Some longer thoughts on tonight’s debate, which was the first one worth watching. Rick Perry clearly came out with an agenda to tar Mitt Romney and he went after Romney hard. To anyone watching the whole thing, it looked ham-handed and rude. If all one sees are the clips and, specifically, the one of Romney getting a bit testy, who knows?
First, Herman Cain. He’s not ready for prime time. Sunday and Monday saw Cain do a 180 on whether he wants an electric border fence with Mexico. He trimmed down time to perform the 180 to several hours when, this afternoon, he said that he’d entertain a Gitmo prisoner swap. By tonight, he claimed that he had not heard the question and that he wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists.
David Gergen said tonight that if everyone on the stage thinks your 9-9-9 plan is a bad idea, it’s probably a bad idea. That may be true, but what I think is more important is how Cain doesn’t really respond to the criticisms. You can’t simply accuse your opponents of just being wrong and get away with it for long. Cain is not going to be a factor in the long run for this reason.
Second, Romney and Perry. A longer primary helps Perry learn how to campaign outside of Texas (while keeping a small part of the Texas swagger which Republicans like). Romney is a practiced candidate. He will not improve much past where he is now (which is at a skilled level, I’m not putting him down). An extended campaign only creates the risk of creating bad sound bites like Romney’s potential classic tonight - where he appeared to be saying that having undocumented workers on his property (hired by a contractor) was only a problem because he was running for office. Long campaigns don’t help every candidate in the general. They helped Obama in 2008, they hurt Clinton. (McCain really didn’t have a long campaign in 2008 but the primary process has changed for the GOP since then.)
So, all in all, good night for Perry. So-so night for Romney. I have a feeling that we may look at tonight’s debate in the same light as Hilary Clinton’s “drivers licenses for illegals” debate. That flub removed the feeling of Clinton inevitability from the primary and allowed Obama to move into a co-leader role. The same may have happened tonight.
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