Romney’s Smashing Success
January 7, 2008
Mitt Romney picked a great time to come up with a solid homerun debate performance. Billed as a “Presidential Forum”, Romney looked presidential and pretty much commanded the roundtable without coming across as petty and vindictive. This is called "coming through at crunch time."
It’s a fine line to criticize your opponents without sounding negative but Romney was able to accomplish that Sunday night. How? Well, he made his points and then just moved on. He didn’t really get into it with McCain or Huckabee. Of course, McCain and Huckabee gave Romney a free pass most of the night. They really didn’t go after him at all. McCain must have taken his “play nice” pill and realized that there’s a danger of being too negative and casting Romney as the victim and himself as the antagonist. Huckabee seemed to be caught flat footed when Romney challenged him to answer a question on his tax record. Huckabee wouldn’t directly answer it multiple times which made him look shaky. Romney had accomplished his point.
Huckabee looked tired tonight. It wasn’t a bad performance but it wasn’t one of his best. He seemed content to let others dictate the conversation. It’s not like he didn’t have some excellent answers (like when he said he was ‘guilty as charged” for being a populist) but overall, the performance felt lackluster and Romney got to Huckabee early.
McCain had multiple chances to go after Romney but wouldn’t do it. I’m sure he’s thinking the safe play right now is to go “nice” and stay above the fray because he smells victory. No need to go negative. He’s done some damage to Romney already.
Giuliani continued to harp on the same themes he’s been discussing for months at these debates. He has a way of always bringing the focus back to his record of Mayor of New York. It’s effective.
Fred Thompson came to the roundtable tonight with more conservative meat and potatoes. It’s interesting. Thompson was accused early on of being light on substance but actually has proven to have a lot more to offer than people give him credit for.
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