Romney struggled for convincing responses as his adversaries ganged up on him in front of a conservative audience
Romney has been trying to lower expectations since before the race for the GOP nomination began. In Monday's debate, he may have succeeded.
If, by this point, he still cannot deliver a comfortable, understandable answer to criticism of Bain Capital, then it's an open question that he ever will. And if he can't rebound from the rat-a-tat-tat attacks of competitors on his side of the ideological spectrum, then he should reconsider his stand on gun control.
Though, at first, Romney seemed almost disconcertingly relaxed (his hard drive may have gone to sleep), as the debate wore on, he no longer absorbed attacks but hardened to them. He should have been prepared for all of them; he's been running for office for the past decade, for Pete's sake! But his only graceful moments were when he seemed to adlib – and I'll think of one of those in a moment.
Less graceful were his attempts to bend debate rules – surprisingly unpresidential, if also the prerogative of politicians: telling the moderators how long he would take to answer questions, which order he would take them, and if he would respond. On at least a few occasions, Romney would have benefitted from a more strict imposition of time limits, such as when he vamped on a question about hunting – remember when he said he had hunted "varmits"? – and responded not so much like a frightened deer but like an agreeable visitor from another planet:
"I must admit I enjoy the sport, and when I get invited, I'm delighted to be able to go hunting."
Insta-analysis had it that Newt Gingrich stole the show, and it's true that he seemed to deliver the kind of smug scolding and confident, unselfconscious doublespeak that Republicans imagine to be Obama's kryptonite. (In actuality, I think it's the economy that's Obama's kryptonite, and it will probably work on whoever the Republican nominee is, as well.) He delivered a weirdly acontextual lecture to Fox News' token liberal Juan Williams about welfare and his infamous plan to replace janitors in schools with the students who are supposed to be learning academics there.
His rant, which received a standing ovation, contained the assertion that "elites despise earning money" and vouchsafed that you could hire 30 kids for the price of one janitor. As the TPM's Benjy Sarlin pointed out, "Median salary for janitor in US is $24,529 … So 817 bucks a year each?" To work for that wage, you'd have to "despise earning money".
The audience's reaction to Gingrich underscored the return of GOP base voter-bloodlust to the proceedings after a blissful interlude of Midwestern "nice" in Iowa and Northeastern reserve in New Hampshire. They cheered references to killing people and hooted approval of cruelty. So much for Southern gentility.
Rick Santorum seemed like the only candidate to recognize that the debate was taking place on Martin Luther King Day, sticking it to Romney over not allowing nonviolent criminals who have served their time the right to vote, yet presiding over a state that allowed violent criminals to do so, in a telling slip, "even upon coming out of office". Really, Romney is against violent criminal getting the right to vote, but is obviously OK with white-collar criminals running for president.
Santorum probably gets the debate series' "most improved" award – if you don't let Rick Perry set the curve – he commanded the facts he wanted to emphasize, speaking with almost too much specificity about unemployment, social security, poverty and other issues that require the recitation numbers, in their proper order. His actual positions on these issues were less logically ordered, such as his insistence that gay marriage will eventually bring economic ruin.
Santorum's best line encapsulated the debate's most ironic turn: a full-throated, almost unanimous chorus against the use of Super Pacs in negative campaigning. Especially the negative campaigning of Super Pacs supporting Mitt Romney. Or, as Romney put it, "my Super Pacs". Romney ineffectually disavowed being able to do anything about the ads, though "if" they contained falsehoods, he thought they should correct them. Said Santorum:
"If I had something in a Super Pac that was supporting me that was inaccurate, I would go out and say stop it, that you're representing me and … stop it."
Rick Perry was allowed to weave more rope to hang himself, though he was frustratingly coherent. Relatively coherent. He said stuff about states' rights, which went over well, though his assertion that "South Carolina is at war with the federal government" suggests that he is unaware of the war South Carolina already waged against the federal government, some 150 years ago. They lost.
Perry also defended the Marines who urinated on dead Taliban soldiers with an irrelevant and offensive invocation of murdered journalist Danny Pearl. Oh, and he incorrectly asserted that Turkey was run by "Islamic terrorists" (news to Islamic terrorists!). Perry is totally going to win the nomination to be president of people who think we should abolish the office of president. And if Perry actually became president, I might join that movement.
Ron Paul was also at the debate, and the Fox News-led panel asked just enough questions of him to guarantee that he will not be the nominee – they let him speak rationally about both the war on drugs and the legality (and efficacy) of extra-legally hunting down and killing terrorists. I enjoyed that brief moment during which I could remember that the Republican party stood for considered evaluation about the limits of governmental power, and emphasized the importance of individual liberty. Good thing I DVR'd it.