Curiosity? Masochism? Boredom? I don't exactly know why, but I watched the first Republican debate.
Right now, the candidates who actually showed up to the debate are, for the most part, trying to define themselves. Here's my rundown.
Gary Johnson: I kind of like Gary Johnson; he's sort of a Ron Paul lite without the racism baggage, with the mixture of likable social and foreign policy positions and horrible economic ideas. He went into this debate as the "pot guy". I'm down.
What struck me most about Johnson was how clearly uncomfortable he was on stage. Again, I didn't come in trying to knock the guy, but whether it was complaining about his lack of time (Republican Gravel?), or the icy response of the South Carolina conservative base to stuff like his pro-choice positions, or the horrible answer to the equally horrible "reality show" Trump question, watching Johnson gave a vibe of a bad comedian: you don't really dislike the guy, you just kind of feel awkward. Most of the libertarian vibe in the building was eaten up by the Paul-types: Johnson got some response, but not nearly enough to look credible.
Which is odd because, again, his positions on stuff weren't too bad. I suspect, on some level, he's trying to bring marijuana legalization into the spotlight, an idea I can support. But the concept he has any real kind of base to win over in the modern GOP is pretty flat on its face false. Even the fringe youth libertarians have their guy picked out...
Ron Paul: Memories of 2008. I gotta give the Paulites credit, they can keep their enthusiasm alive even four years later. It became fairly obvious there was a "Paul section" in the crowd; I think Chris Wallace even rolled his eyes and looked back at them at one point. It's a good metaphor: Paul has his people, and his people really, really like Ron Paul. But it's not a winning coalition.
And, as usual, I found his economic policy pretty out there (the government needs to be protected from these evil unions! gold standard!) with the occasional truth-bomb being thrown on the various absurdities of American foreign policy. Seeing the point "if we legalize heroin, not everybody is going to start doing it!" get a pretty decent sized cheer at a Republican debate is one of the wonderful little things you run into if you follow politics.
Quick note: When people use the term "Tea Party" they often credit it to Paul as the first source. There's really a Libertarian Tea Party which he represents, and then (as he was asked towards the end) a cultural Tea Party represented by Michelle Bachmann types. These are two separate things and it's stupid to conflate them, but that's another article.
Rick Santorum: Man, Rick Santorum is weird as hell. His positioning here is pretty obvious: standard GOP talking points on everything (his attack on the health care reform bill and the "BUSH KILLED OSAMA BIN LADEN" answer were particularly lame) with an extra added dose of 90s culture warrior that is kind of lacking in the supposedly 'economy-minded' field.
I enjoyed the "trick question", which detailed a line from his book involving women in the workplace and radical feminism (or something). I also, begrudgingly, have to give him some credit: faced with an obvious example of his sexism, he contorts it into something about feminists hate stay-at-home moms. His answer was bullshit of course, but he did a nice job selling it, and the crowd ate it up. Biggest note here was an intended jab at Mitch Daniels's supposed "social issue truce", which Santorum called un-American or anti-GOP or something.
I'm guessing Santorum's strategy is win over the Iowa evangelicals, skip New Hampshire and hope the Iowa momentum rides into South Carolina. I sincerely doubt this will happen - Santorum's big problem is going to be convincing everyone why he's even relevant anymore (see: Gingrich, Newt), and tonight did little to show anything.
Herman Cain: It's hard to deny the Tea Party types are going to be the driving factor in the GOP nomination process this year. So much of the coverage of this involves issue positioning; no taxes ever EVER, destroy all social spending, if Obama does it then it is bad, etc. But a large part of what moves the Tea Party types isn't an issue position so much as a tone, a way of looking at the world.
As someone who will never vote for the guy, I gotta say I'm with the infamous Luntz focus group: Herman Cain won this debate. Going in as "tea party pizza dude", Cain really does seem to have a natural talent at working over the tea party types in the crowd. It's hard to describe here but I do mean it: it's the word choice, it's the images evoked, that kind of abstract stuff. He's coming at this as an almost stereotypical BUSINESS GENIUS angle, as though he was going to start tossing out corporate buzzwords at any minute, and the crowd totally ate it up. I can totally see voters going for this; I seem to recall his vote in the Gallup polls were the most "enthusiastic" (compared to Romney's weak, fleeting support). Combine this with insane uberconservative positions, and I honestly think you have the strongest wild card candidate in this race.
But while winning over the crowd, Cain also showed where his weaknesses will be if he does get a movement going. His view on Afghanistan is literally "I don't really know, I'd have to talk with the generals". Yeah, that's not going to hold up for a serious primary debate, much MUCH less a general election. Also the Fair Tax is pretty weird, far right stuff, even for tea party people. But Cain has emerged, and I suspect he'll be getting some heavy coverage if he can keep this up.
Oh, and Godfather's isn't anywhere around me...didn't even know about it until I heard of Cain. Is it any good?
Tim Pawlenty: Matt Taibbi is a perennial favorite of mine, and he summed up Pawlenty pretty brilliantly:
That to me leaves Pawlenty, and I’ll admit, I know very little about Pawlenty – other than the fact that I’ve seen him give speeches in person at least three times and still couldn’t tell you what he stands for, what his speaking style is like, even what he looked like. If police asked me to help make a composite sketch of Tim Pawlenty, God knows what it would end up looking like; in my mind’s eye he’s a cross between Ed Begley and the late character actor Vince Schiavelli. Obviously that might be just me, but Pawlenty does already have a reputation for being perhaps the most boring politician in America. But this might in fact be mostly what he’s selling. If the rest of the field is wacked-out Michelle Bachmann and Donald Trump’s Hitlerian ego, boring might be a great quality to market during primary season. But against Barack Obama?
I read that before watching the debate, and particularly the bolded section stuck with me. That exact dynamic happened in the debate. Pawlenty got some tough questions, gave some applause-earning answers, looked "presidenty" enough (I guess). But outside of some hilarious wavering on a creationism question (of all things!), I would be hard-pressed to remember a single thing Pawlenty said or did tonight. Furthermore, this isn't an accident.
This is the Pawlenty campaign.
Expect Pawlenty to hold the line on most GOP positions. In the cases where a harder-right is available (on, say, Medicare), expect him to pull back a bit while not necessarily knocking it. He will give answers that invoke vague conservative principles while doing so. He's not hugely charismatic while doing so, but he states it kind of strongly. When he finishes answering a question, you know he's answered the question, but little else.
This fits with Lawrence O'Donnell's hypothesis: Pawlenty is aiming to win by default. Cain, Bachmann, Trump: too far right! Romney? RINO! Johnson, Paul? Fringe! Therefore, as they all take each other out, Pawlenty instead slips through. O'Donnell thinks this will work; I can see the logic, but I think the party is in more of a "true believers" mood than "who can beat Obama" mood.
Moderators: Fox News gonna be Fox News, but the debate wasn't too bad. Some questions were pretty decent, and the "trick" questioning was fairly hard-hitting. The most fascinating element was the final round of questioning, in which each of the 5 participants were given a question about a likely running candidate who isn't on stage. The interesting thing was they seemed to be "matching" candidates:
Ron Paul : Michelle Bachmann - Who is the REAL leader of the Tea Party? Let's ignore that they represent completely different things and just feed into the narrative!
Herman Cain : Mitt Romney - Cain supported Romney in 2008. Cain said something to the effect of "he didn't win so I want to try". Again, tone was perfect and he got a big reaction, but he dodged a potential knock on the health care plan - if he's serious, that's not going to fly.
Tim Pawlenty : Mike Huckabee - Okay this one is random. I don't recall what Pawlenty said, so he must be doing a good job.
Rick Santorum : Newt Gingrich - Let's give the God Warrior a question about the man with multiple wives! Surely he can't produce a boring, dodgy answers (spoiler: he did)
Gary Johnson : Donald Trump - oh crap we have one left over, give it to Johnson with a joke question
Final Ruling:
WINNERest - Herman Cain - Went in as "crazy tea party pizza guy", came out as...crazy tea party pizza guy who teabaggers actually like. This was a move up for him, and I suspect he'll get a notable bump from it (so, like, from 2% to 5%).
Tim Pawlenty - Went in as the closest thing to "Generic Republican", and came out the same thing. Expect him to try and repeat this, a lot.
Ron Paul - Gotta admit, he showed that he still has a fanbase and they can get excited. I don't think it'll be any more than that, but this should at least get him some nice coverage like it did in 2008.
Gary Johnson - Again, I kind of like Gary Johnson and think he's one of the more sane Republicans out there, and bringing the drug war out as an issue is highly respectable. But in terms of actually becoming the Republican nominee, I don't really think tonight did anything to take Johnson out of his "fringe candidate" shell. Come back to NORML, bro!
LOSERest - Rick Santorum - Johnson had little to lose. This was Santorum's big chance to define himself, and he did: a candidate who would be much more at home in the 1996 Republican Primary than in the modern day. The Luntz group had him in second, but that was mostly because of some cliche "OBAMACARE IS THE END OF FREEDOM" nonsense he spouted and no one else got the chance to. Kinda doubt Santorum will even make it to Iowa.
FINAL NOTES: The mere offhanded mention of Romneycare got a notable boo from the crowd. If the Romney team is thinking they can avoid this by waiting out the primaries a bit, they're insane.
Overall, no one of this crowd is giving me a sense of dread - in other words, no blow out performances here, just standard Republican rhetoric. Don't expect the debates to even get that interesting until summer-ish.