Fox News Roundtable Live Blogging (Lots and Lots of Updates)

Fox News is holding a roundtable for the Republican candidates. I don’t think there’ll be one for the Democrats. They’re afeared of the Fox. I figured that I didn’t blog much during the debates last night, so why not live-blog tonight?

It looks like Chris Wallace is going the route that Charles Gibson went last night. Gibson was fantastic and the format was the best I’ve seen in a debate in my adult life. This should be informative.

Oh, and no Ron Paul. Thank goodness! Considering that he got shut out in the only election so far that’s chosen delegates, even though he campaigned quite a bit there, it’s a good decision.

Updates come after the jump, most recent ones at the top. Feel free to comment as the spirit moves you!

Others blogging were:

Power Line, who calls it for Romney, which McCain and Giuliani tied for second.

Mary Katharine Ham says that Fred won, but she’s giving the blue ribbon to Romney, who needed the win more. Her estimate: “This is the first time I’ve thought, maybe ever, that there’s a glimmer of hope for Romney in a general.” Yeah. He needed to do that.

Michelle Malkin liveblogged the whole thing. She calls the debate for Romney, on the focus group reaction, and is obviously not a Thompson fan. To read her account, he was barely there, which I think isn’t a fair summary of what happened. He may not light her world on fire, but he showed up plenty tonight.

Video clips from Hot Air, as always.

Gateway Pundit didn’t score the forum for anyone, but he did hit the high points very well.

Dan Riehl gave the debate to Romney, not on points, but on overall “he did just what he needed to do”.

Sean Hackbarth gives you the Fred-centric view of the forum. There are plenty of good comments about the other candidates’ performance, though.

The Foxperts Speak!:

Fred Barnes is so in the bag for McCain that he can’t see the way out. And he doesn’t like Fred Thompson at all. It’s hard to take anything he says seriously.

Nine Easton is really pretty and gives good, solid analysis. Her point about Giuliani’s body language during the debate was very insightful (basically, he was barely hanging on to the table, much less the election).

Bill Kristol: Nice of him to defend Thompson, with humor, against Fred Barnes. He’s right that the candidates had a good night, except for Huckabee. He missed that one.

Mot Kondrake: No one’s out of it at this point because the race is so tight. Everyone did well tonight . He says that “on the merits” that Huckabee is the only one that recognizes that the middle class isn’t happy with the economy. For some odd reason, he’s saying that the Republicans will have to stop supporting tax cuts and the free market. When reminded by Britt Hume that this is a Republican debate, he said, “I don’t care”. What?

Back to Luntz: They all gave Romney a lot of love with their Dials of Approval. He says that Romney “hit a home run tonight”. I’m inclined to agree.

Initial Reactions: I like this debate format. I think every debate we have in the future should be just like this. Wallace was more intrusive as a moderator than Gibson last night. He could rein it in a bit.

So, who won? Romney. No question. For months, Romney’s supporters have told us how smart and confident and grounded he is. I haven’t seen that until tonight. To this point he’s been all steak and little sizzle. Tonight, we saw plenty of sizzle.

Thompson and Giuliani did well also. I think they improved their positions markedly (but more on Thompson in a bit). They were combative but polite, substantive and on point. There was little rambling from either of them, even though it did take them a while to get to a point on one major question each.

McCain looked, quite honestly, like an ass when he went at other candidates. Aside from that, he was better than he was last night.

Huckabee was simply horrible. I think we just saw the beginning of his campaign’s unraveling. He demonstrated tonight that he doesn’t know much at all about anything beyond the borders of Arkansas and he’s wholly unsuitable to be a Commander-in-Chief.

Man, the focus group really hated Thompson. I ‘m a Fred guy, but I don’t see it. They hit him for his speaking style and for not giving details. I heard plenty of details. Maybe they were paying too much attention to style more than substance. That could be a serious problem for Thompson later in the campaign. That or New Hampshire voters are just unserious. I’m willing to believe the latter. I’ve never been impressed with New Hampshire’s ability to get it right when it comes to Republican nominees. If I was Fred, I’d listen to what they had to say, but I wouldn’t give it quite as much credence as Luntz did.

9:29 – Last question: why would you be the best person at the table to be President?

Giuliani says that he did a very good job as Mayor of New York. He’ll do a good job as President. It’s a bit technical and less inspirational. Grade: B+

Thompson says he knows how to win an election, he’s the right man in the right place to do the job, and he wants to deliver America to the next general in a better condition than when he got it. It’s low-key and confident. Grade: A-

Huckabee says that Americans are looking for practical answers. Too bad he didn’t give us man of them tonight. Grade: C

Romney says that he has a vision for America and it’s a vision where conservative ideals, with him at the lead, can make America the great nation it’s always been. Grade: B

McCain says that he has the experience and the resolve to do what must be done. Grade: B-

9:21 – Romney on his “flip-flopping” ways. He’d rather have someone admit that they were wrong and change their mind than stubbornly hold to the wrong answer. That was a magnificently strong answer. It doesn’t entirely get him off the hook, but it goes a long way.

9:19 – FRED!!

Somebody mentioned Chuck Norris (Romney, I think, in a joking way). Huckabee joked back that he was right outside. And Fred said, “If John Wayne was here, I’d have him beat him up”.

Damn straight.

Come on, Fed. Get in there on campaign finance. Get in there!

9:15 – Attack Ad O’Rama! I’ve never liked these kind of ads. I’m not opposed to attack ads, but I hate the general style of ads like that. There are clever ways to attack an opponents’ record. Those kind of ads are just tiresome.

Hmmm….you know, a shrewd candidate would move from attack ads to McCain’s campaign finance law. If Fred came out right now and said that he was wrong to support McCain/Feingold and that it’s wrong to stifle our First Amendment rights, he’d win the whole debate in one fell swoop. It’d be the lead story tomorrow, I think. Will he? Tonight’s the night to do it, what with his bing under the influence of the Giant Truth Pill I think he took tonight.

What in the world is this “vertical leadership” thing that Huckabee is talking about? He’s mentioned it three times that I’ve heard and I still don’t understand what the heck he’s talking about.

Oh yeah, the guys are saying that attack ads aren’t great.

9:12 – Commercial break Numero Dos. The leaders shuffled a bit, I think. Romney pushed a bit farther ahead and Fred and Rudy edged up ahead of McCain, who looked a lot weaker than he probably should have. Huckabee’s in serious trouble. His flaws are really on display tonight.

8:57 – Immigration now. Hold on to your hats. We might see some fisticuffs. That’d be cool (he says briefly channeling Beavis and Butthead).

John McCain just wallpapered over how hard he fought against border security in his amnesty bill. Sorry, Senator. Niggle over legal precision all you want, but you bill – every incarnation – was amnesty.

Romney is a lot stronger tonight on this than he was last night. I think he huddled with some folks in his campaign to polish things really nicely.

McCain wants to “get beyond this”. I bet he does. It’s his weakest point so far.

McCain: “Many will be deported, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it”. Senator, most folks think that deporting people who break the law isn’t unfortunate. It’s a just penalty for what they did.

It’s a two-man subject so far.

Fumble! Huckabee just got asked a tough question about deporting children and Huckabee got really defensive and ran to the teacher…err…moderator…because the mean man with the nice hair was picking on him.

Huck on the hypothetical high-schooler whose family will get deported because they’re here in violation of the law: “I guess his family can leave him there, if he’s a senior in high school”. Okay, that was a simply stupid answer. He then turns it around by talking about how even Ronald Reagan can make a mistake (points for that. At least he brought it up). Again, Huckabee gave an answer that was a mile wide and an inch deep.

Giuliani: I couldn’t possibly deport every illegal immigrant I had in New York. So I treated them humanely. If there’s a point to be made about what to do with the illegals, Giuliani’s sneaking up on it now.

Thompson just threw Huckabee into the “man, they stink on illegal immigration” pile, rightfully so. Wow his answer is strong. Yeah, we should consider humane ways of treating illegal immigrants here but we should also consider what our generosity says to others who will risk life and limb to get here. Yes, we should.

And he hits the Mexican government a good lick, too. Fred must have taken a big ol’ Honest pill tonight. He hasn’t whiffed on a question yet.

8:46 – Wallace pounds Huckabee on his woeful foreign policy knowledge by way of asking a question. Short Wallace: “Governor, since you apparently don’t know beans about what’s going on in the world, are you ready to be President?”

Short Huckabee: “I’ve traveled a lot. I’m an executive. I got elected Governor of Arkansas!”

Umm…Governor…last I checked, Arkansas doesn’t have much of a foreign policy presence. Another weak answer from Huck. He’s having a bad night so far.

Short Giuliani: “I’m an anti-terrorist God Among Men!”.

His answer is detailed and pretty darned strong. Talking about how he rebuffed folks like Arafat and Khadaffi and the Saudi Prince’s money is perfectly pitched.

Thompson sticks a boot up Romney and reminds everyone that it’s not about what countries you’ve visited. It’s about what you will do. Then he puts his other boot up Huckabee.

And another boot to Romney.

Man, Fred is hot tonight.

Huckabee says there’s no difference whether we keep terrorists at Guantanimo or Leavenworth. Wait…what? Heck yes there’s a difference. One of them isn’t smack in the middle of the United States.

Thompson sets him straight on why it’s important that the terrorists are held where they’re held. He just made Huckabee look absolutely clueless.

8:42 – Romney vs McCain. Shorter Romney: “Hey, America. There’s a reason you don’t elect Senators to be President”. Even Shorter Romney: “Hey, McCain. How’d you like a sharp stick in the ego?”

I’m kind of tired of hearing the word “executive” from Romney. We get it, man.

Short McCain: “Some governors suck, really hard. Not Reagan, though.”. Shorter McCain: “I’ll see your sharp stick and raise you a kick to the hair”.

Says Mark Hemingway (quoting G.K. Chesterton), “The Reformer is always right about what’s wrong. He is generally wrong about what’s right.” More liveblogging going on at The Corner.

8:37 – First commercial. Right now, everybody but Huckabee is really strong tonight. I think that Romney and McCain are leading the pack but Thompson and Giuliani are not very far behind. In fact, I think this is the best I’ve seen the latter two in any debate so far. Should make for an interesting next segment.

8:35 – Thompson just clubbed the whole “change” thing really hard. Nice move. And he basically said what I just said in the last update.

Giuliani follow up Fred’s point with pretty much the same and – Thank You! – hitting the Democrats on their changes, which would be bad.

8:33 – McCain brings his military experience to bolster his leadership credentials. Look, can we just admit that everyone on the stage has strong enough leadership chops for the Oval Office? It’s not enough to be a leader. You have to be the sort of leader that can actually explain why people need to follow you using the brutal truth.

8:31 – Romney: “Washington is fundamentally broken…needs fundamental change”. He’s the guy to do it because he’s been successful in the private sector. Ooookay. So did Ross Perot. So what?

Really. Can we stop bowing at the altar of change? It’s really annoying.

8:29 – Another change question: McCain vs Romney.

McCain says he’s an Agent of Change. It kind of sounds he should be on a 60s spy show?

He’s pretty much taking sole credit for the surge in Iraq. I think he was a big reason for it, but it doesn’t seem fair for him to take as much credit as he has.

Uh oh. He opened the door to the campaign finance reform debacle. I wonder if anyone is going to go after him on it?

8:27 – Thompson v Huckabee on the Fair Tax. Thompson basically says that it’s worth making the changes we can make instead of the ones that we’ll never see in our lifetime. There are great changes we can make. Fred essentially called Huckabee’s Fair Tax proposal unrealistic. I think he’s right.

8:25 – Giuliani’s bringing his experience to the front again, with numbers. That really is a strong point in his favor and he has to keep hitting it over and over again.

That’s also the second question where a candidate has said that one of the Republicans’ biggest problem is that they simply don’t explain their positions very well at all to the people who most need to know how conservative policies can help them more than what the liberals offer. That’s a great point and Giuliani makes it powerfully and reasonably.

8:21 – On the “change” issue. Can I say I hate “change” as a motto? It not enough that you want “change”. you have to propose change that’s actually for the better. Change, as a campaign mantra, is like a Pixie Stick. It tastes great and revs you up for a while, but it’s all empty calories.

Hmmm….Huckabee wants to get rid of corporate taxes, personal income taxes, and death.

Thompson: “You want to get rid of death?”

Heh. Funny, funny man. Huck meant the death tax, but it was a shrewd move for Thompson to throw out a gentle joke and put Huckabee off his rhythm.

Huckabee: “I don’t want to tax rich people and make them poor. I want to make them richer!”

How?

8:20 – Shorter McCain responding to Thompson: “Yeah! Me, too!”

8:16 – Fred! The question is a bit aggressive and he gets aggressive in turn. That’s good stuff – pugnacious but not nasty. He’s firm and sensible on Social Security.

Wallace: “What do you do when the Democrats say ‘no’?”

Fred!: “You fight ‘em!”

Beautiful. Finally, an answer that shows a little spirit without trying to tear the throat out of another guy at the table. He chides the others (and our current President) for not being bold about defending conservative policies.

Romney goes for the chop-block with a little “modest American” talk. Thompson corrects him.

8:13 – Now a little Giuliani on taxes. Did you fluff your record? Answer: No, with actual numbers. That’s the answer Huckabee should have given. That he didn’t says to me that he couldn’t.

He wants to reduce the corporate taxes. That’s going to set him and Huckabee at odds, I think.

8:11 – Romney flicks out the switchblade and goes for the jugular on Huckabee’s tax increases. Huckabee won’t give a straight answer. Probably because his straight answer makes his last answer look a bit exaggerated.

8:09 – Huckabee’s running his “I’m a tax cutting fool!” resume for the bazillionth time. I’ve heard it before and I’m not entirely sure I buy it. Nothing I’ve seen from Huckabee’s record has shown that keeping taxes as low as possible is a big priority for him. He seems a lot more interested in, as he said “Mak[ing] government work”.

8:06 – John McCain just answered a question about voting against the economy-revving Bush tax cuts by talking about…cutting spending. In fairness, it’s a good point. Spending is just crazy ridiculous. But it wasn’t an answer to the question and Chris Wallace let him off the hook

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Category: The 2008 Horse Race