August 06, 2007
The Obama Republican Iowa Debate
Shortly after yesterday's Republican presidential candidates debate in Iowa kicked off, this Gater found herself applauding. Was it for Mitt Romney? Tom Tancredo? Ron Paul?
None of the above. The Gate was clapping for ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, who dug out a few of those negative campaign tactics voters so despise and forced offending candidates to explain themselves.
First on the dock: Sam Brownback, a hero of pro-life conservatives who can't seem to get a leg up in the crowded race for the GOP nod. In an effort to claw upward in the polls, he's zeroed in on Romney, who's positioned himself as the only true social conservative in the upper tier of candidates. Stephanopoulos played Brownback's campaign robo-call to Iowans attacking Romney for his prior pro-choice stance.
Awk-ward.
Romney's response: "Virtually nothing in that ad is true." Actually, except for the part about him currently not being pro-life, most of it is true, which is the problem conservatives like Brownback have with the former Massachusetts governor. But Romney recovered nicely, taking a knife hand to Brownback's long-shot candidacy -- "desperate" -- and finally winning the argument with this rather salient point: "I get tired of people that are holier than thou because they've been pro-life longer than I have."
(Can all the debates be like this from now on?)
Unlike the Democratic candidates, who agree on most issues, there are some real differences in the GOP field. Too bad Americans in general have soured on the Republican Party and that Republican voters in particular are yawning at their own candidates.
A new ABC News poll [PDF] of Republican Iowans shows Romney with a substantial lead over the rest of the field. But a closer look at the numbers reveals his support to be quite soft. And Romney shouldn't count his chickens yet; with a tiny sample size (402) and a big margin of error (5 points), even candidates 10 or so points below his 26 points could be well within striking distance. That's saying something, considering how hard Romney has campaigned in Iowa while John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have declined to even participate in the Ames straw poll.
Another big unknown here is Fred Thompson, whose name will appear on the Ames straw poll ballot even though he isn't officially a candidate. The 13 percent of respondents who picked the "Law & Order" star clearly are unsatisfied with their official choices. Take Thompson completely off the table, and where do those voters go? Our guess is either to McCain, the candidate seen as best on Iraq, or Giuliani, who is seen as the strongest leader. Romney trails closely in the latter department, but voters hankering for Thompson because of his social conservatism have probably taken a look at Romney already and just said no.
The Republican candidates -- and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- also received a Christmas-in-August gift, courtesy of Barack Obama. The clip has been played to death, but in case you missed it, the Illinois freshman said last week, in reference to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border: "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President [Pervez] Musharraf will not act, we will."
That somewhat bald attempt to recover from a slip-up in the last Democratic debate wasn't well received, and Republicans yesterday pounced on their potential general-election rival.
It seems most of the candidates would reserve the right to unilaterally attack al-Qaida within Pakistan, but none of them would say so aloud. McCain dismissed Obama's remark as "naive," and Romney got off a zinger: "He's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week."
Not surprisingly, no one mentioned that the Bush administration missed a shot at al-Qaida chieftains hiding in Pakistan in 2005, for which the intelligence community is now kicking itself.
Back to McCain. The immigration debate threatened to be one of many factors sinking his shot at the nomination, but now that it's died down, his campaign may have more room to breathe. It helps that Tancredo, a diehard on illegal immigration, scared the bejeezus out of everyone when he said, not for the first time, that the U.S. should threaten to bomb the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina in order to deter future terrorist attacks.
It also helps that military progress is being made on the ground in Iraq. Most Republicans acknowledge that political failures are the real bugbear there, but McCain happily cited the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack (subscription), who are calling for a sustained military effort through 2008.
It's way too early to pronounce McCain's campaign DOA. A promising report on progress in Iraq could certainly boost his shot at the nomination -- Iowa caucuses notwithstanding.
The Caucus liveblogged yesterday's debate, National Review posted immediate analysis, and Town Hall has a frighteningly comprehensive wrap-up of postmortems.
Graphics: Reuben Dalke
Posted at 5:51 PM
Posted to:
Asia, Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Campaigns, Democrats, Fred Thompson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Iraq, John McCain, Middle East, Mitt Romney, Pakistan, Republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, WH 2008
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