The Des Moines Register debate is re-airing on C-Span 2 at 8:00 PM CST. The post-game spin is already fluctuating wildly from disappointing-to Romney butters my biscuit- to Huckabee sucks, you see-to praise for Fred from the NRO crowd that just yesterday editorialized a la Silky that a President should be defined by his hair.

Maybe when the people who work for a living get a clear view of a debate inappropriately held during that mysterious time of day known as “during work hours” we can separate the fanboy wheat from Iowa’s chaff.

Opinions from people with no financial or future employment interests (be they through ads or otherwise) on behalf a particular candidate’s campaign.

Did Romney just stomp a mudhole in everybody’s ass or are the size of his rhetorical asskicking boots being greatly exaggerated?

After The Thrill Is Gone Update: Well, it was kind of a snoozer. Definitely not an episode of Crossfire. But while the moderator was cold and impersonal, I’ve seen worse.

Rudy fizzled and was uninspired. Romney was on point and has clearly been using flash cards to memorize his talking points so he gets a cookie. Thompson seemed more in his element. Hunter would make a good Vice President. Tancredo has improved from his stumbling origins but I’m afraid his ship has sailed. Paul and the suddenly present Alan Keyes duked it it out for the coveted title of “who’s wasting everybody’s time the most”.

Keyes won that battle by the way.

Huckabee’s little bon mots of “I wanna deploy a Weapons of Mass Instruction”, “red sea/red tape”, and other folksy Dan Ratherisms sounded rehearsed and flat.

McCain didn’t suck as bad as he usually does. He sounded like a grown-up for once.  With the notable exception of his Pascal’s Wager remark on “global warming”.

Anybody claiming a clear cut winner out of this Q & A session is in the bag. The so-called leading lights of these debates, anointed by those on high, weren’t playing to win. They were playing not to lose.

Foreign policy was all but ignored. Let’s have a conservative debate hosted by conservatives for conservatives instead of Republican debates hosted by the liberals for the Democrats.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.