Last night’s debate from Columbia, SC clearly showed the capabilities of each of the GOP candidates for President. Let us look at each of them here.
Perry: Here is a candidate who decided to start Obama’s campaign early. Attack and demonize the wealthy. Call for Romney to release tax records. Be certain that you are little more than an empty suit.
Santorum: Here is a candidate who is out of his league. Santorum wants to come across as informed but attacks only part of Gingrich’s plan for Social Security and ignoring the part that pays for it. Santorum then goes on to attack it again after being corrected only to end up with his nose firmly placed in the corner by Gingrich once again. Santorum also wants to paint all attacks against him as left wing or lies and hypocrisy even when some are entirely correct by his own admission [Voting rights for convicted felons]. Screams “Stop it” to Romney like he is a six year old in a fight with a 3 year old over a stuffed animal when he feels that he is being wronged.
Paul: Comes across strong on local policy but foreign policy continues to be a problem. Believes that the American Military endlessly bombs other countries, which leads them to hate and attack us. [Provided no proof of said “endless bombings.”] Believes a good foreign policy is “Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want them to do to us.” Paul seems to believe that when people get “upset” with the US over fictional ongoing bombings it leads to flying two planes into the towers of the Trade Center. [I would hate to see what they do when they get mad.]
Romney: Here is a candidate who wants to live in the middle of the road. His obviously practiced answers say very little and give him wiggle room to back out [like he did on his answer about releasing his taxes:
“ROMNEY: You know, I looked at what has been done in campaigns in the past with Senator McCain and President George W. Bush and others. They have tended to release tax records in April or tax season. I hadn’t planned on releasing tax records because the law requires us to release all of our assets, all the things we own. That I have already released. It’s a pretty full disclosure. But, you know, if that’s been the tradition and I’m not opposed to doing that, time will tell. But I anticipate that most likely I am going to get asked to do that around the April time period and I’ll keep that open… I think I’ve heard enough from folks saying, look, let’s see your tax records. I have nothing in them that suggests there’s any problem and I’m happy to do so. I sort of feel like we are showing a lot of exposure at this point. And if I become our nominee, and what’s happened in history is people have released them in about April of the coming year and that’s probably what I would do.”]
This answer could have won him the Dancing with the Stars GOP candidate special. If he had said either Yes or No here at least he would have taken a stand. He actually answered this with a “probably”. His answer was direct on his Super PAC criticism and with the amount of time he had to come up with an answer to this I would have been shocked if it wasn’t. He was surprisingly weak with his answer to the Bain Capital attacks which is worrisome when you consider that Obama can continue on this.
Gingrich: Gingrich is the obvious winner of the SC debate and clearly the only person on the stage who can roll with questions and answer them from a position of clear ideology and knowledge. Gingrich easily took to school each of the other candidates [at least those with any real shot—Perry was not really mentioned by him at all] from Romney’s failure to even suggest that his Super PAC should stop with the inaccurate ads, to Paul’s likening Chinese dissidents to terrorists, and on to Santorum’s uninformed weak arguments about his plan for social security. Gingrich’s public spanking of Juan Williams after his gotcha race-baiting question was also a preview of what to expect from him in his answers to similar questions that are sure to arise during any debates with Obama.
There is little doubt here that Gingrich is the only viable candidate in this field. If we do not see him as the candidate, it will be a tragedy.
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