Mitt Romney couldn’t have scripted an easier debate for himself.
The Republican presidential frontrunner came into the debate looking strong and emerged from it stronger, as his opponents repeatedly passed up opportunities to go on the attack – and even inflicted damage on themselves as they tried to avoid confrontation.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty struggled early, tying himself in rhetorical knots in an attempt to avoid repeating his weekend attack on Romney and the national health care law he called “Obamneycare.”
Asked by CNN’s John King why he tried to pin Romney with the blame for President Barack Obama’s health reforms, Pawlenty backtracked and stumbled repeatedly.
“In order to prosecute the case against President Obama, you’ve got to be able to show you’ve got a different and better plan” for health care, he dodged.
King persisted, asking Pawlenty why his rhetoric had changed between Sunday morning – when he made the “Obamneycare” comment on Fox News – and Monday night.
“I just cited President Obama’s own words that he looked to Massachusetts as a blueprint,” Pawlenty said. “Using the term ‘Obamneycare’ was a reflection of the president’s comments.”
Pawlenty’s odd reversal, distancing himself from his own attack line, set the tone for the evening. No other candidate attempted to go on the offensive against Romney. Despite repeated mentions of the national health care law, there was no attempt to make Romney squirm over the Massachusetts reforms that are supposed to be his biggest political liability.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, too, passed on a chance to come out shooting at Romney.
If health care is the frontrunner’s biggest vulnerability, his second is likely credibility on social issues: Romney has repeatedly changed positions on abortion throughout his political career.
Santorum, who made his political reputation as a social conservative stalwart, was asked point-blank whether he believed Romney’s conversion – to an anti-abortion position – was authentic. He dodged.
“I think an issue should be, in looking at any candidate, looking at the authenticity of any candidate,” Santorum said, alluding to his 2006 election defeat by claiming: “Not only have I been consistently pro-life … I’ve taken the bullets.”
Romney’s opponents will have to draw much more explicit and aggressive contrasts with the former Massachusetts governor if they hope to arrest his momentum in the 2012 campaign.
For months, Romney has led polling in all the early presidential states and a pair of national surveys released Monday morning confirmed his status as the GOP favorite – albeit not a particularly secure one.
Romney’s core vulnerabilities are still formidable challenges he’ll have to overcome. He didn’t attempt Monday night to explain his flip-flops on abortion. He didn’t have to give a strong defense of the individual health insurance mandate, by far the most politically incendiary component of Massachusetts health care reform.
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5 Responses
I did not see the debate. If the report above is substantially accurate, it seems that the candidates for the Republican party’s nomination have recognized that Mr. Romney is their best chance of defeating President Obama and are taking pains not to hurt his chances in the campaign against the President. Of course, it is early in the campaign, and I expect that some candidates will, when they find the “high road” getting them no where, take the alternative low roads.
As a liberal who would like to see a sensible debate addressing genuine solutions to America’s long-term problems – e.g., health care cost control, financial opportunity and security for the middle class, and federal long-term structural budget deficits and the related federal governmental debt – I would expect that Mr. Romney is the only Republican candidate who can – if he wants to – address the issues with a minimum of sloganeering and unfounded, fanciful, Republican ideology.
Perhaps I am unduly optimistic. Since President Obama’s election, the Republican focus, as declared by Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has been to deny the president a second term. That is hardly a governing policy. Congressional Republicans have opposed health care reform; have opposed tax increases notwithstanding (i) their nominal objections to federal budget deficits and (ii) the fact that US federal tax collections as a percentage of gross domestic product are at historical lows; have resisted financial reform notwithstanding the financial crisis inflicted on the American economy by inadequately regulated banks and other financial institutions; and have resisted economically stimulative fiscal policies, i.e., federal spending, including relief for the unemployed and state governments in dire financial straits, which is needed to strengthen the anemic level of economic growth since the collapse of 2008.
That is a sorry record for any Republican candidate to run on. Given the weakness of the economy, the next presidential election should be difficult for the incumbent and easy for the opposition. But the incumbent president is a capable campaigner and an excellent communicator, and I expect that he will be able to explain to a majority of the electorate why the country needs him and not the unfounded, unworkable, disproven fairy-tale idealogy of the Republican party.
“Shkoyach” nfgo3 (#1)…well said
Those weren’t the Republican Presidential candidates at the debate last night. It was the airev rav.
#1 and #2,
I agree. The Republican Leadership has already decided that Romney will be the 2012 nominee. Romney will be an easy target for Obama because of his constant flip-flops throughout his political career and because of his history as a job-destroying corporate takeover artist prior to his entry into politics. Obama will win easily.
But Romney won’t be an embarrassment and the lack of a wingnut at the top of the ticket may enable the Republicans to retake the Senate. This may be their strategy.
No. 4: I hope you are right. I disagree with you on one point: the lack of a wingnut at the top of the Republican ticket may depress Republican turnout from the wingnut wing of the party, which I believe would weaken rather than increase Republicans’ chances of getting control of the Senate.
The Republicans in 2011 have clearly demonstrated that if President Obama is reelected, their only interest in participating in government will be to block every Democratic effort to address the country’s long-range problems. That would mean 4 more years of stagnation, but a Republican in the White House would mean 4 years of Republican assaults on Medicare, Social Security, and middle class pocketbooks. But a Republican in the White House would solve the deficit problem, because when a Republican is in the White House, deficits don’t matter.