Memo: Fred, please, go home.

Last night’s GOP debate sponsored by facebook and ABC was interesting to me in several ways. First, there was a concerted effort to attack the perceived front runner, Mitt Romney, with some pretty weak pot shots. Then there was a continuation of the intellectual bankruptcy of all the candidates towards Ron Paul’s serious opinions – particularly, economics. Third, Fred Thompson has completely and totally embarrassed himself and all of his supporters – not simply with his unbaked responses, but a complete and total ignorance of the full depth of any issues. Good grief Fred, please just go home and stare at your lovely wife – it’s all you got left dude and someone needs to drag this Hollywood moron off the stage for good. Then, I thought Guiliani did about as good as he could and did not overplay his hand while the joke-in-a-cloak (Huckabee) started his inevitable fizzle. You heard it first by me in an earlier post: Huckaboom is over, Huckafizzle is here to stay. He might succeed in South Carolina, but after last night this too is now in question. He’s broke and really has nowhere to go after South Carolina, except back to Hope. Lastly, we had the brief appearance of President Bush, who was clearly lost in space in his question for the candidates. I mean, really, of all the questions that were set-ups in this debate what ABC did with that piece was outrageous – I will get to that later…

Concerning Romney, I was impressed by his ability to deflect and respond – particularly during the first portion of the debate. I have not been a Romney fan out here as of late and have not been too impressed with him. My concerns about Mitt revolved around the Morman faith issue, the voracity of some of his positions for which he has taken opposite positions, and lastly a deep concern about the short shrift he gives Ron Paul – not just on the foreign policy issue but rather on economics and inflation. This is true of all the candidates, but if Romney were just a tad less self-imposing and would give Ron Paul credit on areas where he and Paul should have common ground (economics), Romney could seize the day. He missed an opportunity last night to link himself with Ron Paul on issues where Paul has a clear, intellectually superior, position – such as inflation and monetary policy. I have to be honest however, what I saw last night was a guy (Romney) under fire who was very able to defend himself and stood very tall on some highly controversial issues. In my book, Romney won last night’s debate because, other than Paul, he provided reasons (whether one agrees or not) why people should vote for him instead of against someone else – he provided a plan to move forward on numerous issues and such is the basis of leadership. Moreover, he gave a nice overview of how he would attack Barak Obama. Romney’s short and concise reply to that question, I thought, was powerful.

The chief antagonist was McCain who simply blew it when it came to health care, illegal immigration, and economic policy. His approach last night was to simply take pot shots at Romney, who was ready and fired back stymieing McCain’s attacks. Of course, if you were a McCain supporter you might be self-deluded enough to think he got effective jabs in, but those jabs had no intellectual potency. I think McCain did more to define himself narrowly last night, rather than provide a real reason to vote for him.

The other antagonist last night, although not to the same degree, was Guiliani. Rudy, in my view, came in second in this debate because he was very careful and smart about his replies and responses. He hit upon issues where independent voters (NH) would nod in agreement, while steering clear of repeated use of his NY Mayoral past. He made no big mistakes and articulated his vision for moving the country forward reasonably well. I believe Guiliani will do better in New Hampshire than the polls indicate, perhaps even threatening McCain.

As for Ron Paul, what is striking about him is that here is a guy who is 70 years old and leaves all of the other candidates absolutely in the dust intellectually. His ideas have depth, force one to think, and in terms of economics simply has no equal on either stage – Republicans or Democrats. Having said that, Dr. Paul has a weakness and it is he is too slow to react forcefully enough with his message. He, like me, assumes people to be far more intelligent than they are. I say this not in a disparaging way but rather, when in political contests, people tend to turn off their minds and activate their emotions. They have a favorite, someone who tickled their fancy on one issue or another, and simply use that as their basis of evaluation. If you objectively evaluate all of Ron Paul’s positions (not merely the foreign policy issue) you will find yourself in agreement with much of what he says – particularly the one comment he made in response to the Bush question.

Which brings me to the end of this analysis – the Bush question. George W. Bush asked of the candidates, via the ABC News filter, “What are the principles that you will stand on – in both the good times and in the tough times.” Clearly, this was a setup in my view. What ABC was hoping for was the religiosity of the candidates to come out again, as it did in spades in Iowa. They were hoping to use the President’s religiosity, which he has stated on numerous occasions as his guide in tough times, as the impetus to paint several of these candidates into a fundamentalist box – interestingly, none took the bait except the Huckster. As pathetically staged as this question was, the responses by all of the candidates except Ron Paul were equally as pathetic. You kept on waiting for the words United States Constitution to fly out of the mouths of these guys and not until Fred Thompson uttered it with spittle dripping from his chin did one hear it. But Thompson was simply and utterly not credible on this, because he has been part and parcel (check his voting record) of numerous anti-Constitutional efforts. But it was the bait taken by Huckabee that revealed the true nature of this dope in a cloak. Huckabee uttered what can in no uncertain terms only be interpreted as revisionist history to support Christian socialism. Here is what he said:

“What is it that’s deep inside of us that — that guide us, that direct us, that show the framework of what we’re going to do. And I think the simple answer for me is all the way back to the document that gave us birth. And it goes like this: That We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are endowed by our creator (Huckabee clearly emphasized “creator”) with certain inalienable rights, these being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That we are created equal. . . . In that sense of equality, the greatest principle is that every human being and every American is equal to each other. One person is not more equal because of his net worth or because of his IQ or because of his ancestry or last name. That was a radical idea when those 56 signers put their names on that document knowing that if their experiment in government didn’t work, they were going to die for it. . . . Those are principles. Those are things that you’ll live for, you’ll die for. That sense that all of us have an essence of equality and that the primary purpose of a government is to recognize that those rights did not come from government, they came from God, they’re to be protected and then defined as the right to a life; the right to liberty, our freedom, to live our lives like we want to live them without government telling us how to do it; and ultimately not to be happy, but to have the pursuit of happiness. That’s our principle.

That is, ladies and gentlemen, the most liberal and socialist of interpretations of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence that I have ever heard uttered by anyone calling themselves a Republican – utterly stunning.

The only participant last night who got this set-up question right was Ron Paul, who put it concisely as follows:

The president asks a very important question, and we should all come together and we shouldn’t have that many disagreements because we should be bound down by the Constitution.

But the people in this country think we live in an age of relative ethics, is what they’ve kind of come to the conclusion of. Sure, profess to believe in the Constitution, but why have we gone to war since World War II without a declaration of war? Why do we have a monetary system that is not designed by the Constitution? Why do we have a welfare state running out of control not designed by the Constitution? You can’t pay lip service to the Constitution without obeying it.

And we should have peace and prosperity — that should be our goal. We in foreign policy ought to have a golden rule: We ought to treat others as we would want others to treat us, and we don’t treat others so fairly. We treat them like we’re the bully, that we’re the policeman of the world, and we’re going to tell them to behave. If we don’t — if they don’t listen to us, we bomb them. If they listen to us, we give them more money. And it’s bankrupting this country because we don’t live up to our principles. The principles are embedded in our Constitution.

Ron Paul did not win over any new converts last night, and at best kept his legions of supporters about where they were at the beginning of the night. He has an intellectual case to make to a country, and a cast of other candidates, that appears to have neither the time, the energy, nor the intellect to grasp the essence of his message. And it is an important one, and with any luck at all he will survive New Hampshire to take this discussion further – I believe it is a discussion America absolutely needs to have.

In conclusion, I perceived Mitt Romney the winner last night and Guiliani and McCain tied for second – McCain simply because of his strong historical/political ties to New Hampshire. I put Ron Paul in fourth place and Thompson and Huckabee tied for dead last with neither man uttering a message of significance or any intellectually stimulating commentary… We’re witnessing the initial stages of separation here; Romney and Guiliani are here to stay, McCain will survive to fight another day as well. The other three are in trouble, and the only one who has the money to continue is Ron Paul. I predict that this group of six will be whittled down to four after Super Tuesday, but could be only three if McCain stumbles. We could see a three-way race developing between Romney, Guiliani and, yes, Ron Paul…. Like it or not, the issue will soon turn to what pairing of whom will be the most electable ticket next November.

And that’s the memo.

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