Hotline has the story. Apparently Fred Thompson turned down Mike Huckabee’s invitation to debate.
While I understand why Thompson wouldn’t want to do this, doesn’t this play into the narrative that he isn’t engaging in real campaigning? Especially with New Hampshire groups offering to host the debate?
Tags: Debate, Fred Thompson, Huckabee
I love this. The release:
“I am aware of your comments on Fox News that you would like to participate in a series of Lincoln Douglas-styled debates. I would like to officially accept your offer,” wrote Huckabee in a September 7, 2007 letter to Senator Thompson"
With would be a lot of fun. Huckabee invoked Newt too:
“I share your view of the debates and agree that Newt’s ‘Nine Nineties in Nine’ concept is a far better way to make sure America’s next President has the character and capacity to lead our nation forward, that’s why I have already signed that pledge. I agree that what is needed is a real discussion by the candidates about their vision for the future of our country,” wrote Huckabee.
I hope they do this. Full release after the jump. Read More »
Tags: Debate, Fred Thompson, Huckabee
Governor Huckabee answered some questions about health care after the debate. This came out of a discussion in which he expressed some frustration that health care, education, trade, and jobs were not being discussed:
Tags: Debate, Healthcare, Huckabee
One of the more interesting parts of the debate was the exchange between Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. After the debate, Governor Huckabee offered some reflections on that exchange.
Tags: Debate, Huckabee, National Security, Paul
They open with a question about Fred Thompson.
Mike Huckabee makes a reference to "no show George".
John McCain mentions that the debate might be up past Thompson’s bed time. He also also says that people in New Hampshire want face time.
Rudy Giuliani: "He’s done a pretty good a job playing my part on Law and Order." This is a nomination that you have to earn though. "Three leading Democratic candidates who have not run a state, a city, or a business."
Illegal immigration.
Mitt Romney is asked why he didn’t do anything about sanctuary cities and the illegals on his front lawn. Romney says that governors are not responsible for mayors who are breaking the law. Then he pushes back on Rudy and NYC. Also tries to differentiate with Rudy on "amnesty."
They ask Rudy about a quote about NYC "wanting people like" illegal immigrants who work. Rudy points out that the other part of the executive order required that the police do things about law breaking illegal immigrants . "I didn’t have the luxury of rhetoric." Rudy pointed out that that year 758 people were deported that year.
Wallace asks if McCain if Romney is playing politics with immigration. "We failed because the American people have lost confidence in us. Iraq, … Katrina, etc." "Governor Romney, less than a year ago, had exactly the same position I do now."
Huckabee. They ask him about last year’s racism quote. "First of all, because I have listened to some of them." "I agree, we ought to have sealed borders." Wow. He again steals Newt’s package tracking analogy.
Hunter. Commits to finishing the fence in 6 months.
After interviewing a cop — curiously from Massachusetts –, the proverbial man on the street, they wing back and ask Rudy and McCain why the bill wasn’t amnesty. Rudy dodges the question. McCain takes it full on.
They lot Romney in. He talks about sanctuary cities and businesses.
Family Values
They ask Sam Brownback about Larry Craig. He pushes back and says that it is important "that the party stand for family values." Brownback did his thing.
Hunter. "When Democrats have problems like this, they make them chairmen of a committee."
They ask Romney about his two-step approach to abortion. "Almost all of us would like to see an America that didn’t have abortion." He reverts to a Bush-style "the states aren’t ready." Wasn’t the question whether Romney thought abortion was murder? "For some people abortion is murder?" What about you Gov. Romney??
Huckabee. Talks about the Human Life Amendment. If he is in the top-tier, he and McCain alone support that. I still think that is extraordinary.
Guns
They ask Rudy about gun control. Rudy talks about reducing crime.
They cut to the diner and a woman says that there shouldn’t be an amendment on gay marriage. The debate audience seems clearly divided.
Brownback says we need an amendment. Then he gives the standard Stanley Kurtz line.
They ask McCain about his recent line about Giuliani.
He gives Rudy a very positive compliment, and then contrasts national security and managing a city and the security there. Then he talks about his position on Iraq and why he was right. McCain contrasts his record on national security. He talks about his military record. "I didn’t manage it. I lead it."
Rudy responds and re-iterates his admiration for McCain. Then he invokes his record as governing. He quotes George Will about his record as "running the most successful conservative government in the last 50 years."
They ask Romney about his Iraq position. "Even Hillary Clinton is willing to commit troops" longer than Romney. Romney doesn’t really say anything but the positive side. He reiterates his position, but doesn’t back away. Romney says "if the surge is working."
They ask McCain to follow up. McCain points out that "the surge is working," and "it’s working governor, it’s working." Ed Morrissey caught the contrast. And Andy McCarthy likes it too.
Then they ask Ron Paul…. Yawn. Fox pushes back and says "so we should take orders from al Qaeda."
Brownback continues his distance. He takes the position that the political solution isn’t happening. Then he re-iterates his federation/Biden strategy. Fortunately, Fox pushes back about the divisive problems: Turkey v. Kurds and Iran’s role. Brownback points out that we have these problems. After all hasn’t Turkey invaded?
They ask Huckabee. He says we have to continue to the surge under the "fix what you break". Huckabee did well on this.
Fox starts a fight between Paul and Huckabee. Huckabee is totally winning from this. This is amazing.
Duncan Hunter continues his audition for SecDef.
Now they ask Tancredo. They point out that he opposed the surge.
Fox cuts to the diner again. And the people in the diner hammer Romney. Romney apologizes and says that we need a global strategy. Romney clarifies his position and no one applauds.
Now they cut to wiretapping, etc.
Romney says that he would wiretap in the US only with a visa. "Our focus has to be preventing an attack."
Now they ask Tancredo about waterboarding. Like Romney, he ducks the premise of the question and talks about the responsibility to keep people safe.
Now they ask McCain about torture, et al. McCain invokes a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Vessey, on this subject to give his answer.
Now they ask Giuliani about Gitmo. "We can’t close Guantanamo because no one will take the people there." Huh? McCain’s position is to deal with them in the legal system. Giuliani has a great line on Iraq. "How do you win if the debate is about how to retreat?" Great and important point.
They ask Hunter if we hold people indefinitely. They say "absolutely."
Taxes
They ask about the tax pledge. McCain says that he stands on his record. Is that the right answer? He then starts talking about corruption and pork, where he is on better ground. Chris Wallace comes back with the logical problem about the votes.
They follow up with Brownback who gives a pedestrian answer.
Rudy gives a weird answer about multiple pledges. "Only one pledge to the Constitution of the United States." Weird.
Now they beat up on Romney. They talk about Romney raising fees, etc. They give the particular fees. Nice! I am sympathetic to Romney’s position that the tax on interest, dividends, and capital gains should be zero. But isn’t he going to be vulnerable to attacks based on his wealth on this?
Now Fox asks Huckabee about the FairTax and the fact that the numbers don’t work. The closing line about winners and losers and "most of us end up being losers in the end" is great.
The guy at the diner asks about Rudy and family values. "Lead by example." OUCH!
How does he answer this? This is not a fair question. But I think that he screwed it up.
Iran hypothetical
Tancredo makes a very important point about there being a great deal of dissent inside Iran. This is the right answer. Their crazy president is getting boxed in with appointments by people opposed to him.
Duncan Hunter, again speaking to his strength, handles this well. There really isn’t another answer that will fit in.
Huckabee ducks the hypothetical and gives principles. This is the right answer.
Romney gave a nothing answer.
McCain just lays out principles. Not much different than Hunter, Huckabee, or Brownback, except that he doesn’t condemn the hypothetical. Like Brownback he reiterates how severe this threat is.
Tags: Debate, Live blogging, New Hampshire
I’m at the debate media room at the GOP debate. A Romney representative says that Mitt Romney’s position on Iraq is nothing new and that no candidate believes that they will keep troops for a long time.
I am not sure that that is true. After all, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advisers recognize, at least in private, that their plans require 100k+ troops to stay in the country for a long time. It is not clear that Romney would accept a formulation like that.
The Romney representative had no response to the pushback that Romney was the first person to state this.
Eric Pfieffer from the Washington Times says, basically, that the Save the Debate coalition has won:
The majority of Republican presidential candidates are backing off their objections to participating in the unconventional YouTube debate.
Candidates’ reservations about the seriousness of the format, which features videotaped questions from voters, and the original September date are being resolved and the field is growing, said sources close to the campaigns and debate organizers. …
Initially, only two of the 10 declared Republican candidates agreed to participate: Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
The number is now at four and, the sources said, the full field could be announced as early as this week. The debate now likely will take place in November or December.
This last is a very important point. The date will now be in November or December, when people are actually paying attention to the race. Hopefully, the format can help us achieve a large number of younger viewers, like the Democrat debate achieved:
Monday’s CNN-YouTube debate brought in pretty good numbers, delivering the highest viewership for a debate among adults 18-34 in cable news history.
The GOP CNN/YouTube debate has been converted from an interesting idea and gimmick to, in all likelihood, one of the most important debates of the primary cycle. Also, with nearly 4 months of run-up to the debate, we can expect an enormous number of questions that will have to be sifted through. CNN might have to come up with some better ideas for how to do that.
Tags: Calendar, Debate, Republicans, Technology
Now, I was not a big fan of the CNN/YouTube debate. I largely agree with the criticism that CNN used their editorial ability to pick questions that they couldn’t ask as reporters. That said, I was struck by something this morning. Somehow this seemingly trivial debate managed to get Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to talk about a real difference of policy and philosophy, instead of a stylistic one: whether Presidents should talk to bad countries. This real policy question has been debated for a full week now between Hillary and Obama, making the front page of the Post.
Not only the front page of the Post, but two opinions today. And yesterday two candidates from the other party, John McCain and Mitt Romney, have even gotten in to the discussion.
I think this is a real philosophical debate about foreign policy that cuts to a real fracture in the Democratic Party between (responsible) foreign policy elites and one part of the liberal faction of the party base. And it took real people to ask this question. Why? Probably because the press is part of the same elite opinion formation apparatus as everyone else. (incidentally, that’s why they didn’t ask questions about Iraq. Very few serious people were asking questions about Iraq, so the press didn’t either)
In hindsight, it appears that the debate teased out a real difference between the elites of the Democratic Party and the base. That’s exactly what this debate should have done. This gimmicky debate has resulted in the first real large-scale policy clash of the 2008 cycle. Something that 8(?) media sponsored debates couldn’t really achieve.
Just imagine what kinds of exciting questions could be asked in the GOP debate.
Is it any surprise that the people who are running essentially against party elites like John McCain and Ron Paul are interested and Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney aren’t? Is it any surprise that the self-identified arbiter of conservative elite opinion, Hugh Hewitt, is opposed?
I think that means I have changed my mind on this. Let the debate go on! I guess that I am with Patrick Ruffini on this.
Tags: Clinton, Debate, Democrats, Media, Obama, Republicans, Technology
This is scathing live blogging about Romney from Ana Marie Cox, no serious person. (H/T to GOP Blue at GOP Progress. )
8:23 PM Gilmore ALSO STANDING. Mitt Romney totally flummoxed, can’t remember what polling said about standing versus sitting.
8:31 PM Romney’s decided to stand. He’s not going to apologize about becoming pro-standing. He’s been standing, in his heart, for a long time. Really, he’s a lifelong stander. Small varmint standing, mostly.
Ouch!
My 2008 Ticker
