Here's a brief recap and some thoughts on the GOP Debate at The Reagan Library.
First of all, I was really offended that a lunatic liberal station like MSNBC got to televise and supervise this event at The Reagan Library. I know that the different networks get to host a debate in the interest of fairness, but when they drew up the plan for this one, someone should have objected.
The Reagan Library, due to its political connections, was filled with Conservatives who wanted to hear their favorites speak. They weren't interested in the attempted attacks by the liberal moderators. The very first question out of the box was some nitwit MSNBC host basically asking Governor Perry..
"Governor, why is Texas so terrible..?
Things didn't improve from there, either.
The liberals, in a panic over the surge of Governor Perry in the polls, tried to take him apart, asking him question after question. They tried to get Mitt Romney into the fight and tried to provoke him into attacking Rick Perry. For the most part, Mitt Romney stayed above the fray. His answers were smooth and he appeared professional, even Presidential.
It bothers me to say this, because I don't like Mitt Romney, but I feel he won the debate. He fended off attacks and countered with strong commentary on Barack Obama that didn't veer off into controversial territory. He looked the most Presidential.
Governor Perry, my personal choice, did reasonably well in his first debate as a 2012 candidate. He seemed calm and confident and seemed humored by the lines of attack. He didn't lose his cool much and gave some solid comments. But he did appear to stumble a little at times. But he did nothing to hurt his front-runnner status. The media is making a big deal out of his "Ponzi Scheme" comments about Social Security, but I think in the long run, that comment won't amount to much.
The person who really got screwed in this event was Michele Bachmann. I was watching the time and keeping track and they often went 15-20 minutes without asking her a question. This is how the liberals at MSNBC planned to derail her campaign...shove her to the sidelines and then pronounce her candidacy as dead. It was an evil little trick by them, and I'm not happy about it. MSNBC basically ignored most of the other candidates and made it a two man show by directing their comments to Perry and Romney all night.
Newt Gingrich had a wonderful moment where he lashed out a the moderators for trying to stir up a fight between the candidates. Newt showed his usual flashes of brilliance, but his social baggage will keep him out of the White House.
I was following my Twitter feed as much as the debate, and many of my fellow Conservatives were noticing the same things: The illogically slanted questions by the media, the obvious favoritism towards Romney and Perry, and the strange lack of questions for Bachmann. They also noticed that MSNBC seemed to oddly be promoting the candidacy of Jon Huntsmann. I guess he's the type of Republican they like.
One of my favorite comments was from the Twitter feed when someone called Ron Paul "Congressman Magneto" after he went off on a little rant about "sexual activities" of the TSA agents at the airports. Even the moderator took a swipe at that one, saying "Good luck at LAX tonight".
Cain, Santorum, and Huntsmann did little to help their cause. They are probably out after the first few primaries.
I don't think the race is down to Romney vs. Perry yet. I think Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Sarah Palin all could possibly jump into the race late and have a large impact on the outcome.
