Debate Results: The Narrative v. Reality

I watched tonight’s debate at the Reagan library.

My thoughts on the debate:

4) Ron Paul: Fundamentally, Ron Paul was the only economic conservative on that stage. Too bad his message was muddled by other things.

2 and 3) The McCain and Romney show.  Romney got the better of this one. McCain’s bizarre charges about Romney’s stance on timetables was plain bizarre particularly from a frontrunner.

McCain’s class warfare digs at Romney were ultimately beneath a fronterunner. Worse yet, his scrapping with Romney was the opposite of what he needed to do. He needed to look a fronterunner, a man who would unite the party. Instead, he confirmed Conservative’s worst fears.

McCain’s bitterness and pettiness has got to be raising alarm bells among conservatives which is good news for Mitt. Mitt looked like a man, cool under pressue, calmly explaining his stances. Still, not the performance of the night. Still, he didn’t come out of the constant fracasas.

1) Magnificient Mike Huckabee-This is not what Conservatives in the blogosphere want to here, but hey it’s not my job to fib. The winner of this debate hands down was Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was on his game.

I’ve read Conservative blogs complaining about Huckabee “whining” about his debate time. Please, give me a massive break. If Huckabee didn’t do this, he’d end up being as left out of the whole process as Ron Paul. Huckabee was assertive, not whiny.

He hit two consecutive Home Runs on why he was prepared to be President after 10 1/2 years as Governor, and then his answer on the ridiculous question of whether Ronald Reagan would endorse him. Huckabee said he wouldn’t be that arrogant, but then stated he endorsed Reagan.

His brief speech reminded voters that Reagan wasn’t just “a policy wonk” but that he made Americans proud to be Americans, to feel good about their country. He nailed it:

It wasn’t just his specific policies, but Ronald Reagan was something more than just a policy wonk. He was a man who loved this country, and he inspired this country to believe in itself again.

What made Ronald Reagan a great president was not just the intricacies of his policies, though they were good policies. It was that he loved America and saw it as a good nation and a great nation because of the greatness of its people.

And if we can recapture that, that’s when we recapture the Reagan spirit. It’s that spirit that has a can-do attitude about America’s futures and that makes us love our country whether we’re Democrats or Republicans. And that’s what I believe Ronald Reagan did — he brought this country back together and made us believe in ourselves.

And whether he believes in us, I hope we still believe in those things which made him a great leader and a great American.

His answer brought applause to the room. It may signal a comeback, but probably not. Most voters will go to the polls not having watched this debate and only catching the McCain-Romney battles, but it will probably be enough to secure Huckabee’s strongest states going into Super Tuesday and maybe some of the marginal ones like Missouri and Tennessee.

In the end, winning debates has little to win the Presidential nomination. Alan Keyes won every Presidential debate in 2000, except the LA Times-CNN Affair at the end. He won the South Carolina debate in single digits. Fred Thompson was the strongest performer of the last 3 debates before he dropped out. Mitt Romney was the winner of the Florida debate.  Eloquence in a debate doesn’t count for much and for all the hoopla, most people only catch the media sound bytes. For the coverage the debates get, the media might as well place the frontrunners in the same room and tell them to trash talk about each other and that the media would use the three best moments.

Finally, a note to conservative bloggers that most won’t want to here. Huckabee is more alive than many will want to admit. People can say he’s dead, but he’ll win some states on February 5 and with a word of mouth campaign that will focus on the winnable parts of the Evangelical South, he’ll probably do well in Louisiana on the 9th and will be able to remain afloat until March 4th in Texas. Hang on, gang, this may not be as over as everyone thinks.

Also at Huckabee’s age, Dollars gets you donuts that a loss in 2008 is not the last we’ll hear of him for better or for worse.