It’s obvious from watching the two recent GOP presidential candidates’ debates–in Simi Valley, Calif. and here in Hillsborough County–that there were many overlapping agendas at play. But only a few really matter.
Mitt Romney is trying to burst the bluster bubble of Rick Perry before the swaggering Texas governor becomes the de facto nominee. He’s hoping that Perry’s shoot-from-the-lip analogies of Social Security and “Ponzi schemes,” for example, will strike enough discordant notes among seniors and future seniors to be self-defeating rhetoric. It’s not Romney’s style, but “all tea party hat and no real-world cattle” is essentially how he wants to characterize a guy whose top talking point is the Texas job-creating machine. It hardly helps Romney that jobs is a much bigger issue than “Fed Up” outtakes or presidential mien.
Perry knows that if he successfully paints Romney into a GQ, flip-flopping centrist, Obamacare-in-Massachusetts corner, he can’t survive Republican Party primaries, including Florida, that are increasingly dominated by demonstrably hard-core conservatives and libertarians. You can’t win a general election, even if you’re electable, if you can’t get out of your own primary. Perry won’t bring up Mormonism, of course, because he doesn’t have to. But he knows it doesn’t play well with his evangelical crowd.
*Michelle Bachmann remains wistful for Iowa, but the silo state is hardly representative of America. “Obamacare” rants are seemingly part of every answer, regardless of question.
*Herman Cain has bullet points, but not enough ammo–and that includes references to how Chile provides for a form of social security. The party craves a godfather, but not a former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.
*Ron Paul’s libertarian philosophy works best in the abstract.
*Newt Gingrich, who can wax professorial and is not sound-bite challenged, can’t run a campaign. Callista in the wings hardly helps.
*Rick Santorum lost his last race–and his Pennsylvania Senate seat. This is not the forum for a political comeback. Tim Pawlenty has a better chance.
*Jon Huntsman would fare better if he were challenging Barack Obama in Democratic primaries. Not good when your laugh lines sound obscure and smug.
The other agenda worth noting is that of the media. There are commercial breaks, and ratings matter. Fox, presumably, would have taken the same initial approach as MSNBC at the Reagan Library and CNN at the Florida State Fairgrounds.
Both made short shrift of any doubt that this was anything other than a made-for-TV political reality show. Both arranged to have Romney and Perry at the epicenter of the eight-candidate line-up. Santorum and Huntsman were literally relegated to the symbolic fringes.
Neither was about to kick start the debate by chancing, say, a low-wattage, cerebral presentation by Huntsman. Right out of the rhetorical blocks, both Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer made sure to feature the Romney-Perry dynamic and its inherent conflict, the staple of all cable television talk shows. It worked both times. Both approaches yielded lively, gotcha, thrust-and-Perry exchanges. Good, proven-formula TV.
The two networks also knew that a sizable portion of the live audience was there for some GOPster red meat. More Jerry Springer than PBS.
Neither Williams nor Blitzer invoked the oft-invoked rule that members of a debate audience acquit themselves properly and refrain from applause and other means of vocal partisan response. Why bother? As a result, a California reference to Gov. Perry’s record of more than 200 executions on his watch turned into a perverse applause line. There were shout-outs of “Yeah” when Ron Paul was questioned in Tampa about a theoretical, uninsured patient being allowed to die. And there were boos for Paul when he ascribed anti-American motives to jihadists that had nothing to do with U.S. democracy, freedom and exceptionalism.
In the end, neither Romney nor Perry mishandled the would-be crucible. Bachman was feisty at the Fairgrounds, but it’s still the well-coiffed duo’s to lose. Both can perform, for that is what’s called for in these forums. This isn’t Lincoln-Douglas. Both have a stage presence, as well as a staged presence.
The networks aren’t complaining.
Fairgrounds Irony
*Imagine, this is Florida and not a single question dealing with Cuba at the Fairgrounds.
*Although Perry was at odds with the hard-liners over aspects of immigration and his executive order mandating young girls be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, his moderate stands did tend to soften his macho, ideological image. And they undoubtedly would play a lot better in a general election.