Some late Vegas debate reaction

I finally got a chance to view it tonight. Here's my take.

Overall – Newt’s point at the end, for me, was the strongest. ‘Maximizing bickering is probably not the road to the White House’. Americans are not looking for more anger. They want more solutions. Stop trying to win style points and do two things: provide realistic solutions to complicated problems in an optimistic, hopeful way. That’s true leadership.  In no particular order . . .

Perry – Why did he come back to his ‘gotcha’ line regarding Mitt and his landscaping company 3 separate times? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a moderator say ‘I think he’s addressed that’. Ouch. The more important question: Did he really believe that was a strong point? That being said, this was by far his strongest performance to date, but I believe it’s his high water mark. Not good enough for him to dig himself out of the hole he’s in.  

Santorum – Was he on stage? Best answer of the night was explaining to the Latino community the basic building block of society is the family. He’s right and we need to talk more about rebuilding families as the basic unit of society. Why did he talk so strongly about winning in PA when he lost there so badly?

Bachmann – Owned the strangest quote of the night: “Hold on Moms”; Three questions: Was that a soccer mom shout out? Why didn’t she answer the initial question about cutting $500M from the defense budget? Why did she have to interject something at the end that added zero value? She won the Iowa straw poll. Too bad that didn’t mean anything.

Gingrich – Quoting the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. .  . Is he just showing off?  Can we appoint him as ‘Chief Thinker’? He challenged Obama to a Lincoln-Douglas style no-moderator 8 hour debate . . .No matter who wins the nomination, I think they should allow Newt to take on Obama. I’m salivating already. . . they could set it up as pay-per-view and donate the proceeds to pay off the debt.

Romney – Other than his opening comment ‘I’ve heard worse’ on the religion question, he hit a homerun with his response; well thought out and universally applied; throughout the whole night, he flat out took Perry to task; it was like the Varsity vs. the JV; he did lose it at one point in a tussle with Perry; completely unnecessary but shows how personal it’s been getting behind the scenes. Reference my earlier post on the no-holds-barred approach Perry’s inner circle likes to take and you’ll learn why.

Cain – Got beat up at the beginning on his ‘sound bite’ tax plan by better prepared challengers this time around but he still can’t answer detailed questions about the plan; he’s very weak on foreign policy and that will come out in the next debate, it’s foreign policy-only; my prediction: his poll numbers will start to sag after the next debate when folks realize he’s not as strong as they initially thought

Paul – I like him challenging the other candidates to be more specific on what they’re going to cut in the federal government but cut aid to Isreal? C’mon Paul. That’s a non-starter.  

On the topic of defense spending – No one is willing to cut a dime. Really? We’re broke. Why can’t we agree we’re going to focus on cutting fraud, waste, and abuse in the defense department? If as a party we agree we want to stop wasteful spending, then we should stop wasteful spending everywhere!

One serious question: How would Reagan fare in these debates given the current political environment?

One not-so-series-question: Who will Wayne Newton endorse?

- Ryan