Sunday New Hampshire GOP Debate – Sleep Deprivation and the GOP Race

A mere ten hours after leaving the debate stage on Saturday evening, the six remaining Republican candidates gathered again in New Hampshire on Sunday to try and hammer out enough differences between them to give conservative and Tea Party voters the peace of mind they’ll need to choose one of them as the party nominee.

They looked tired – and at least in the beginning, acted like it, too.

The NBC News/Facebook debate (at the Chubb Theatre at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire) was a fairly typical episode of the GOP debate series, with all the competitors speaking to their respective constituencies – almost looking like they were going through the motions as part of the process.

And after three and a half hours of media-driven televised “debate” within a 14-hour window, who could blame them for a somewhat sleepy performance.

(Note: Click here to read the review of Saturday night's GOP debate.)

Overlap, or lack thereof

One thing that most observers were looking for going into Sunday’s event was whether it would essentially act as a 90-minute extension of the Saturday debate, or if it would truly offer something new and different.

After all these debates, it would be challenging for any host to try and make it stand out, especially with a semi-canned format of having a media personality (in this case, NBC’s David Gregory of Meet the Press) asking slanted questions to the candidates and giving them only 60-seconds to answer.

At least there weren’t any annoying buzzers or bells when time was up.

Gregory began the debate with a question for Newt Gingrich on Romney’s electability, and sparks began flying from the beginning. Maybe Gingrich was just fatigued, or he realized that he needed to be a little tougher on Romney than he’d been the night before.

After calling Romney a “timid moderate from Massachusetts” – and Romney giving his standard response about not being a career politician – Gingrich lit into Mitt. “Why don’t you at least be honest? Can we drop this pious baloney?”

A gasp was detectable from the audience – but I guess it was time that someone said it.

Romney’s well-rehearsed and tested response to the electability question is getting a little worn, and Gingrich has a point – Romney would have spent a LOT less time as a private citizen if he’d been more successful in winning elections. Not only did he lose badly to Ted Kennedy in ’94, he didn’t run for re-election in Massachusetts and obviously lost to John McCain four years ago.

Jon Hunstman also took an early shot at Romney, taking issue with Romney’s questioning of his service as Obama’s ambassador to China (which he’d done on Saturday night) – and again, Huntsman was the only one who seemed to target Mitt consistently and frequently.

But aside from the opening testy salvos, the tone of the debate was little distinguishable from virtually every other forum, and with the possible exception of a few good one-liners, you wouldn’t be able to separate them without some considerable thought.

Rick Santorum a lasting flavor?

Former Senator Rick Santorum spent his second debate at the center of the stage beside Mitt Romney, and appeared to be more comfortable than he had the night before, even when the questioning got “rough.”

Santorum is never at a loss for words, and he took the opportunity to address the Romney electability question head-on: “We need someone who isn’t afraid to run for re-election, stand up for conservative principles and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy.”

And for the second day in a row, Santorum went out of his way to attack Ron Paul – this time, for Paul’s supposed lack of “accomplishments” while in Congress. Santorum hinted that Paul took the easy way out by avoiding tough votes (or, more accurately, automatically voting “no,” knowing it wouldn’t change the outcome of the legislation). In essence, Santorum insinuated that Paul kept his record “clean” by simply voting “no” on bad budget bills.

To Santorum, you ‘do what you have to do,’ even when it’s a raw deal.

Conservatives and Tea Partiers aren’t likely to agree on this point, however, as we’ve been served up a number of “crap sandwich” measures in 2011 (by the John Boehner-led Republican controlled House) that simply should not have been passed, including the incredibly bad deal with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling.

The real question is where to draw the line, not whether it’s bold or not bold to vote against bad laws.

Regardless, it seems that almost by default, Santorum will hold on to his position of conservative “flavor of the month.” He probably won’t do that well in New Hampshire, but if the cards fall right, he could win in South Carolina. If that happens, then it’s “game on” (as he said after Iowa) – though he’ll need to raise a lot more money for the long run to remain competitive.

Rick Perry – Right message, wrong messenger

In stark contrast to Saturday night’s mediocre debate performance, Rick Perry was strong, persuasive and even a little funny on Sunday morning, providing a glimpse of a candidate that conservatives had hoped would show up after he announced his run in August.

Maybe he was so comfortable because he knew this could be his last debate (should he drop out after New Hampshire, which isn’t likely).

Whatever the reason, Perry placed blame for much of the nation’s fiscal problems at the feet of the Washington Republican establishment and on Republican congressmen who voted for all the spending. It was very refreshing to hear a voice (other than Ron Paul) talking about how the GOP is complicit in the budget issues, and for fostering a culture of favoritism.

They had several years of complete Republican control to show that the party was for limited government, and didn’t do it.

If Perry were doing better in the polls, his opponents may have pointed out his own connections to crony capitalism – but with the focus of the debate elsewhere these days, Perry was able to get his message across.

Gingrich vs. Romney and the Super PACs

Newt Gingrich finally got his chance to confront Mitt Romney face-to-face over the recently run Super PAC ads that caused his somewhat sudden flame-out in Iowa, and Newt didn’t back down one bit from the challenge.

“When that one 30-second ad received 4 Pinocchio’s by an independent rating agency for truthfulness, there’s virtually nothing in it that’s true,” Newt asserted. “And it was a former member of your staff that was in charge of making it.”

Romney had that sly grin on his face when Newt was talking, but then got defensive, saying he had no direct involvement with the ad, and that Gingrich’s “liar” rhetoric was over-the-top and “something I would not have said.”

The fact is, those Super PAC ads could be seen as altering history, as Gingrich’s candidacy was dealt a very severe (if not fatal) blow by them. Gingrich needed to show well in Iowa in order to sustain his momentum and carry it into the other early states. Instead, he finds himself languishing as the 4th choice, with little chance of resurrecting his status as the main “conservative” non-Romney candidate.

Gingrich remains by far the most capable candidate on the debate stage (in terms of ideas and the ability to articulate them), but his problem is that much of the voting public pays a lot more attention to 30-second TV ads than they do to formal presidential debates.

When put together with Newt’s already spotty history on conservative principles, the ads may amount to the poison pill that ends his chances to be president.

What the next president faces – An anecdote

On a note that’s completely unrelated to the Republican presidential race, over the holidays I went on a cruise to the Caribbean where I had the opportunity to visit four countries, two of which would certainly be considered poor, third-world nations (as would be expected, former European colonies). The first was Roatan (off the coast of Honduras), and the other was Belize.

On the way back from an excursion in Belize, I had the opportunity to talk at length with our guide, a 50s-ish Kriol native of the country (formerly British Honduras) who discussed the various cultural changes taking place in her home, many of which would not be all that far apart from the concerns of people in America.

She talked about her country’s major industries and how they hoped to climb out of the economic malaise that’s such a part of their everyday lives. Apparently, oil companies have been trying to obtain permission to drill along the coast, being actively opposed by the citizenry because of feared environmental catastrophes (spills) and “global warming.”

When asked about unemployment, she gave me an incredulous look and said, “We don’t have welfare here. Everybody finds something to do, because if you don’t earn money, you can’t live.”

Sure enough, there were the usual crowds of vendors at the ship terminal, offering a wide variety of goods and services – everything from hair braiding to jewelry, to art, to personally guided tours. It was obvious that these people are incredibly dependent on the tourists who come from the cruise ships several times a week – but it was also clear that a little economic urgency will impart all the encouragement necessary for people to provide for themselves.

And a large welfare state encourages just the opposite.

I only relay these impressions because the next president faces a world that’s in flux, and will have to deal with a predominant attitude (fostered by the left) that concepts like “global warming” are altering the planet, and there will be an international community that will be putting pressure on America to “solve” these problems.

Therefore, it’s all the more necessary for conservatives to choose a leader who relies first on principle, because the emotional pitch that will continue to come from the left will be relentless. As the wealthiest nation with the largest economy in the world, America is seen as the cause of these problems and the “savior” at the same time.

Who will stand against this rhetorical bombardment and keep the Constitution and the best interests of Americans at heart? Will we elect another George W. Bush-like president who will ship billions of Americans’ dollars overseas to “fix” foreign problems? Are American dollars truly doing any good for these countries, or is it as Ron Paul says, “Foreign aid essentially takes money from poor people in this country and gives it to rich people in foreign countries?”

It seems like there are a few candidates in the field who would be more susceptible to the “humanitarian fix bug” than the others – and you can decide which ones belong in each camp.

And the crystal ball says….

It’s difficult to see how these two presidential debates will alter the dynamic much in New Hampshire, with Mitt Romney clinging to a lead and the others seemingly more intent on picking on extraneous issues (and Ron Paul) than they are in trying to dent his lead.

Where was the discussion of the Romneycare mandate, for example?

Romney continues to keep his cool in these debates, and when he’s able to smirk away all the criticism, he looks presidential.

At this point, that may be all he really needs. It could be that conservatives’ best hope to defeat him would be a non-Romney win in South Carolina, which may keep the contest going into Florida and beyond. Romney will not obtain the delegates necessary to win the nomination until much later in the process, so if conservatives can just keep the race in play, they’ll leave room to defeat him.

Time will tell if someone will emerge with the stature to beat Romney, be it Santorum or perhaps Newt Gingrich. Ron Paul’s foreign policy views likely keep his vote ceiling set at a certain level – but he’ll stay around just to keep the others honest, if for nothing else.

We can only hope the “show” doesn’t end early. Don’t give up, conservatives.