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The Republicans debated from Boca Raton, Florida (Florida Atlantic University) on January 24th, shedding little light and almost no heat. It seems that the Republican candidates, themselves, had talked out their party’s strategy and decided to lob only “soft-ball” questions at one another. Each candidate was given the opportunity to ask one of the other participating candidates a question, but the questions asked were all tame and the targets were seldom the obvious or expected ones.
By that, I mean, one would have expected Romney and McCain to question one another vigorously on their supposed areas of strength (the economy, for Romney, and national security, for McCain). That didn’t happen. Instead, viewers got : a softball question from Romney to Giuliani about China and trade; a question from McCain to Huckabee about his fair tax proposal; a question from Paul to McCain about the tax system; a question from Huckabee to Romney about whether he approves of a ban on assault weapons (and guns, in general); and a question from Giuliani to Romney on his position on a national catastrophic fund (Giuliani supports same; McCain does not).
After the most-watched debate in history, the Democratic front-runners on the eve of South Carolina, which garnered 5 million viewers, the effect of last night’s televised spectacle was razzle-fizzle. The razzle went to the Democrats, who seemed to let it all hang out in their debate, (for better or for worse). The fizzle goes to the Republicans, who, from a small comment Giuliani let slip about how the candidates had talked amongst themselves, backstage, about who would ask what, appear to have “scripted” and orchestrated their debate to best display to the country at large their less-contentious selves. The operating philosophy amongst the Republicans seemed to be to attack Hillary Clinton, not each other; that strategy was on display quite a bit, and it was interesting that no other Democratic candidate’s name was even mentioned.
Still Brian Williams and Tim Russert pressed on, asking hard-hitting, provocative questions and getting generally lackluster answers.
Russert, in particular, rattled off a string of bad news facts and figures, from rising gas prices and unemployment to foreclosures plaguing the land, and wanted to know, “Why keep Republicans in charge?”
Russert didn’t get very straight or strong answers to that question. Most of the time, the individual asked would tap dance around the bad news facts and spout more of the same old/same old.
There was one provocative question, however, asked by the moderators, where the response elicited the only spontaneous applause of the night. The question dealt with Iraq and asked “whether the price we have paid to remove Saddam Hussein was worth the price we have paid in blood and treasure?”
There were the usual responses supporting the President’s decision to take us to war, with a criticism of the follow-up that Rumsfeld supervised. However, alone among the candidates (as usual), Ron Paul said, “It was a very bad idea and it wasn’t worth it. AlQaeda wasn’t there then. They’re there now. This decision on policy was made in 1998. It wasn’t worth it, and it’s a sad story because we started that war and we should never be a nation that starts wars needlessly.” Long-time Iowa Senator James Leach recently praised Ron Paul’s prescient opposition to the war when it began, but Leach was beaten in the last election, after a long and distinguished career as “the thinking man’s Republican” and now teaches at Princeton.
I pay attention when people are boo-ed (most recently, Hillary Clinton when she attacked Obama on the issue of “slumlord” Tony Rezko); I also pay attention when spontaneous applause breaks out amongst the audience, and only Paul’s answer struck that responsive chord. It is true that Ron Paul supporters tend to be very vocal (and young), but national polls have supported Paul’s anti-war viewpoint, which he alone among the current crop of Republican Presidential contenders articulates.
McCain, by contrast, kept maintaining that the U.S. can win in Iraq, saying, “I’m proud of the job the military are doing there. They know we can win. Their message to you and to me is: let us win.” He likened Hillary Clinton to someone “waving a white flag of surrender.” (All the Democratic candidates support getting out of Iraq, but Senator Clinton actually drags her feet on the time-table more than Edwards or Obama). McCain even has an ad running on Florida television entitled “Never Surrender.” (Last time I heard that phrase, it was basketball coach Jimmy Valvano saying, “Never give up. Never give in,” in regards to his terminal cancer. He died shortly thereafter.)
McCain took to the podium in Miami on Friday, January 25, immediately after the Thursday night debate, attacking Romney with renewed vigor and rancor, as merely a “manager” of economic matters, not a true leader or visionary. But none of that sentiment was expressed during the Thursday night debate. Why didn’t we see some of that heated rhetoric on Thursday night? Did someone somewhere decide it would be ‘bad” to let the American public get a true look at the candidates’ real feelings and, instead, orchestrated the mind-numbingly bland television spectacle that we viewers were given? So much for talk of “transparency in government.”
If you want to see and hear only what “they” want you to see and hear, look elsewhere than what was billed as a debate. Keep following the candidates post-debate, as they tear one another apart on the stump. You aren’t going to get the much-needed “transparency in government” while watching a debate like the Republican one last night. No “warts and all” for this bunch; they left that to the Democrats, hoping that, by staying above the petty bickering, remaining above the fray, the Republicans in the race would appear more statesmanlike and adult. More “Presidential,” if you will. Maybe. Maybe not.
What we got on television last night was a love-fest that reminded me of a previous Democratic seated debate, when all was sweetness and light among the three top candidates. That early accord soon gave way to the South Carolina Democratic debate, however, and the gloves came off, seemingly for good.
Last night, with the Republicans, Romney was heard to say, “I trust these two gentlemen and I respect them greatly” (indicating McCain and Giuliani). McCain joined in, making a special point of telling the crowd what a heroic sweetheart Rudy Giuliani had been during 9/11, right on the heels of a New York Times endorsement of McCain (and Clinton) for President that specifically singled out Giulani for criticism, citing the former New York Mayor’s “arrogance and bad judgment.”
On Friday, as life on the campaign trail returned to business as usual, the Republicans in Florida attempted the Herculean task of covering a state that stretches more than 800 miles from Pensacola to Key West and spans two time zones. This is a state where it is winner-take-all for the Republicans and there are no Democratic delegates in play because of sanctions against Florida levied by the Democratic Party as punishment for moving their primary up. McCain’s own mother has said that the voters may have to “hold their nose” and vote for her son John, as divisions within the Republican party (not conservative enough?) emerge.
The Republican candidates still standing are fighting for their very political lives. It looks a lot like Romney could unseat the old war-horse (McCain), merely by being more “up” on the economy and what it would take to “fix” it. Even during the debate on Thursday night, McCain kept referring to his “circle of advisers” (the name Jack Kemp came up a lot). The country has seen, over the past 7 years, what happens when a President relies totally on a “circle of advisers” and doesn’t have a handle on the issues himself. Bad for McCain; good for Romney. And Rudy Giuliani just seems like the old restaurant in town when a couple brand-new ones open. It’s perhaps not that the old restaurant wasn’t good; it’s the novelty of something new and the promise of something better.
The day began with Matt Lauer blindsiding Hillary Clinton on the morning “Today” show, displaying a picture of Bill and Hillary Clinton posing cozily with Chicago “slumlord” (Hillary’s term) Tony Rezko. It was not a Kodak moment. Probably no candidate has regretted being photographed with someone as much since Roslyn Carter’s photo with part-time clown turned serial killer John Wayne Gacy surfaced. Kind of an “oops” moment, which the former First Lady tried to shrug off.
You also had Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, blogging that Bill Clinton’s tactics in excoriating Hillary’s closest contender, Barack Obama, were “not fair---indeed, it’s demeaning.” Reich found it beneath the dignity of a former President to twist the voting record of the African-American man running against Bill’s wife and our former First Lady. Reich insisted that it was Clinton, not Obama, who was “playing the race card.”
Meanwhile, back in Chicago, national viewers who had never heard the name Tony Rezko before the heated South Carolina Democratic debates, were reading up. Tim Novak, Editor of the Chicago Sun Times newspaper, confirmed that Rezko was “the Jack Abramoff of Chicago politics.” Novak’s paper ran stories that confirmed that Rezko, always a player in Chicago Democratic politics, got government loans to develop housing, and that, currently, 2/3 of the properties Rezko developed have been foreclosed upon or have become slum properties. Novak stated, in comments on CNN, seldom have such housing loans gone “that bad, that quick, that much.”
CNN also reported that Obama, whom Rezko supported early on, upon learning of the charges against Rezko, donated $86,000 of Rezko’s early campaign contributions to charity.(Hillary and Bill were dumping stocks like Walmart with a vengeance to protect her against charges, before the campaign got fully underway, according to “Money” magazine, so there are apparently skeletons in a lot of closets.)
The fact that Rezko’s wife bought a lot next to Obama’s house for full price on the same day that the Obamas were able to purchase their house for $300,000 below full market value does not look or sound good. The information that Obama later purchased a sliver of the Rezko lot, was also presented to CNN viewers, with Obama’s camp acknowledging it to be a less-than-smart move. As Editor Novak said on CNN, “The problem with Chicago politics is that it’s hard to stay 110% perfectly clean.” [As a sometimes-Chicago resident with a place on Indiana Avenue, I can testify to that.]
I try to look for moments of light-heartedness amidst the squabbling, whether intentional or unintentional, so let me end by mentioning one moment that occurred during the Republican debate.
The moment of mirth came when Huckabee disavowed Chuck Norris’ claims that McCain is “too old” (at 72) to be President.
Huckabee---always seeking to get political leverage from his droll sense of humor---said that it was Chuck Norris who had made those charges against the white-haired over-70 Arizona Senator, not him, remarking, “I didn’t disagree with him at the time because I was standing right next to him.” Huckabee went on to gallantly maintain, in the love-fest spirit of the evening, that McCain has “the vigor to run.”
When the Norris comments initially hit the air waves, McCain made some comic points of his own, saying that he would “send my 95-year-old mother over there to wash Chuck Norris’ mouth out with soap.” Last night, the one-time host of “Saturday Night Live” said, “Now that Sylvester Stallone has endorsed me, I am sending him over to take care of Chuck Norris right now.”
No predictions here in the Sunshine State, although I suspect that the polls showing Romney and McCain in a dead heat and Giuliani just plain dead in the race are right. In South Carolina, all polls show Obama winning (no surprise there) but be prepared for a possible upset for second place not unlike Iowa’s, with a native son in the race who is now able to bill himself as “the adult wing of the Democratic party.” Edwards is an underdog, but as he himself has said, ‘I’m a serious underdog.”
Here’s a good quote from Barack Obama which all candidates would do well to remember: “We can disagree without being disagreeable.”
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