It’s been slightly more than 24 hours since the two-hour CNN/You Tube GOP debate finally sputtered and wheezed to its conclusion (appropriately, with a silly question to Rudy Giuliani about why, as a fanatic Yankee fan, he rooted for the Red Sox in the World Series).
Conventional wisdom suggests that this flashy show with its quirky, often frivolous questions will have scant influence on the electoral outcomes in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and other early, crucial states in the nomination process. For two reasons, I suspect the conventional wisdom is wrong, and televised extravaganza could profoundly and immediately scramble the already confused contest for the Republican nomination.
First, no one can ignore the fact that this confrontation, whatever its insipidities and excesses, drew an unexpectedly huge viewing audience. Some five million people watched the Republican candidates go at each other with gusto and expertise -- 25% more than watched the Democrats in their biggest debate of the pre-primary season. The Republicans pulled more viewers than any other political debate in cable TV history. The press coverage and water cooler factor also brought some of the debate high lights (and low lights) to people who didn’t watch it live. The Iowa Caucuses are only one month and four days away, and there’s reason to believe that voters across the country have begun to concentrate on a wide open and fascinating race.
And it is wide open – more so than ever after Wednesday night. The second reason this particular debate will matter is that the putative front runner, Rudy Giuliani, delivered an unexpectedly clumsy and uncertain performance that should badly damage (if not shatter) the aura of invincibility and inevitably he had begun to construct around himself. Rudy is usually sharp and likeable in these debates, but this time he looked petty, immature, defensive and un-Presidential.
The first few minutes of the evening provided Rudy’s worst moments of the entire campaign so far, and if his opponents know what’s good for them they’ll come up with ways to remind people of the former mayor’s awkwardness. The first You Tube questioner asked Giuliani about charges that he had made New York a “sanctuary city” and asked if he planned to continue “aiding and abetting” illegal immigrants in “their flight into this country.”
Rudy gave a dry, legalistic response, trying to defend his record without ever communicating any real emotion or indignation about our porous borders. Mitt Romney then pounced, insisting that New York had indeed been a sanctuary city and slamming Rudy for declaring that “undocumented” were welcome in New York.
At this point, it began to look like a playground brawl involving fifth graders, taunting each other over meaningless trivia --- “your mother wears combat boots!”/ “oh yeah? So’s your old man!”—but, sadly, the exchange only got worse.
“It’s unfortunate,” Giuliani snarled, “but Mitt generally criticizes people in a situation in which he’s had by far the worst record….At his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed, not being turned in to anybody or by anyone. And then when he deputized the police, he did it two weeks before he was going to leave office, and they never even seemed to catch the illegal immigrants that were working at his mansion. So I would say he had a sanctuary mansion, not just a sanctuary city.”
No one listening to this childish cheap shot could fail to cringe--- especially those of us who admire Mayor Giuliani and want him to do well in this campaign.
Romney fought back with the altogether reasonable point that “if you hear someone that is working out there, not that you have employed, but that the company has. If you hear someone with a funny accent, you, as a homeowner, are you supposed to go out there and say, ‘I want to see your papers.’ Is that what you’re suggesting?” Rudy shot back that Mitt deserved the criticism because of his “holier than thou attitude” – perhaps some subtle reminder of his presumed vulnerability as a devout Mormon.
In any event, if Team Rudy wanted to slime Mitt Romney because some landscaping company that once worked at his home used to hire illegals (surely, the only landscaping company in the entire nation to ever employ the undocumented), then there were other ways to make the point. Why not let a surrogate, or a campaign spokesman, raise the issue with the press? Why make the Mayor himself look so unbelievably small and mean as to raise the charge to Romney’s face on national TV?
The result of the interchange was that the very beginning of the debate, when the biggest part of the audience was still watching, showed both front-runners looking undignified and nasty, like mean-spirited light-weights rather than inspiring leaders.
While our economy struggles to avoid recession, we face a looming entitlement meltdown, and millions of Islamo-Nazis still want to slaughter every one of us, the two top Republican candidates spent considerable time and energy in front of a huge TV audience trying to score points with each other regarding a crew of gardeners who worked on the Romney home several years ago.
How pathetic.
During the entire course of the debate, none of the candidates or questioners even mentioned the big Middle East Peace Conference that President Bush and Secretary Rice had just convened in Annapolis. Do the candidates think it was a good idea, or just another trap to force Israel into dangerous and unilateral concessions? The candidates surely have some thoughts on this matter (Rudy—who possesses dazzling expertise on the whole Middle East conflict – most surely does) but they never got to express them.
The result?
Any sense that the Republican struggle had come down to a two-man race between Rudy and Romney evaporated with their nasty spat. Throughout the evening, Huckabee and McCain and even, unexpectedly, Fred Thompson, looked more presidential, displayed more gravitas, than the two bickering front-runners. The Rasmussen Poll released before the debate already showed Huckabee moving into an Iowa lead and the televised smack-down will only add to his momentum. In New Hampshire, McCain was already in the hunt (running second or third in most polls) and some Giuliani supporters will shift toward him after the debate (because he spoke more passionately and substantively on the war than his rivals, and looked like a bigger man than Rudy). Some of the same independents who made McCain a Granite State winner in 2000 landslide might ultimately come back to him, so the Arizona Senator could make a credible run at Romney
In other words, the field remains wide-open, with none of the clarity or shape or predictability Republican operatives always crave. With most of the big states dividing their delegates (only New York and New Jersey among the early major delegations hand out their prizes as winner-take-all), four or even five candidates could grab major delegate hauls on Tsunami Tuesday, February Fifth.
My pal Hugh Hewitt claims that “a vote for Huck is a vote for Rudy,” but that’s like telling Democrats that a “vote for Edwards is a vote for Clinton,” on the theory that Obama’s the only one who could beat Hillary. In fact, all three Dems are bunched together in an Iowa dead heat, and the national polls will begin to show similar multi-candidate divisions on the GOP side (in several national polls, Huckabee’s already passed both McCain AND Romney, for third place after Rudy and Thompson. Since Giuliani and Fred both rely on name recognition rather than real enthusiasm for strong showings in these early polls, Huckabee’s rising stock looks particularly impressive)
At this point, if Edwards wins in Iowa among the Democrats (entirely possible) he’s an instant contender in a host of other states, and if Huckabee wins in Iowa he’ll also show unexpected strength in numerous other states.
Could Huckabee, plausibly, score the early knock-out that many pundits expect someone to win after the February 5th big state primaries?
No way, but then it looks like Rudy or Romney may also face a tough time closing the deal some six months before the convention.. The votes will remain divided, contradictory, making for an open field for months to come.
That’s good for the party in the long run, so even Rudy loyalists should take comfort after their guy’s disappointing performance.
And for those who believe that one debate can’t alter the direction of a campaign, just look at the Democrats: Hillary’s televised stumbling over driver’s licenses for illegals, her inability to answer direct questions, brought about an instant and drastic decline in the polls. She’s now fighting to maintain her front-runner status.
Rudy may also find his poll leads evaporating, until he can clean away the unpleasant taste he left behind after the confrontation in Florida. He should remember for the future: no talk of sanctuary cities, no sanctuary mansions, and no sanctuary for serious candidates from conducting themselves like applicants for the world’s most important job rather than hormone-addled adolescents.