May 03, 2007
Liveblogging The First GOP Debate
And... scene. Ronald Reagan wasn't the only ghost in the room tonight. Somewhere, perhaps on a sound stage in New York City, senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson senses a clamoring for his entree into this race. That nearly all participants went out of their way to liken themselves to Reagan mostly served to highlight the fact that, for GOP base voters, there wasn't a Gipper on the stage.
This yearning may have less to do with what Reagan actually accomplished than with Republicans needing a shot of Prozac in the form of a presidential candidate who makes them feel good about being Republicans again. As McCain's precarious position in the top tier shows, proximity to Bush may be toxic in that regard. Everyone else might be too big a question mark to fill that void.
More reason to cue the actor? That the media aren't tiring of speculating on this point may mean that none of the current candidates has convinced Republicans that he could be their champion in '08.
The Caucus, The Fix, On Politics and The Ticker also have wrap-ups of the debate.
9:46. Tancredo's back. He's a prime example of why debates like this can be unfair to some candidates. The immigration issue is one quite a few Republicans would rather paper over until after the 2008 election. Tancredo may be a long-shot candidate, but he has a loyal, energized group of supporters in Americans who want to stanch the tide of illegal immigrants making their way across the border. It's a security issue, an economic issue, and, to some Americans, a cultural issue.
In one of a handful of mentions of George W. Bush by the candidates, McCain praised the president's position on immigration. McCain and Democrat Edward Kennedy have co-sponsored a bill that enacts tighter controls at the border while providing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship -- a provision Tancredo decries as amnesty.
Polls show few Americans actually want all illegal immigrants rounded up and deported. But the problem for McCain and Bush is that, to a degree, the dictionary definition of amnesty applies. Pressing the candidates on that point could have given Tancredo and his comrade in arms on that issue, Duncan Hunter, a powerful moment in the debate. But it never happened.
9:45. Tancredo's turn on MSNBC, and -- oops. They lose him. The congressman just can't get a break tonight.
9:41. Spin room time; Brownback is first up on MSNBC. No, the candidates didn't all get a fair shot at getting their message across, and yes, the debate went a little too fast, the Kansas senator says. That's a good point, actually -- if fewer Politico.com reader questions had been asked, candidates could have been allotted more time for responses. Perhaps we'll see some Friday morning quarterbacking on the debate format tomorrow.
9:33. It's over, and the frustration on stage is palpable. Blame the number of candidates, blame the format -- there were no runaway performances here, which wasn't expected anyway, but the sheer lack of high points is a little surprising.
Romney, by the way, wins the race to rush over and greet Mrs. Reagan.
9:30. Tancredo's eagerness to get his points about immigration across seems to be backfiring. He isn't being concise, as Thompson has been, and thus keeps running against the time limit. Pleading for more time is arguably not the way to convey that ineffable "presidential" aura.
9:25. Considering most American voters tuning in are getting their first look at the bulk of these candidates, Matthews' next question is a head-scratcher: "Would it be bad if Bill Clinton were back in the White House?"
Romney's response: "You've got to be kidding."
But he, and everyone else, takes the bait and has a go at slamming the former president's wife and current presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
9:24. Romney veers from the rest of the stridently pro-life field and says Congress should not have intervened in the Terry Schiavo right-to-die case -- bringing him in line with Giuliani.
9:13. We should have mentioned a while back that the questions being asked were submitted by readers on Politico.com, MSNBC's co-sponsor in this debate.
Paul, the resident anti-government libertarian on the stage, is asked if he trusts the media. "Some of them," the Texas congressman replies, "but I trust the Internet a lot more."
9:12. Pop quiz, Giuliani: What's the difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites? There is some hesitation, not in the sense that he doesn't know the answer, but in the sense that he knows how very important it is that he gets it right. From what we can tell, he does.
9:09. McCain neatly summarizes the GOP base's problem with him: "I know how to reach across the aisle to the Democrats and they know how to reach across the aisle to me. I've been doing it for a long, long time."
8:58. The candidates are asked about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, an issue on which Nancy Reagan is at odds with many in her party. Romney, whose wife Ann has MS, opposes it, as do Brownback, Gilmore, Huckabee, Hunter and Paul.
Thompson, who seems to have come prepared for just about everything tonight, says, "There is so much research going on, you can't answer that question yes or no," citing a research program in his home state of Wisconsin.
McCain answers yes, and is somehow able to remind the audience that he was a Vietnam POW while he's at it.
Giuliani is another yes, as long as it's an existing embryo that would have been discarded anyway. Tancredo is a no.
8:53. The Reagan platitudes were expected, but Thompson may have just stretched the bounds of credulity by painting the late president as "a great uniter" on race.
8:52. Giuliani reaffirms his platform on abortion: he's personally against it, but "would respect a woman's right to make a different choice," calling the decision "a matter of conscience."
Seconds before, Romney went after McCain by citing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, a bugbear of abortion opponents because of the restrictions placed on issues advertising. McCain, for his part, had just finished talking about an issue on which he is quite strong -- pork barrel spending in Congress.
8:46. Matthews gives Giuliani a prime opportunity to tell the Christian right to back off. But when asked if the movement's influence has been good for the GOP, the former mayor answers, "Sure. The increased influence of large numbers of people are always good for us."
He quickly changes the topic and ticks off his accomplishments as mayor, going over his allotted time despite Matthews' attempts to interject.
8:44. Tancredo: "Karl Rove would certainly not be in the White House that I inhabit." Not because of any one political scandal, though, but because Rove hasn't pushed the administration hard enough to the right on immigration.
8:38. Romney on faith in the public square: "The Roman Catholic bishops can do whatever the heck they want."
8:35. The closest thing to mano a mano we've seen yet: McCain acknowledges he's the oldest candidate on the stage, "but I am also the most prepared.... I know how the military works."
Hunter retorts, "John's not the only guy with a defense background," citing his experience on the House Armed Services Committee. The California congressman is the first to go beyond the Middle East in talking about security, citing North Korea and China in particular.
8:30. Should Roe v. Wade be repealed? Giuliani, whose record is pro-choice, says yes, so long as "a strict-constructionist judge" is behind that decision. Interesting answer, and we'll have to revisit it later. Gilmore says he still believes women should have the right to terminate a pregnancy in the first 8-12 months, and adds that his views "have never changed my entire time in public life" -- an indirect jab at Romney.
Thompson sticks by his federalist position, which is to leave the decision up to the states.
8:23. A nod to The Governator: Would the candidates consider amending the Constitution so Americans born outside of the United States, like Schwarzenegger, could be president?
Romney, Brownback, Gilmore, Hunter, Thompson, Paul and Tancredo say no; Huckabee and Giuliani say yes; McCain says he would "seriously consider it."
8:17. Toughest question so far involves Israel and goes to Tancredo. If the Israeli prime minister said his country was about to bomb Iran and asked for America's help, there are "conditions under which we would say yes," but, Tancredo suggests, the answer would be yes.
Giuliani is asked a variation of that question, and gives a puzzling, Reagan-centric response: A person like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "has to look at an American president and see Ronald Reagan." And then he implies that during the Iranian hostage crisis, the Iranians were moved to release the hostages after looking into Reagan's eyes.
8:14. Paul is asked why everyone else on that stage is wrong in their support of the war. "We should have a foreign policy of non-intervention, the traditional American, Republican foreign policy." As high as opposition to the war in Iraq may be, isolationism is probably a hard sell in the post-9/11 world.
8:08. The first topic is Iraq. McCain says that now the war "is on the right track" and that the new strategy in Baghdad "can succeed," lashing out at Democrats who fronted the vetoed supplemental along the way. He's worked up and starts to stumble over his words.
Thompson, on the other hand, has clearly been waiting for this shot, and lays out almost without a breath a three-prong strategy that comprises: staying in Iraq only at the Iraqis' request, dividing Iraq into 18 state-like territories, and divvying up oil revenues.
8:02. The order, from left to right: Romney, Brownback, Gilmore, Huckabee, Hunter, Thompson, McCain, Paul, Giuliani, Tancredo. Moderator Chris Matthews introduces the candidates in full, titles and all. Everyone's reminded that the highest office Giuliani has ever held is mayor.
7:56. Not sure why the debate organizers decided to bring the candidates out more than 10 minutes before air time. After standing at their respective podiums and looking around awkwardly, the candidates decide to mingle. Looks like a really awkward cocktail party. Will refrain from making a joke about the Washington social scene.
7:48. Nancy Reagan walked in on the arm of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a few minutes ago to a standing ovation. The candidates have just taken the stage to more polite applause, and it's a viewer's nightmare -- to see the entire stage the camera has to pan way back, and unlike the Democratic field, there's no racial or gender diversity to provide clues as to who's standing next to whom.
7:45. Welcome to The Gate's liveblog coverage of the first Republican candidates debate. Last week's meeting of the Democratic field may have put some viewers to sleep, but don't expect that level of civility tonight: the GOP field has been less shy about attacking their own, in part because, with the party's popularity so low, they have less to lose by going on offense.
That's not to say we can expect a nationally televised dogfight. The candidates are at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., at the invitation of former first lady and conservative royalty Nancy Reagan, who will be seated in the front row. President Bush's unpopularity and the GOP's losses last November have sparked an existential crisis within the party, to which many of these candidates have responded by chasing the ghost of the nation's 40th president.
That 10 candidates will be sharing the stage all but precludes a dialogue with any real heft. The format will be good for the candidates who are ahead and can't risk mistakes -- Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney -- and not so good for the lesser-knowns who've been relegated to the sidelines of campaign media coverage -- Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Jim Gilmore and Tommy Thompson. At the same time, with a shorter height from which to fall, those seven contenders can take risks, in the form of directly attacking their rivals along with the White House.
Showtime starts at 8 p.m. EDT. MSNBC is airing the forum; check their Web site for streaming video.
Posted at 7:45 PM
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John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson
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