On Last Night’s GOP Debate

A few thoughts:

• Conventional wisdom is that Thompson won the debate.  I’m not sure that I’d go quite that far, and I’d have to wonder how much of that assessment is Fox-generated hype.  Notwithstanding my reservations, however, he did come across as a straight-talking, good ol’ boy who should be doing far better than his recent polling would indicate.
   
• If Romney weren’t well-financed and if he didn’t have extensive ground operations in place, I’d say, “put a fork in him, he’s done”.  He’s coming across as either a candidate in search of a message, or a politician who’s trying to be all things to all people.  He seems to be having problems carving a viable niche in the spectrum of messages, with the more popular messages having been claimed by other candidates.
   
  If Romney could credibly communicate the idea that he’d be effective at cleaning up waste and advancing a reasonably conservative message in the face of a hostile Congress, allowing him to build upon his resume of Massachusetts governor and Salt Lake City Olympic reformer, he might have a shot.  However, that shot is waning as Giuliani solidifies on the “I’m most likely to shift the purple states red” message.
   
• I can’t decide whether Ron Paul was just his usual nutty self, or if Fox carefully worked to make him seem extra-nutty.   I’m leaning towards the latter, given how the questions he faced were more in the “one of these things is not like another / one of these things is not the same” vein, from which he struggled to shift to answering policy questions handed to others, and given how giddy the commentators were over Paul’s low reaction numbers from their viewer’s panel…but Paul comes across as  a nut on his own, even without Fox’s assistance.
   
  If Fox News were as fair and balanced as it claims, they’d have a reasonable sounding Paul supporter on to explain why Paul’s message is appealing to his supporters (sometimes in spite of Paul’s quirks).
   
  Sadly, the notion that a nontrivial portion of the American electorate craves a small-government, pro-individual-liberties candidate so much that they’d tolerate quirks in their candidate, seems to finally be getting lost in Paul’s nuttiness.
   
• I have to give props to Huckabee for deflecting criticism and the spotlighting of the unconservativeness / un-neoconness of his positions while still coming across as a nice, likeable guy.
   
• If anyone won the debate, I’d have to name McCain.  He might not have won the battle of the soundbites (a title that Thompson did earn), but he seems to be solidifying his framing as a Republican partisans might not like, but who is viewed as most electable by partisans.