The Iowa debates now over, we can now turn our national attention to finding out who won them, primarily by asking the supporters of each candidate to describe just how wonderful they were. We did manage to dodge a few bullets: based on pre-debate pandering, I was convinced the first part of the debate would be entirely dedicated to each candidate stating how much they loved Jesus, corn, and butter, in roughly that order, or that we would be treated to a new recap of how many children each candidate now had (I wouldn't put it past Bachmann to adopt another twelve or so, just to piss the other candidates off.)
If you want the short version, it is that these people are all insane, or have to pretend to be in order to not be driven out of the race by crazier rivals. If any of them are ready to compete in earnest as the GOP nominee, they've got some ways to go. The audience was made up exclusively of core believers, so any attempts at nuance were in short supply, but by the end of this primary season these candidates are going to have to be walking back some doozies, position-wise.
The moderators began the debate by actually hoping that the candidates would get beyond simplistic talking point rhetoric: that attempt was short lived, and the debate at some point looked more like a box full of well-dressed ferrets trying to tear each other to ribbons. Some notes on the candidates:
Michele Bachmann, wearing an elegant outfit made from the skins of defeated 1950's movie robots, lasted about 15 seconds before devolving into her first shouted talking points. That first answer was the highlight for Bachmann, though: halfway through the debate, her left-during-the-commercial-break moment seemed to either fluster her or simply distract her, and she spent the rest of the evening with a much quieter, more straight-faced demeanor. I won't lie, it was a bit odd.
On his own first answer, Mitt Romney was so devoted to his own talking points that he even numbered them for our convenience. Otherwise, he spent the evening being very dull, trying to not make news and, in general, trying not to even speak. The moderators helped him out on that one, as he was quite notably absent from the entire section of the debate involving culture war questions. Seriously, he could have stepped out for a quick drink, for all we know.
Ron Paul thinks something about monetary policy, but God knows what, anymore. What's more impressive is that Ron Paul is probably no longer among the crazier candidates the GOP has to offer, and that is a terrifying thought. In general, Ron Paul's biggest electoral problem is that he actually has a philosophy—a ridiculous one, but one that at least pretends to be self-consistent. Thus he answers questions based on this philosophy of his, rather than knowing that he needs to answer according to the rote talking points that his audience wants to hear. This is going to get him nowhere, although the audience did love many of his anti-war answers (go figure: the Fox News audience is now a bunch of peaceniks.)
Herman Cain wants you to know he's not prejudiced against Muslims, but that Sharia is simultaneously the super-urgentest-crisis-ever. And he doesn't have a problem with Mormons, but he would just like to point out that he knows lots of people who do. A moderator asks him if he has a religion problem, given his past gaffes: I think a more reasonable question is to wonder what on earth Herman Cain would have to talk about, if he wasn't constantly worrying about other people's religions. Cain also thinks America needs to learn to take a joke. Oh, I think we have a bit of practice on that one, Mr. Cain. After all, we've been electing outright clowns for years.
Jon Huntsman looks and sounds like one of the stand-ins that the real candidates use to practice debating each other. That said, I suspect he may have gotten five times the screen time that Romney did—not that Romney was complaining. Huntsman may have "won" the debate simply by letting ten more people in the nation know that there's a guy in the debate named Jon Huntsman. That is his name, right? I forget.
I spent a fair bit of time simply wondering if Newt Gingrich drove himself to the debate, or still has a staff to do that for him. Gingrich spent most of his time being outraged at the "gotcha" questions being lobbed at him by the cruel questioners from his old network, Fox News. Asking him about his past positions? A gotcha question. Asking him about his exact past words? Gotcha question. The apparently ultraconservative audience loved this: I think we've found that small group of America that honestly believes that even Fox News is too liberal.
Tim Pawlenty's takeaway moment is to say Barack Obama has no plan, and offers to cook dinner for anyone who can find his plan, but won't mow Mitt Romney's lawn, which is either a class warfare jab or a double entendre that none of us want to understand. He spent most of his time fighting with Bachmann, and Bachmann with him, which is fairly inexplicable, because Pawlenty is not a threat to Bachmann. Frankly, Pawlenty needs to figure out who he is a threat to, and attack that person. Otherwise he might as well let Jon Huntsman play his rather interchangeable role, and save both campaigns the travel money.
At the end of the evening, Rick Santorum remains unGoogleable. He boldly stood up for corporate tax cuts, which I gather was supposed to differentiate himself from all the other candidates: good luck on that. Otherwise he spent the first half of the debate being ignored even by the moderators, at one point pitifully raising his hand to get their attention. By halfway through he is visibly pissed off at his apparent lack of microphone time: by the end of the debate, he is making snide comments about the mainstream media ignoring him.
Sorry, Mr. Santorum, but the only way you have a prayer of winning this race is if you legally change your name to Rick Perry sometime in the next 36 or so hours.
The low point of the debate, for anyone hoping for a shred of sanity: every candidate says that they would refuse even a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. That, my friends, is not a policy. It is an obsessive compulsive disorder.
I think the main message to be taken from this debate is simply to note how radically far the GOP has moved in only a few short years. These candidates' past positions from a mere few years ago (every minor tax increase, every attempt to solve health care) are largely untenable now. It's all about tax cuts. Every freakin' thing. Each candidate has to run from their own past statements, lest they be compared to a crazy socialist like Ronald Reagan (Newt, for his part, was I believe the only candidate to actually mention Reagan, which is astonishing in and of itself. Apparently we've moved past Saint Ron?)
I'm not sure how the extreme lurch to the right continues to almost entirely escape the notice of the press, though I am happy to see that some old-school conservative pundits are beginning to mutter about it. Tomorrow will be the day for punditizing, and we shall see if any pundits or reporters manage to mention such things.