The second major debate of the GOP primary season just ended and brought a little more clarity to the standings of the Republican presidential candidates. While we will know more about how the race will look going forward after this weekend's Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, the debate provided us with a glimpse at which candidates have a chance to win and which are dead in the water. While a “State of the Race” post will probably be forthcoming early next week, for now I'll just stick to my own post-debate format and rank the winners and losers from the standpoint of what the debate means for their campaigns.
8. Former Governor Jon Huntsman
Let me begin by saying that as a political junkie, and even as a Democrat, in a way, I really like Governor Huntsman; he's down-to-Earth, reasonably moderate and doesn't seem to value yelling for yelling's sake. That being said, this debate epitomized why Huntsman will not win this year's primary. In the (very) few opportunities he had to speak, he was too mellow, didn't engage the other candidates, and yes, he was a moderate. I admire Huntsman for sticking to his guns – as the Washington Post's political reporter Ezra Klein tweeted: “Good for Jon Huntsman. If you're going to be the moderate, be the moderate.” Unfortunately, in 2012, that's not going to win him any votes. Frankly, this debate was supposed to introduce Jon Huntsman to the mass electorate and it was a bad first impression. Don't worry though, he'll be back in 2016 as the moderate, pragmatic candidate again. We'll see if the environment is any more conducive to it then.
7. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
Raise your hand if you forgot that Gingrich was running and/or thought he had already dropped out of the race. Anyone other than me? Gingrich certainly didn't do himself any favors tonight, picking more fights with the FOX News moderators than he did with the other candidates. For a campaign that is supposed to be run solely on ideas (as opposed to organization and money, more traditional campaign fuels), Gingrich provided startlingly few of them in tonight's debate. It's true that he didn't have too many missteps – it wasn't a bad performance, per se, but with his campaign barely staying above water, he needed much, much more.
6. Herman Cain
Things we learned during the last debate: Herman Cain doesn't like Muslims. Things we learned tonight: Herman Cain doesn't like Mormons. When your most memorable line of the night is “America needs to learn how to take a joke,” it probably wasn't a great night. Cain has his own niche following, so don't expect his support to fall off a cliff overnight (I predicted a couple months ago that he would stay between 5 and 10% for the foreseeable future). Cain's problem is that he still can't portray himself as either mainstream or, frankly, capable of being president.
5. Former Senator Rick Santorum
I give Senator Santorum a lot of credit: he clearly believes very deeply in his values. Several times over the course of the evening, Santorum argued directly with Congressman Ron Paul, either shouting at him or making snide comments as Paul was speaking. However, he is still an extreme social conservative, enough so that he is going to scare off most Republicans, if only because he's unelectable on a national scale. It didn't help that he actually got outmaneuvered on the right by Paul at one point during the debate; he was at times both too conservative and not conservative enough, neither of which are a particularly good position to be in. Still, Santorum is ranked this high because he had a decently strong performance, by his standards, that might earn him a bit more support. Unfortunately for him, he needs a lot more than “a bit.”
4. Congressman Ron Paul
Paul had a typically strong performance that will change absolutely nothing about his standing in the race. Most people know what he stands for, and 80 to 90% of people think he is too radical. His supporters do a very good job of being extremely vocal (notice how the audience erupted in applause every time he spoke), but at the end of the day, volume doesn't make your vote worth more. Paul has very deep but very narrow support nationally, a fact that is not going to change, barring any massive upheaval.
3. Former Governor Mitt Romney
Honestly, I really wanted to rank Romney lower than third. Based on the performances tonight, he deserves to be at least behind Paul and possibly even Santorum. He was too quiet and even looked timid, half-heartedly shrugging off major attacks by Governor Pawlenty and refusing to engage the other candidates, and worst of all, for him at least, he flubbed a Romneycare question terribly. As much as his performance tonight was sub-par, though, he is still undoubtedly the national frontrunner in this race, so this debate did not mean a whole lot to him. He is still ignoring Iowa and focusing on New Hampshire and other states. His biggest problem, though, is that he still doesn't have a great answer on healthcare reform and so continues to get hammered with the issue.
2. Former Governor Tim Pawlenty
Good ol' T-Paw. Just when you think he's out, he pulls himself back in. Gone tonight was the timid, too-nice, inauthentic Pawlenty that we saw in last month's debate. Instead, Pawlenty came to play and came out swinging at both Bachmann and Romney. Focusing on his campaign's argument that Bachmann is an ineffective leader, Pawlenty landed quite a few verbal punches on his fellow Minnesotan, and while other post-debate spin articles disagree with me, I thought he won his face-off against Romney tonight. I really wanted to give Pawlenty the top spot tonight, if only for the fact that he needed a win more than any other candidate. Unfortunately, the one candidate who did better just happens to be his main rival.
1. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
It almost physically hurts me to say that Bachmann won this debate, simply because she won it in such a bad, bad way. There were multiple times tonight where she was blatantly incorrect about the facts, most noticeably when she stated that S&P downgraded U.S. credit because they believed we couldn't pay our debt (for the record, they specifically said that we have the capacity to do so). Still, as any good political observer knows, the facts aren't what's important in a debate – it's how you say them. Bachmann was convincing, she handled herself well in her verbal fight with Pawlenty and she even managed to make moderator Chris Wallace look like an ass for the second time in two months. If Pawlenty got the performance he needed, Bachmann got the performance she wanted, and she appears to be securely in the driver's seat in Iowa.
Tonight's debate showed us what we already know about the GOP primaries: Romney is winning, Bachmann is close behind, Pawlenty is barely hanging on and no one else is really worth mentioning. Stay tuned later on this weekend as Texas Governor Rick Perry (officially) gets into the presidential race and Sarah Palin decides that her name hasn't been in the headlines enough lately. The race is finally heating up, folks, so get excited.
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