Snap Judging the Debate

My bottom lines:

1. Hunter and Tancredo are done. Sorry, guys.

2. Fred Thompson lives. But people want comfortable mediocrity.

3. Mitt can outtalk Fred but not Mike Huckabee.

4. Giuliani's foreign policy is not right enough, and Ron Paul's is too right.

5. McCain belongs to an era Americans no longer want to have to put up with.

All I can conclude for now is that Mitt Romney is the only guy who won't show up on a national ticket with any one of the other guys. And one other thing: Fred, McCain, and Huckabee are dead right that Republicans are doomed if they try to beat Hillary instead of recover their principles. Somewhere in here is a magic key as to who I'd vote for today if I had to. Can you find it? I do know starting a war with Iran is worse than Iran getting the bomb. But is saying so worse than causing China and Russia to think otherwise? Maybe.

Okay, one other thing. People need to clearly separate themselves from the doom visited upon the Republican party by the Bush family. Are you more like Reagan or more like Bush? That's the question that counts. The hardest part of doing this is on foreign policy, because Hillary, running as a Rockefeller Republican, will use Restoring America's Respect Around the World as a crowbar. So if need be please compensate domestically. (This does not mean railing on about keeping taxes low, which is playing defense, but slashing Bush spending across the board, home and abroad.) So far aside from Ron Paul only Mitt Romney is doing this overtly. More, please.

PS My AmSpec colleagues Philip Klein, Jennifer Rubin, and John Tabin get it pretty much right in their wrapups, except for noting that the Grim Reaper is still lurking just offstage.

Comments

[Joseph D. Walch]

I knew you were a Mitthead all along.

It is true what you said about Mitt not running with any of those other candidates. If he wins, he will choose another strong/popular govenor (Florida, Alaska?), and if he loses, he'll go serve another Mormon mission with his wife.