Romney just keeps getting better. Solid performance, hard to see anyone rattling him in the debates. Scores solid point almost at will. His health care commentary was almost what I wrote verbatim in a paper last week. Perry looks like an amateur by comparison.
Perry just doesn’t seem ready for prime time. His handling of the vaccination question was abysmal; no way should Bachmann have scored points on that front. He allowed everyone to portray the initiative as force, despite the fact that no children were forced to receive vaccination. And he sounded downright liberal in defense of his in-state tuition for illegals. No amount of tough talkin’ Texas swagger can erase that from his record. And his comment that he can’t be bought for only $5k was one for the ages: I may be a whore, but doggonnit I ain’t no cheap whore!
Bachmann was Bachmann. She pretty much says whatever she wants, truth or lie, and no one seems to give a shit. And why should they, unless she’s attacking their record. Her slide to irrelevancy continues unabated, thankfully.
Santorum bobbled his way through the attack on Paul’s 9/11 comments. Why attack Paul in the first place? To prove you’re mainstream? Ok, we get that. No one likes Paul’s blowback assessment. Seems like he’s fighting for 3rd place. He’ll lose that race, too.
Huntsman was unimpressive. His treasonous line fell pancake flat, as did pretty much every attempt at humor I’ve seen from him. The debate stage is not his best format.
Cain kept pushing some $9.99 pizza deal. I have no idea what that’s all about.
Paul just needs to quit. He’s preaching to the choir in every performance, and the size of that choir isn’t going to change by a single percentage point. Running once was enough; regardless of how true his assessments and predictions may be, he’ll never make it within 3 candidates of the nomination.
Someone told me that Gingrich was there, but I don’t remember hearing a single word from him.
I do remember the crowd cheering at the notion of letting an American senior citizen die if unable to pay his medical bills. And by crowd, I mean more than just one or two people. That was pretty surprising even among that audience. I guess former Congressman Grayson wasn’t too far off when he said that the Republican plan for health care is “die quickly.”
Overall, it’s looking like Romney will be moving back to the front runner spot shortly, if not already. That’s probably a good thing, both for the reasonable wing of the GOP and for moderates/independents looking for a palatable set of options next November.