by Frank James
Two surprises out of last night’s Fox News Channel Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., both inexplicable.
One was that Sen. John McCain got out of the event pretty much unscathed.
You would have thought that his New Hampshire Primary win would have made him the big target at last niight’s debate.
The other was that Rep. Ron Paul wasn’t asked about the newsletters with the racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay opinions published under his name, publications which have become a big story ever since The New Republic’s James Kirchick wrote of their existence recently.
First the Paul controversy. CNN provided Fox News with the perfect lead in to have one of the Fox journalists on the panel of questioners last night put Paul on the spot about the newsletters. CNN’s The Situation Room actually did a segment about with Paul yesterday during which Paul tried to distance himself from the newsletters published in the 1990s and 1980s.
But the Fox News journalists never raised the newsletters. At one time it looked like they might when Carl Cameron asked Paul if he was electable. But it didn’t happen.
That was really astounding. The newsletters were the biggest story about Paul in that news cycle, burning up the Internet. Yet, the questions never came. It really was an amazing omission. A lot of people will be asking why and spinning conspiracy theories.
Was there a fear it would create a tidal wave of backlash against the news network by fervent Paul supporters? Or that it would derail the debate? Or that the other candidates would be forced to repudiate Paul, which could cost the eventual Republican nominee support from Paul supporters later on?The failure of the top candidates to take on McCain was also remarkable.Huckabee, who has positioned himself as the GOP candidate offering hope and taking the high road, certainly wasn’t going take after McCain. It would’ve ruined his message.
But that doesn’t explain why Romney, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani didn’t. Romney took a few open-handed swipes at McCain but none of them caused any damage.
The presidential campaign textbook usually calls for the candidate who won the last primary and who got a bounce in the polls to be attacked by the others as they try to peel off some of his support.
But last night, the other candidates seemed to be going out of their way to avoid getting nasty with McCain.
They left it for McCain to shoot himself in the foot. He said near the debate’s start that the economy wasn’t heading into recession.
And by the way, I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong, and I believe they will remain strong. This is a rough patch, but I think America’s greatness lies ahead of us.
Maybe the economy isn’t. But if it turns out the economy worsens and does noticeably head into a recession before next November’s election, these words may come back to haunt McCain should he be the nominee. They will make him look out of touch.
It’s not likely a grievous wound but he could’ve easily provided an answer withoutthe potential to be used with great effect later this year in Democratic ads .
Wiser answers came from Huckabee and Thompson. Huckabee said:
Chris, I hope we’re not headed toward a recession, but if we are, there’s four factors that’ll be the reason….
Huckabee was right about two of the four things he cited–rising fuel prices and the subprime mortgage woes. But then he added two factors economists haven’t generally haven’t cited–health-care and education costs. That was a little odd.
Thompson also had a better answer than McCain.
Unemployment is up to 5 percent.
That used to be considered full employment, but we’re going in the wrong direction with regard to that. It’s not just the subprime market now, it’s poured over into the general housing market. Credit is scarce. It’s affected the consumer credit market in general. If you’re talking about automobile loans or you’re talking about credit card thieves or anything like that, the money is getting tighter and tighter. We still have a bunch of two-handed economists in Washington: On the one hand, we may go into recession, and over on the other hand, we may not. Nobody knows.
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At the last debate which took place in New Hampshire, it was clear that Mitt Romney was seen as the man to stop, with several candidates training their fire on him.
But his second place finish in New Hampshire, following a similar finish in Iowa, clearly left him so weakened in the eyes of his rivals that they felt like they didn’t need to waste time trying to cut his legs out from under him..
If any candidates played the pinata role Romney did in the last debate it was Huckabee and Paul.
Huckabee was attacked mainly by Thompson, the former senator from Tennesee, who obviously sees the former Arkansas governor as the man he needs to take out in order to have a chance at winning South Carolina since Huckabee appeals to evangelical Christians who are an important segment of conservatives, the same voters Thompson needs.
About 20 minutes into the debate, Thompson launched a huge fusillade against Huckabee, using a statement by Ed Rollins, Huckabee’s campaign manager, who said the old Reagan coalition that was history.
This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and its future. On the one hand, you have the Reagan revolution. You have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security. On the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in.
He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies. He believes we have an arrogant foreign policy in the tradition of blame America first. He believes that Guantanamo should be closed down and those enemy combatants brought here to the United States to find their way into the court system eventually.
He believes in taxpayer-funded programs for illegals, as he did in Arkansas. He has the endorsement of the National Education Association, and the NEA said it was because of his opposition to vouchers. He said he would sign a bill that banned smoking nationwide. So much for federalism. So much for states’ rights. So much for individual rights. That’s not the model of the Reagan coalition. That’s the model of the Democratic Party.
Huckabee was ready however. He came back with a good line and followed up with a strong defense:
MR. HUCKABEE: The Air Force have a saying that says that if you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target. I’m catching the flak. I must be over the target. (Laughter, applause.)
Fred, I want to say I appreciate the analysis of my record, but let me try to give you some of the facts of my record.
I came into Arkansas as a governor; put in that position as a lieutenant governor when my predecessor, a Democrat, was forced out of office on a felony conviction. I did something that had not been done in my state in 160 years. I cut taxes, with the legislature working with me, and we continued to do that 94 times.
We cut spending. I’ll tell you, the most painful time of my being a governor in 10 and a half years was looking at a budget that 91 percent of which was pretty well fixed on education, Medicaid and prisons, and cutting 11 percent out of that budget. Everywhere I went for about a year and every person —
(Sound of bell.)
It may take me just a moment longer, please —
MR. HUME: Go ahead. Go ahead.
MR. HUCKABEE: — because there were a lot of things on that catalogue there. (Laughter.)
MR. HUME: Please go ahead.
MR. THOMPSON: I know the feeling.
MR. HUCKABEE: Yeah. Everywhere I went, I had people protesting me and screaming and yelling and doing demonstrations, because I cut government. But I stayed faithful to the things that Ronald Reagan stayed faithful to. You know, if Ronald Reagan were running tonight, there’d be ads by the Club for Growth running against him, because he raised taxes a billion dollars in his first year as governor of California; it would be $10 billion today.
What I did was I governed. And the people of my state must have liked the way I did it, because they kept re-electing me.
Later, after Huckabee criticized the billions of dollars the U.S. has spent on the Pakistan military with very little accountability, Thompson saw another opening for an attack.
MR. THOMPSON: Yeah, Governor Huckabee, if I understood him correctly, seemed to be concerned that part of the money we’re sending to Pakistan goes to their own military. That’s the point. We help train their military. Their new top general over there was trained here in — in the United States for a period of time. They have lost several people fighting the Taliban. That’s who they would fight the Taliban with, is their military. So our cooperation with their military — their — our supporting their military is a good thing.
In part because he was leaning forward against Huckabee, Thompson had another strong debate, similar to his performance in the New Hampshire event.
Even though Paul got off easy, not being asked about the controversial newsletters, he did play the roll of the foil for the other candidates and Fox News journalists. Paul’s anti-war views made him the next best thing to having a Democrat on the stage.
The most entertaining moment came over the issue of Iran, specifically the recent provocation by Iranian speedboats that buzzed U.S. Naval vessels last weekend and nearly provoked an armed response from the American ships.
After several candidates said they wouldn’t second-guess the U.S. Navy commanders involved but warned that the Iranians were literally cruising for a bruising, Paul was asked what he thought and went on a diatribe about the alleged belligerence of the other candidates who shared the stage with him. It led to an exchange between Paul, Britt Hume of Fox News Channel and ultimately Mitt Romney which left Paul looking not too good.
Here’s that part of the debate:
REP. PAUL: I would certainly urge a lot more caution than I’m hearing here tonight. It reminds me of what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin. We went to war there, then later on found out there was a lot of false information.
So here we have — let’s put it in perspective. We have five small speedboats attacking U.S. Navy, with a destroyer. They could take care of those speedboats in about five seconds, and here we’re ready to start World War III over this.
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And now, guess what? (Applause.) Today, the Navy commander of the Fifth Fleet was on ABC and announced that, you know, that voice might not have come from those vessels. So what does that mean? Was there a rush to judgment on this, ready to go to war?
And you know there are people in this administration, and in Washington, D.C., that are looking for the chance. They were so disappointed with the National Estimate on Intelligence and they were disappointed that there was no attempt to build weapons in Iran since 2003. So what — I just don’t see this rush to judgment.
MR. HUME: Well, wait a minute. All of these people I’ve asked this question to so far have said they supported the decision to be passive. What are you responding to? (Laughter.)
REP. PAUL: I’m very sorry, I can’t hear a word (you said ?). (Laughter, applause.) You’ll have to speak up.
MR. HUME: Every one of these — of your fellow candidates have said they supported the commander’s decision to respond passively. I just wonder what you’re reacting to.
MR. THOMPSON: I don’t know that that’s passive.
REP. PAUL: Oh, I didn’t hear that. Of course we want caution. But I’m worried about the policy of why we’re looking for a justification, now there are no weapons, actually people are looking around a for an excuse to bomb Iran. I mean, we’re already, with our CIA, being involved in trying to overthrow that government, and we don’t need another war. And this incident should not be thrown out of proportion to the point where we’re getting ready to attack Iran over this. (Laughter.)
MR. HUME: Governor Romney? (Pause.) If it happens — if it happens again.
MR. ROMNEY: I think Congressman Paul should not be reading as many of Ahmadinejad’s press releases. But let’s — (laughter, applause, boos).
It was perhaps Romney’s best line of the evening. He really didn’t have one of his strongest nights. Rudy Giuliani also didn’t have a breakout night.
Overall, McCain who’s now leading in South Carolina according to a Fox News poll, wasn’t hurt. And if his rivals were looking for game-changing performances to boost their hopes, they didn’t get them. The debate was a wash.