Coming off a week where Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter removed themselves from the race, the five remaining Republican presidential candidates met in Florida for their final debate before the all-important Florida primary, set for next Tuesday the 29th.

 
The debate format was to be similar to last week’s Democratic debate in Nevada, which was also televised by MSNBC and moderated by the network’s Brian Williams and Tim Russert – a two-hour forum with 90-second answers and 30-second follow-ups (which they never seem to stick to, of course). 

 
But right off the bat, Brian Williams mentioned that the campaigns had asked for the time to be limited to 90 minutes. Limited? The Republicans are having enough trouble generating excitement from the voters and they want to limit debate and exposure?

 

That seemed odd. 

 
The balance of the time was far from strange, as this debate was a pretty standard run-through of all the candidates’ stock positions. There weren’t any terse stare-downs or lively exchanges between the candidates, even during the segment of the program where each of the competitors was able to pose a question to one of the other candidates.

 
This was definitely no Hillary/Obama slug-fest.

 
There was no piling on of Mitt Romney for his negative commercials, no drilling Mike Huckabee for his Arkansas tax increases, no questioning of Rudy over his past billing practices for police protection of his mistress.

 
If anything, this debate shored up what we already know about the candidates: Mitt Romney is good looking, well spoken, could easily play the president in a movie, and that he’s Mormon and has a lot of money. John McCain is the old ‘war horse’ in the field, sounds very credible on foreign policy and the Iraq War, and appears defensive whenever anyone criticizes his conservative credentials.

 
Watching McCain, you have to wonder if he regrets his legislative behavior of the past seven years – opposing the Bush tax cuts, authoring campaign finance ‘reform,’ working with Ted Kennedy and John Edwards on a ‘patient’s bill of rights,’ which is really code-speak for ‘full employment for trial lawyers,’ as well as his leadership in the ‘Gang of 14’ which blocked solid conservative judicial appointments for no reason other than the fact that the nominees were conservative.

 
A couple of those nominees were minority conservatives as well – which very easily could’ve been turned against the Democrats for their refusal to accept ‘affirmative action’ for conservatives.

 
At any rate, McCain won’t ever admit any regrets, if indeed he has any.

 
Mike Huckabee reaffirmed that he’s the warm and fuzzy candidate, threw in a couple good one-liners and had difficulty explaining his championing of the so-called ‘FAIR’ tax.

 
Rudy Giuliani has become the ‘why is he there?’ candidate, which is a complete reversal of fortune from the beginnings of the campaign. Harkening back to last May and the first Republican debate at the Reagan Presidential Library – Rudy seemed nervous back then, clearly not at ease with his front-runner status and unable to explain away his anti-conservative positions on social issues.

 
Fast-forward to January, 2008, and he’s much more at ease, and no one asks him anymore about abortion, his three wives and about how he once lived with a homosexual couple after his second wife threw him out of Gracie Mansion.

 
But now Rudy also seems irrelevant. His poor showings in all the early states has shifted the focus of the campaign so noticeably away from him that he’s become the suit that just fills up space on stage. I don’t know if it’s me, but his ‘lisp’ is becoming more noticeable as well. Rudy’s got sole possession of the second-tier now amongst the Republican candidates – and that’s not an enviable position going into the primary that he must win.

 
I wonder how all his donors are feeling about him now – where did all their money go? Did they really contribute to Rudy’s campaign and expect that he wouldn’t even give it a shot in the early rounds?

 

They must be furious.

 
Finally, Ron Paul demonstrated that he’s a highly principled, very technical candidate. There’s no doubt that Paul holds his views the closest to him – he doesn’t waver and he doesn’t have to ‘explain’ anything about himself. “Dr. No” means “Dr. No.” 

 
Paul’s still having a hard time phrasing his policy positions, however, such as what he means by ‘sound money,’ and his foreign policy views are no longer ‘shocking’ to anyone who hears them. But he’s clearly placed in the background at these debates – not by his abilities as a candidate, but by the fact that the moderators don’t pay much attention to him, and the others, for a lack of a better way to put it, look more like a potential president.

 
Paul could and should have a role as a presidential advisor, or a cabinet officer, but he lacks the stature and presence, the ‘cult of personality’ that a president should have.

 
Winners and Losers

 
Mitt Romney won this debate, not only because he’s the best looking ‘suit’ up on stage, but because he was able to take the toughest questions and appear credible.

 
Comparing him to George W. Bush, Romney ‘looks’ like a CEO (that he is), seems at home in his clothes and likes the spotlight. Maybe it’s because we’ve lived through seven years of a president who has a hard time finding the right words, but Romney is able to paint his brief stint as governor of Massachusetts, along with his life-long experience in the corporate private sector as qualifying him for the ‘job’ as president.

 
Because he’s kind of ‘plastic,’ I don’t see anyone really feeling very warm about Romney, and the polls seem to play that out. But he presents himself as very ‘capable’ -- an applicant who deserves a second interview and whose resume is just impressive enough to give serious consideration.

 
He said “I have the economy in my DNA.” That sounds about right – he looks like he could teach an economics course at a university.

 
Romney also fielded another question about his Mormon religion, and his answer was probably the highlight of the evening. All the talk about his religion may end up benefiting him in the end.

 
More worrisome about Romney is the impression he gives that he’s willing to ‘use’ the power of government to ‘solve’ problems, which is nod towards the failed administration of George W. Bush. Romney’s answer on the proposed stimulus package was troubling – he said it was a good package, but it didn’t go far enough. For those who believe that government should stay out of the way, Romney’s rhetoric is definitely a concern.

 
John McCain came in ‘second.’ McCain has become very good at honing his message – he presents himself as a budget hawk, and you believe him when he says that he would get rid of earmarks. Whether you believe his epiphany on cutting taxes is another matter.

 
If he’s gone after Romney over and over for his issue flip-flops, why doesn’t anyone talk to McCain about his several reversals on taxes and now immigration?

 
McCain is now strongly for renewing the Bush tax cuts, which is great, but he hasn’t adequately explained why the tax cuts weren’t a good idea back then, but they are NOW, when the deficit is even larger and we’re paying for an expensive set of wars overseas. In other words, if they weren’t a good idea back then because government was spending so much, then why are they a good idea now, when government is even larger?

 
But McCain’s strong point is his emphasis on a strong national defense. If the candidates could merely talk about the War in Iraq, then McCain would be the nominee – not because you necessarily agree with him, but because he seems the most credible.

 

 
The other three. Mike Huckabee has gone from the Iowa winner back to ‘second-tier’ Mike, the homespun ‘aw shucks’ candidate from a southern state who speaks well but doesn’t appear to be in his element.

 
Huckabee should probably run for Senate when he fails to win the Republican presidential nomination – he’s popular in Arkansas, and a few years in the Senate where he could establish a conservative voting record to back up his rhetoric would do him well.

 
Or, he could follow in Ronald Reagan’s example and try and establish himself in the conservative movement by getting to know its leaders, then going out on the road and campaigning for conservatives on the local level. Now that he’s got a national ‘name,’ Huckabee needs something solid to lean on – and when you couple that with his obvious speaking gifts, he could be a credible candidate in the next election cycle.

 
As mentioned above, Rudy’s ‘lost it.’ Maybe he never really ‘had it,’ but nobody wants to hear about New York City anymore, and now that John McCain’s risen to virtual front-runner status, the ‘security’ candidate slot has been filled.

 
Rudy sounds like the most fiscally conservative candidate, and when compared to Huckabee or McCain – that’s a believable premise. But he’s also, by far, the least desirable candidate to social conservatives. Rudy would help himself by trying for another office, too – but at his age, this is probably his last shot at the presidency.

 
He won’t make it, and I doubt many are grieving at the prospect.

 
Likewise, Ron Paul failed to gain any ground in this debate – not because of his ‘performance’ or anything he said, but because he’s not really given a chance to say much, and when he does talk, it’s too technical for the average voter to understand.

 
Paul’s high-pitched voice doesn’t help matters – it makes him seem angry, even if he’s not. Hillary’s a bit shrill in her presentation as well, and people liken her to a famous character from a famous movie about a wizard and a little girl from Kansas (hint: she’s not the one from Kansas).

 
For a policy wonk, it’s great hearing about Paul’s proposals to phase out social security, but many senior citizens would only hear the part about ‘Paul wants to get rid of social security.’

 
That’s a shame, but the majority of the American electorate is not sophisticated enough to comprehend Paul’s analysis of the issues – they see a grumpy little man who says we shouldn’t be involved at all overseas, who wants to return the country to the gold standard, and thinks the federal reserve should be abolished.

 
Candidates like Paul are vital to the Republican Party, if for nothing else, he helps clarify the positions of the others.

 

 
We’ve reached a point in the campaign season where a candidate’s potential prospects in the general election is a becoming a big factor in who people want to vote for.

 
On that factor alone, Mitt Romney again appears to be the strongest candidate. Romney, like Hillary Clinton in the Democratic debate the other night – has taken on the role of attacking the opposing party. Romney is already laying the groundwork for a general election run, and Hillary has once again become a fertile target for verbal abuse.

 
She deserves it – all of it. But Romney’s still got a long way to go towards establishing a national identity, and he’s got a lot to answer for in his background, which Hillary and the Democrats will be all-too-willing to point out if he’s the nominee later this year.

 
It makes for some potentially lively exchanges between Mitt and Hillary, and there are enough philosophical differences there to give voters a choice in November.

 
Romney, to his credit, says ‘change begins with us,’ and says the Republican brand must be restored to its previous reputation for fiscal responsibility before they’ll be competitive. He says he’s the one to ‘fix it.’ Time will tell – he has to win in Florida first.

 

 
The MSNBC commentators in the post-debate discussion mentioned that the candidates were really trying to appeal to first-time viewers, which was strange considering the length of the campaign season and the already high number of debates these candidates have made us suffer through.

 
But they’re right in a sense. For those who are just ‘tuning in’ to the presidential race, Mitt Romney gave the best ‘first impression,’ just as he did last May at the Reagan Library.

 
Florida will go a long way towards determining the Republican Party’s nominee, but this debate and the Sunshine State’s vote will do little to assuage the empty feeling that conservatives are experiencing about the candidate field.