All Blog Posts from Horserace

The moderator of today's Republican debate, Des Moines Register Editor Carolyn Washburn, promised that the candidates would be asked about issues that have gotten short shrift in the campaign and she was true to her word throughout the hour and a half session. Unfortunately for any voters tuning in looking to find distinctions between the candidates, it didn’t do much to help their search.

Mostly bland questions yielded mostly boiler-plate answers. Had it not been for the presence of perennial gadfly Alan Keyes, who repeatedly popped up with bizarre statements which had no relation to the issues at hand – or any issues really – it would have been a difficult conversation to sit through. On subjects ranging from the national debt to education and free trade, there was more agreement than disagreement in this final debate before the January 3rd Iowa caucuses.

This GOP contest is one of the most wide-open in decades, with four or five candidates having a realistic chance to challenge for the nomination. For most of the candidates, this was one more day which they could hardly afford to waste.

Mike Huckabee entered the debate as the front-runner in Iowa so for him, no news is almost certainly good news. Once again, Huckabee proved to be the best communicator of the group, speaking both gently and forcefully from the heart. When Mitt Romney ticked off a litany of educational improvements he oversaw in the Massachusetts, Huckabee talked about the need to engage students, keep them interested and the importance of art and music.

Romney flashed his CEO credentials and firm grasp of details and private sector concepts he promises to bring to the presidency. If Huckabee is a candidate who is guided by his instincts and convictions, Romney is the one who does things by the numbers, making sure to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Romney managed to regain some of his optimistic demeanor after a period of exchanges with Huckabee and stayed away from direct attacks. That may have come as a surprise but Romney wasn't exactly given many natural opportunities to raise distinctions, especially on immigration.

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5:55pm: Time for some quick post-game as this debate wraps up. With all eyes on Thompson he performed about as he has throughout the campaign thus far – marginally well but not particularly jumping off the charts. He got off to a visibly shaky start and looked a little nervous to start but once he found his debate legs managed to answer the questions reasonably well, although in far more general terms than most of his fellow candidates (he did volunteer to explain who “Goomer” and “Goober” were). If this was Thompson’s big chance to transform this race he didn’t botch it. But he didn’t grab it either.

Had Thompson been alone, he may have carried it off better. Giuliani, in particular, had a commanding grasp of details, facts and figures, even explaining the particulars of pending trade deals. The momentary bickering with Romney did little to hurt either candidate and both men managed to make the debate as much about the Democratic front-runner as their opponents on stage. It may have been the first debate that Giuliani has not had to deal with some uncomfortable questions about issues where he disagrees with many rank-and-file GOP voters.

John McCain continues to rebound from his politically perilous summer and isn’t skimping on the straight talk. His oft-repeated line that he drinks a glass of ethanol every morning for breakfast but doesn’t support subsidies for it won’t help him mount a comeback in Iowa but he’s sounding more and more like the candidate from 2000 than the front-runner of 2006. Mike Huckabee again turned in a strong performance and sprinkled GOP orthodoxy with some populism on economic issues. Ron Paul was once again the foil for the rest and was even joined by Tancredo in not pledging to support the eventual nominee (look out for that conservative third party candidacy).

Romney tried to sum it up best at the end, comparing these debates to Thompson’s “Law and Order” show: “It has a huge cast. It seems to go on forever. And Fred Thompson shows up at the end.” How many of them will be there at the end of this nominating process is not any clearer for this debate.

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10:55pm: Quick take on the winners and losers: Hillary Clinton probably turned in her worst performance to date. That’s not to say she made any major mistakes or flubbed any questions but she did not turn in the commanding performance we’ve become accustomed to. She let attacks on her Iran vote today go largely unanswered and overall seemed more robotic and less responsive than usual. Still, nothing that is likely to cause her campaign any major headaches.

Barack Obama and John Edwards treaded toward the line of attacking the front-runner. Edwards has long been more aggressive and he stuck to that tonight, particularly on the war and on special interests. Obama took what might be his most direct shot at Clinton, addressing her by name on the health care question and saying that her failure to pass reform in 1993 was due to the fact that she “closed the door” to many Americans in the debate. For not the first time, Joe Biden seemed to be the most relaxed, confident and articulate of anyone on the stage. End of the night: Hillary Clinton hasn’t lost her hold on the front-runner tag and while Edwards and Biden may have helped themselves, they have a long way to go to close the gap yet.

10:50pm: Clinton walks into a disagreement with her husband, former President Clinton, on the issue of torture. Her response when confronted with that: “Well, he’s not standing here right now.” The exchange looked to be an embarrassment of sort but elicited perhaps the most revealing comment to date on what the former president’s role may be in another Clinton administration: “I know very well that the president makes the decision. Everyone in the White House is there because of one person, the president, including the spouse of the president. And ultimately the president has to sift through everything that is recommended and make her decision. And what I believe is that it is the ultimate responsibility of a president to seek out a broad cross section of advisors who will have different point of view.”

10:25pm: Has Obama been successful in stopping smoking? Best deterrent is “my wife.”

10:20pm: Beware tangling with NBC’s Tim Russert on the issue of Social Security. He’s probably better versed on the issue than the candidates themselves as Bill Richardson learned. What else did we learn about the Democrats and Social Security? Everything is either on or off the table with the exception of privatization, which is definitely off the table for them all. Key areas of agreement: fiscal responsibility and economic growth will help solve the problem.

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9:42pm: Joe Biden takes what might be the first shot at a GOP presidential candidate in any debate this year (researches are checking), saying that Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to foreign affairs (the particular topic was immigration).

9:40pm: Forget Iraq, it’s Iran that’s emerging in this debate as a flash point. Edwards uses the Senate vote branding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization to go after Clinton. He notes that while both voted for the Iraq war, he has apologized for it, adding that he and Clinton “learned a very different lesson from that. I have no intention on giving” Bush a reason to go to war with Iran. The second time tonight Clinton has been attacked for that vote.

9:20pm: Gravel says he’s “ashamed” at Clinton for voting for the Liberman-Iran measure in the Senate today. Clinton responds with her much commented on laugh. That’s one.

9:10: Going right after one of the toughest questions for Democratic candidates to deal with – the complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Edwards is trying to put Clinton on the spot by claiming that he would not continue any combat missions at all in Iraq. Clinton responds that she wants only counter-terrorism missions. Edwards says the international community should be rallied to stop potential fallout from a U.S withdrawal. No word on what that international response would be.

8:50pm: Big question of the night: Is this the night that Hillary Clinton becomes the target for her opponents who have yet to stop her dominance in the polls? The conventional wisdom holds that Barack Obama needs to make a move soon if he wants to capitalize on a campaign that has been able to raise plenty of money but has yet to find a way to break through. Likewise, the day appears to be getting late for John Edwards in his quest to become the anti-Clinton candidate and consolidate concerns that some in the party have about her candidacy. As another Democrat once said – if not them, who and if not now, when?

8:40pm: One thing to watch for tonight: How many times Joe Biden points out the fact that his plan to partition Iraq into three separate regions passed the Senate today by an impressive 75-23 margin. Although it was a non-binding amendment, expect to hear plenty about that tonight. In a funny way, Biden’s victory today could take a bit of the steam out of the Clinton-Obama-Edwards dynamic that most have been looking for. The winner if it does – Clinton.

8:20pm: Democrats couldn’t ask for a much better warm-up act for tonight’s debate than Keith Olbermann (both on MSNBC). The major targets of the night for Olbermann have been: President Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Oh yeah, and the latest on Senator Larry Craig and his bathroom habits. Should set the stage nicely.