for the most part, against the moderators. In that field of play, Huntsman is the worst and, in my opinion, Romney may be steady, but also steadily disappointing. If the nominee, Romney will not just be up against Obama; he'll be battling against the media arm of the Democratic party. I have seen absolutely nothing in him that implies he might be able to stand up to the pitifull likes of David Gregory, or George Stephenopolous. He will be deer-in-headlights against the real competition and, likely, will never even have seen it coming. ·
Harding ran on a "no fire" platform of steadily repeating the truths that got him elected. "A return to normalcy", a step back from terrible crisis and radical change. He cut spending by more than any other modern President. It is not clear that the public is crying out for another Hope And Change candidacy. A solid, steady, reliable assault on the terrible things the state is doing to America may be much better than a rapid-fire succession of brilliant ideas and savage hyperbole. If you're a journalist, boring is the ultimate sin. Not for a taxpayer.
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Geçmiş olsun, Peter. "May it be past."
Mar '11
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Since Peter Robinson is sharing links, here's a link to an article by John Podhoretz that declares Romney the de facto nominee after the Saturday debate. "If you were to analogize last night’s nationally televised GOP presidential debate on ABC to a classic sporting contest, Romney was Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes in 1973. By the end, Romney was 31 lengths ahead, and the other thoroughbreds were battling for place and show."
Here's another article Peter will be interested in, where Michael Barone says of Romney,“He just clinched the nomination.”
Edited on January 8, 2012 at 11:15pmDec '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
A view from one of Delingpole's colleagues on the Telegraph blogs:
This part struck me:
Holy moly, are they hitting Mitt with the "Quitter" meme? You betcha!
Edited on January 8, 2012 at 11:01pmRe: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
I have two winners, depending on how you look at it (and the candidate I wanted to hit it out of the park was Huntsman).
Romney did the best job of avoiding any traps or having any flubs and was consistently laying out his vision and his reason for campaigning. I thought he did very well. Did I find it worrisome that he could be in the position of appointing SCOTUS members and not know a thing about Griswold? That would be horrible, obviously. But I think he was just doing his trademark Romney move where he basically wanted to avoid taking a position on Griswold. So I'm not totally freaked out about it.
Gingrich flat out had the moment of the night when he turned around yet another idiotic question from the yahoos moderating the panel and reminded them that the real problem with bigotry in this country is with attacks on religious people and their institutions. That was just amazing.
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Chris Campion: There's a lot to dislike about Gingrich, but I do relish the fact that he's demonstrably unafraid to state what he thinks - which makes me yearn for a series of debates featuring Gingrich and Obama.
Gingrich pounced, calling on Romney to cut the “pious baloney,” to the evident delight of reporters in the press filing center.
Pious baloney, indeed. That's what we've been force-fed for 3-4 years now. Including a strong hint of condescension. I don't think that Gingrich will be the nominee, but there's certainly a big chunk of who he is that I'd like to place directly into whoever the final Republican candidate is - which is likely to be the one guy in the most dire need of a belly filled with fire out of the whole slate of candidates: Romney. · Jan 8 at 12:38pm
I want Newt Gingrich to be the press secretary for the next administration. Not joking.
Apr '11
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Chris Campion: There's a lot to dislike about Gingrich, but I do relish the fact that he's demonstrably unafraid to state what he thinks - which makes me yearn for a series of debates featuring Gingrich and Obama.
Gingrich pounced, calling on Romney to cut the “pious baloney,” to the evident delight of reporters in the press filing center.
Pious baloney, indeed. That's what we've been force-fed for 3-4 years now. Including a strong hint of condescension. I don't think that Gingrich will be the nominee, but there's certainly a big chunk of who he is that I'd like to place directly into whoever the final Republican candidate is - which is likely to be the one guy in the most dire need of a belly filled with fire out of the whole slate of candidates: Romney. ·
He came out with this while claiming that he wouldn't engage in negative campaigning that was not strictly on facts (Gingrich's outside spending is has spent more on negative campaigning than any other candidate's according to Open Secrets (go to "outside spending")), and recommending that people watch libelous Democrat hit pieces.
Dec '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Chris Campion: There's a lot to dislike about Gingrich, but I do relish the fact that he's demonstrably unafraid to state what he thinks - which makes me yearn for a series of debates featuring Gingrich and Obama.
Gingrich pounced, calling on Romney to cut the “pious baloney,” to the evident delight of reporters in the press filing center.
Pious baloney, indeed. That's what we've been force-fed for 3-4 years now. Including a strong hint of condescension. I don't think that Gingrich will be the nominee, but there's certainly a big chunk of who he is that I'd like to place directly into whoever the final Republican candidate is - which is likely to be the one guy in the most dire need of a belly filled with fire out of the whole slate of candidates: Romney. · Jan 8 at 12:38pm
I want Newt Gingrich to be the press secretary for the next administration. Not joking. · Jan 8 at 2:17pm
This is just brilliant, Mollie! Do you think he'd take the job? I wonder if he might actually relish the chance.
Oct '11
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
Peter, I'm sick because I watched the Saturday night debate. I'm surprised the Griswolds (the litigants, not the vacationers) aren't coming out against contraception after that. Not even my morning man, Jolting-Jim Geraghty tweets could warm my soul, though it may have been his odd Paul-hate. In other words, Providence blessed you with sickness.
May '10
Re: Romney Mediocre, Santorum Strong, Gingrich Mixed
I'm with Peter- I didn't do a thing all day Sunday, didn't leave the house or veen venture far from the recliner and blanket.
And I did get my flu shot, which makes me think that they used the wrong antigens for this year's version.
I do think that Mollie has it right, though. Newt would be entertaining as the press secretary. Too bad his ego would balk. Maybe they could find a more compelling-sounding title.