The Republican YouTube Debate

To an extent, I feel like some of the impressions I get out of any particular presidential debate are pretty random. Sometimes a great performance or an eloquent phrase does get imprinted in my memory by virtue of its quality, but I often can't really explain why it is I pay more or less attention to a particular candidate or a particular topic in a particular debate. It's like trying to explain why the characters in James Joyce's Ulysses suddenly start thinking in Italian or start reciting enormous lists of random things. I felt my impressions of tonight's Republican YouTube debate were particularly scattered and random, so I will forgo any attempt to declare any candidate a debate winner or loser. I'm happy to share a slightly stream-of-consciousness report on tonight's debate, though.

For some reason, the candidate I found myself thinking about the most tonight was Mitt Romney, a person I've barely mentioned in this blog to this point. In particular, it struck me that though Romney is the candidate most attacked for flipflopping he is essentially running as an uncompromising conservative, someone who is a hardliner with a rigid ideology. The attacks on Romney continued tonight; as usual, his changing stances on abortion and gay marriage were challenged, and John McCain chastised the former Massachusetts governor's tentative handling of the issue of waterboarding. While Romney can look uncomfortable at times when answering certain questions, it takes a lot to actually phase the man for more than 10 or 15 seconds; I certainly didn't think any attacks tonight really put a visible cramp in Romney's style though they certainly may have an impact on how voters perceive him. As experienced as Dodd and Biden and McCain and Paul are, it is Romney who out of all the candidates seems to be the most polished, consummate politician to me. He honestly sounds as convincing expressing a pro-life point of view now as he did expressing a pro-choice point of view in a video clip shown during the debate from years ago. He doesn't really sound like a guy who would change his mind on the issue now, but he didn't sound like he was about to change his mind then either! During the course of the debate, Romney adopted rigid, legalistic positions on several issues that admitted the existence of no gray areas. While Mike Huckabee thought a distinction needed to be made between the children of illegal immigrants who had no choice but to follow their parents into this country and those illegal immigrants who consciously crossed the border of their own volition, Romney refused to acknowledge that a child was any less an illegal immigrant than his or her parents. Similarly, Romney seemed to not even consider the morality of detaining terrorists in Guantanamo when he discussed that issue -- he saw no need to justify a practice that was part of the War on Terror even though it is very much a moral issue to some people. Romney often expresses rather than explains and seems to prefer to be perceived as confident rather than as thoughtful. That really has nothing to do with Romney's particular take on the issues and everything to do with how Romney has chosen to conduct the campaign. Tom Tancredo, for instance, is surely the most vocal opponent of illegal immigration that is running for president, but he has thousands of reasons he feels the way he does and he is eager to make his case wherever and whenever he can.

Fred Thompson, meanwhile, is about as rough a politician as Mitt Romney is smooth. He really didn't come as advertised -- in spite of the acting experience, Thompson doesn't deliver smooth, well-rehearsed lines and a steady supply of sound bites. Instead, he rambles and says "uh" a lot. And he has a good sense of humor. He's pretty...human. Is he Reaganesque? Well, he is an actor and is surprisingly pretty down-to-Earth, but that's about it for the Reagan connection. He just hasn't been the dynamo that some people were expecting him to be; if he does end up winning the Republican nomination, I predict he'll win it slowly and steadily without many fireworks. He seems comfortable with attacking politics, so I think Giuliani and Romney will definitely feel Senator Thompson nipping at their heels at least through the early primary season.

It was John McCain's turn to attack Ron Paul tonight. Paul has received a lot of attention because his policies are so unlike the policies of the other candidates, so it seems only natural that the other candidates should challenge him when he expresses views so unlike their own, and at least one candidate invariably does in each debate. Each time these challenges actually happen, though, it seems to always sound like a mean bully is picking on the idealistic underdog; McCain didn't exactly escape this image by essentially accusing Paul of adhering to the same policies that led to World War II. Sometimes I think politicians should always consider what the reaction to their words would be like if they expressed their thoughts directly. McCain's direct argument would probably have gone like this: "You know that fringe anti-war candidate, Ron Paul? His crazy anti-war rhetoric is going to lead us into a world war like what happened when we ignored Hitler! Only a hawk like me can be trusted to keep us out of big wars by making us fight lots of little ones! A vote for Paul is a vote for WORLD WAR!" McCain's argument may have some merit, but he was definitely picking on the little, albeit growing, guy here and the Arizona senator ended up sounding very speculative. Mean and speculative isn't an election-winning combo, I don't think.

That's all I've got for tonight.