Whoever programmed Mitt Romneybot last night made him act like a total dick
(Joshua Lott / Reuters)
So the
consensus, at least from pundits, is that Mitt Romney won last night's GOP debate—not because he performed particularly well, but because Rick Santorum flubbed it. But even though Romney may have won—albeit, by default—last night was not a good night for his presidential ambitions or those of the Republican party.
Consider:
- Mitt Romney was mean. As Mike Allen puts it, "mean" is the one adjective that best sums up Mitt Romney after last night's debate. Romney managed to trip up Rick Santorum on several questions, but he never managed to make a positive case for himself. So to the extent he separated himself from Rick Santorum, it was because he was effective as an attacker. Being good on the attack is an important skill, but it's not the most important skill—and if you're running for president, it's a problem if it's the only thing you're good at.
- Republicans ignored the economy. Mitt Romney only talked about job creation once during the entire debate. Once! And even then, it wasn't in the context of a discussion about the economy ... it was explaining his plan to balance the budget. Overall, Republicans mentioned the word "job" or "jobs" only five times in the context of the economy. Three of them came from Newt Gingrich in the space of four sentences!
- Instead, they talked more about opposing birth control than creating jobs. The candidates on stage weren't talking to regular Americans: they were trying to appeal to the GOP's hard-right base. The problem for them is that they were doing it in public: regular Americans were watching, and what they saw wasn't pretty.
- Mitt Romney positioned himself to Rick Santorum's right. If you watched the debate, you learned that Mitt Romney thinks Rick Santorum is basically a liberal Democrat, and he promised to govern far to Santorum's right. Need I say more?
- Mitt Romney doubled-down on his anti-immigration positions. Romney continued to stake out the most aggressively anti-immigration position of any of the candidates, saying Arizona's "paper's please" law is a "model" for the country. That might help him in the primary, but it will be a problem in November.
- Romney may have bested Santorum, but Newt Gingrich bested them both. If Santorum wins Michigan and Arizona, his performance in the debate probably won't matter that much—Santorum would, at that point, be a juggernaut. But if Romney comes back (from his mini-Tuesday defeats) and wins both states—an entirely plausible if not likely scenario—Gingrich may have performed well enough to set the stage for yet another comeback, especially if Sheldon Adelson makes good on his $100 million pledge. (Yes, I know most people will think I'm crazy for saying that Newt isn't totally dead, but I've consistently argued that by remaining in the race, Newt Gingrich is giving himself the chance to be the beneficiary if Romney succeeds in destroying Santorum.)
- Mitt Romney gave OFA/DNC more highlight reel gold. Assuming Romney wins the nomination, he gave President Obama's reelection campaign even more footage to use during the general election last night, not just on the birth control and immigration issues mentioned above, but also when he made the case for bailing out Wall Street but against bailing out the auto industry. He argued it was more important to save the banking industry than it was to save the auto industry, and that's not an argument he's going to want to defend in November.
The bottom-line is that anyone who watched last night's debate—except for hard-core right-wingers—was almost certainly horrified by what they saw on that stage. But as painful as it was to watch last night's clown show, it's unfortunate that it's probably the last one. The more chances voters have to see these guys, the less likely it becomes that any one of them will ever sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.