Well, what can I say? The best part about the Republican debate in Johnston, Iowa, yesterday was when it was over. And even that took way too long. The format was less than enviable, and the moderator, a local newspaper editor, Carolyn Washburn, was snappy, disallowed discussion of Iraq and illegal immigration-two obviously hot issues during the campaign-and I think down-right rude.
I would hardly even call Wednesday’s platform a debate. It was more of a clock-watching round-robin, in which it seemed to have been pre-determined that there would not be a winner allowed. However, many did feel that my man Mitt came out on top.
Gov. Romney seemed to score a lot of points when talking about education and fiscal responsibility. He pointed out the fact that, while he was governor of Massachusetts, schoolchildren there led the nation in many areas of academia. And there is nobody who can question his abilities as a savvy businessman who knows a thing or two about running large corporate budgets, or economies, if you will.
However, it was hardly just the Mitt Romney hour. Gov. Mike Huckabee, while not wowing the crowd on anything he had to say, certainly didn’t do any damage to his campaign. And since illegal immigration was off limits for this “debate,” nobody could lay a glove on him there. And for some reason, none of the candidates are bringing up Huckabee’s less-than-stellar record on pardons and commutations while governor of Arkansas.
USA Today declared Fred Thompson the winner in yesterday’s discussion. And while I admit that he scored some points by criticizing the National Education Association, I hardly think that he truly won the debate. I must say, though, that I agreed with Thompson when he said that entitlement spending must be reduced. And one of the ways he proposed to do that was by eliminating Medicare for the wealthy in American society.
Rudy Giuliani, the most socially liberal of the G.O.P. candidates, called for reducing government spending by “imposing spending caps on the civilian agencies and governments, 5 percent, 10 percent, maybe 15 percent." He also mentioned reducing corporate taxes, and doing away with the estate tax altogether.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, defying the apparent ban on addressing the issue of illegal immigration, called massive immigration a problem, and the non-assimilation of immigrants “a catastrophe.”
Regarding climate change, or global warming, the moderator, Ms. Washburn, played a childish game of raise your hand if you think climate change is a serious issue. Fred Thompson replied, “I’m not doing hand shows today…You wanna give me a minute to answer that?” To which Washburn said no.
I found that to be very childish and rude on her part. She turned this into Romper Room instead of a serious debate among serious contenders for the most important office in the land.
Gov. Romney, for his part, called it “global warming, not America warming,” saying that other countries have a responsibility to reduce greenhouse emissions as well.
The biggest surprise of the so-called debate was the appearance of Alan Keyes. While I guess he is running for president, he is a name scarcely heard in presidential politics. And there was some post-debate confusion about why Keyes had been invited in the first place. Supposedly, the rules state that to be invited to the debate in Iowa, you have to have a campaign headquarters there, which Keyes has not.
However, Keyes did manage to get off a good one-liner which seemed to humor the audience. Speaking of global warming, Keyes said, “I'm in favor of reducing global warming," Keyes continued, "because I think the most important emission we need to control is the hot air emission of politicians who pretend one thing and don't deliver." I must say, the ambassador has a point there.
All in all, I think the “debate” was a huge disappointment. The candidates rarely got to engage one another, and Ms. Washburn seemed to have no business moderating this thing. As I said, it reminded me more of Romper Room than a serious debate about serious issues.