Blogging the GOP debate. This was interesting -- big cheers for diametrically opposed positions on Iraq.

I thought McCain presented himself well, but he's damaged goods. Romney seems to me a non-starter. Rudy did well on the question about his personal life, saying he's not perfect and he gets the job done no matter what's going on at home. Huckabee is an amiable possible cabinet secretary. Of the why-are-they-still-here crew, Brownback (with whom I disagree about everything) struck me as likable and sincere, Ron Paul as the broken clock (right twice a day), and Tancredo and Hunter as Democratic campaign advertisements.

Fred Thompson is not facing an awesome lineup here, but we don't really know yet how he'll do in prime time.

UPDATE: More here.

Comments

[Bubba]

Ron Paul appears to be getting the reputation as the Republican Dennis Kucinich.

That's not necessarily a bad thing overall, but not the type of reputation you want your presidential nominee to have.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

I don't understand the knocks on Rudy. He's an icon of the 1980s as a tough federal prosecutor, successful mayor of the nation's largest city, and a positive icon from one of the darkest days in our history.

I don't understand this talk of Fred Thompson as a serious candidate. Rudy's record and experience should trump Thompson's minimal star power.

When I think of Giuliani, I think of him first as an agent of the federal government taking out the mob and and corporate bilkers.

[Fec Stench]

I don't watch Leno. The most interesting part of last night came much later when Craig Ferguson and Drew Carey held their reunion.

[TarGator]

What is difficult to understand about the knocks on Rudy. Two messy divorces (one to a cousin), moving a mistress into the governor's mansion, self agrandizing, uses deaths of people on 9-11 to boost political career, has kids who do not speak to him and publicly support other candidates, and is widely remarked as a dictatorial type leader. That sounds like a great presidential candidate (at least for the Democrats, as they will surely pound him).

[Ed Cone]

Rudy's not running for attorney general, he's running for president. His record as mayor was good, although he was not popular by the end. And the 9/11 stuff is tricky -- he was resolute at that moment, but scrutiny of his record before and after yields at best a mixed review.

The knocks on him from some portions of the GOP base might include his tumultuous personal life (couched last night as a question of "family values," a phrase that makes me gag in that context), and his support for gay rights and abortion rights.

A different audience might knock him for a foreign policy that seems naive and Bushlike, and for a personal style that can be abrasive over time.

He did pretty well in the debate, and he's emerged as a contender, but there are knocks on him aplenty (as there are on almost anyone).

[Andy Vance]

I think of him first as an agent of the federal government taking out the mob and and corporate bilkers

Yes, he takes them to Le Bernardin on 51st St.

[David Wharton]

Ronald Reagan also was divorced, had children from his first marriage who despised him and his political views, had only tenuous links to the religious right, with idiosyncratic and vague religious views, and was widely considered to be "an amiable dunce" (so Clark Clifford) and an ideological nut, with a mixed record as governor of California, his only previous political experience being the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild.

Yet he twice trounced weak Democratic opponents and became the most consequential president of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Don't count Rudy out.

[Jeffrey Sykes]

I know Rudy's not perfect, but he should easily be the GOP front runner in such a weak field. I'm a GOP lifer. I can see right through Romney and have no interest in him. I see Thompson as a bad joke.

No matter who wins the GOP nomination, I'm predicting a Democrat named Obama wins the 2008 election. And I'll vote for him gladly. Rudy v. Hillary reminds me of Dole-Clinton '96, no real choice for change or progress.

Obama v. Clinton nomination fight is the reverse of Lincoln v. Seward in 1860. Known NY power versus rampant midwestern idealism and swagger.

Anyway, this threads about Republicans, and they all fall way short of Rudy.

Obama v. Giuliani will be one hell of a campaign.

[Ed Cone]

Interesting parallels. Worth noting: Rudy lacks Reagan's likability, the relative power within the primary process of religious conservatives may be greater today, the ineffectual president he hopes to follow is a member of his own party, and the conservative movement ascending then is tiring now. But I don't see people counting him out yet, just handicapping the odds.

[Bubba]

"Don't count Rudy out."

Sssssshhhhhh!

Let 'em sleep.....

[Bubba]

"Obama v. Giuliani will be one hell of a campaign."

I realize it's a year to the convention, but it's becoming more clear as time passes that something dramatic has to happen to make Obama the nominee.

[Russ]

Having lived in NYC while Rudy was mayor, I can tell you that he came across as a cold, sarcastic ***hole in New York, so I can't imagine the rest of the country is going to like him personally. I don't think his personality is going to win a lot of hearts once the serious campaigning starts. He was a good presecutor, but a very mediocre mayor who was willing to take credit for anything positive that happened in the City.

I don't think he has much going for him but very weak opposition.

[Dave Dobson]

Reagan the most consequential president of the 2nd half of the 20th century? I'd put Truman way above him for ending WWII and implementing the Marshall plan, although technically those began in the late 1940's.

I'd put Eisenhower, Johnson (for civil rights and other social programs, and for Vietnam - consequences don't have to be good), and Kennedy (Cuban Missile Crisis) up there too.

The only way you could give Reagan this title is if you give him single-handed credit for ending the Cold War, which Republicans always do, but which is ridiculous - the general thrust of his policies continued the work of all of the post-WWII aministrations, and the USSR's collapse was largely of its own making.

[David Wharton]

DD, Gorbachev gives Reagan more credit for ending the arms race the the cold war than you do:

“I deem Ronald Reagan a great president, with whom the Soviet leadership was able to launch a very difficult but important dialogue,” the Interfax news agency quoted Gorbachev as saying on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Earlier Sunday, Gorbachev was quoted by Interfax as calling Reagan “a statesman who, despite all disagreements that existed between our countries at the time, displayed foresight and determination to meet our proposals halfway and change our relations for the better.”

Gorbachev listed Reagan’s accomplishments as helping to “stop the nuclear race, start scrapping nuclear weapons, and arrange normal relations between our countries,” he was quoted as saying.

“I do not know how other statesmen would have acted at that moment, because the situation was too difficult. Reagan, whom many considered extremely rightist, dared to make these steps, and this is his most important deed.”

You also left out Reagan's most lasting contribution, which was to lower marginal tax rates from the confiscatory ones (up to 70%) of the Carter years. No president since then has significantly changed them, and their effect on the way the American economy works has been profound.

If you want to argue that Johnson's Great Society is consequential because its consequence was that we found out, "wow, that didn't work out to well," be my guest. And the Vietnam War? We bumbled into and out of it. Why not mention Nixon in that regard?

The Marshall plan was not Truman's brainchild (it ain't the Truman plan); Reagan's economic and foreign policy ideas were his own, which he held to in the teeth of fierce opposition and sneering from the professional political classes.

Kennedy? Feh.

[Dave Dobson]

Gorbachev could hardly say something bad about Reagan right after he died (the quote is from right then), and the better Reagan looks to history, the better Gorbachev does.

Profound does not equal profoundly good - income inequality is far worse than at any time since the Gilded Age.

"Feh" is not a cohesive argument against Kennedy's legacy.

[David Wharton]

"Feh" is not a cohesive argument against Kennedy's legacy. True, because I don't think one is required.

I know we disagree on Reagan's legacy, DD, and that's ok with me. My point was really about the electability of Rudy.