The GOP debate: 7 takeaways

The GOP debate: 7 takeaways
By: Maggie Haberman
September 13, 2011 01:42 AM EDT

Last night's GOP debate wasn't a face-off, it was a pile-on.

The CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Tampa, Fla. -- the second in a string of five Republican meet-ups coming in rapid succession -- was an opportunity to gang up on Rick Perry and his onstage rivals took full advantage.

Here are seven takeaways from Monday's debate.


Mitt Romney came prepared

Romney is, plain and simple, a good debater. Whether that helps him with Republican voters remains to be seen, but he did not make any real mistakes, and he managed to land some blows on Rick Perry.

The former Massachusetts governor is fighting to at least remain the co-frontrunner with Perry, and he certainly delivered a spirited performance ­ jabbing at Perry, who stood at the podium next to him, throughout the two-hour event.

Romney lured Perry into a trap in their back-and-forth on Social Security and Perry's 'Ponzi scheme' characterization, reminding the Texas governor, when he said he wanted to have a "conversation" about the path forward, that they were having one right then and there.

While Romney still has a bit of fine-tuning to do on his answer on Massachusetts health care, his answer was passable on a topic that will never be winner for him. And he held his own on the questions about his jobs record, faring better than he did at the Reagan Presidential Library when he got a bit tongue-tied discussing Bain Capital.

In some cases, Romney was overprepared, with a few overly verbose responses. And his comments on bringing a bust of Winston Churchill to the White House was just a tad prepackaged, and likely to remind some viewers of his authenticity issues.

But the broad takeaway was that he had a good night, and won on points.


Rick Perry did not come prepared

Perry divided his time equally between offense and defense in the last debate. This time, he went for a more subdued approach -- but it turns out that being calm doesn't totally agree with Perry, whose appeal is rooted in his no-holds-barred approach.

Perry started out fine, landing some zingers on Romney, including one about showing his poor hand at playing poker. The Texas governor also did an adequate job of defending himself, despite some boos, on providing in-state tuition for some illegal immigrants, on his stand against a border fence and, for the most part, on his jobs creation record.

But his answer on an executive order he signed requiring pre-teen girls to receive a vaccination preventing HPV was, to put it mildly, poor. He sounded defensive, stuck by his standard explanation, and uttered a sentence that he will probably regret when it shows up in an ad: "I raised $30 million and if you're saying I can be bought for $5,000, I'm offended," he said, referring to pay-to-play allegations about contributions from the drug company that manufactured the vaccine.

His answer on troops in Afghanistan was garbled at best­and didn't create much separation from President Obama on policy. And, just like in the last debate, he seemed to fade in the second half, a fact that was a bit obscured by the general support he got from the Tea Party crowd in attendance.

If the concern some Republicans have had about Perry is a death-by-a-thousand-cuts scenario, Monday's debate did not erase that fear.


Michele Bachmann's still got game

It still not clear that's there's a path to victory, but Bachmann at least put herself back in the game Monday night.

After essentially fading into the background at last week's debate, Bachmann needed a breakthrough moment, especially with something akin to a home-field advantage with a Tea Party crowd. After passing up a few opportunities early in the evening, she swung for the fences on the HPV vaccine question and hit a home run off Perry, the frontrunner whose rise has largely come at her expense.

"To have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just wrong," Bachmann said. "Little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don't get a mulligan."

She went on, "There was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. The governor's former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company."

The audience ate it up, and Perry seemed flummoxed. He never totally recovered, and Bachmann left the stage stronger.

Sure, Bachmann's policy answers weren't all smooth -- she appeared to confuse the Treasury Department with the Federal Reserve during an answer about Ben Bernanke. But people will be talking about her tomorrow, and that's an indicator of a good night for her.

If Bachmann is going to make a comeback in Iowa, the only state she's focused on now, she needs to peel back Perry's support. Last night's performance -- which was followed by a boost for Bachmann from Sarah Palin in a post-debate Fox News interview -- was a decent start.


Rick Santorum is stepping it up

Santorum is not going to break into the top-tier without massively overperforming in the Iowa caucuses. By tag-teaming with Bachmann on the HPV vaccine question, he moved one small step closer to that goal by dinging Perry.

He had one less-than-perfect moment when he essentially tried to recreate the national security conflict about 9/11 with Ron Paul that Rudy Giuliani had with the Texas congressman in 2007. Judging from the crowd reaction he got the better of it but ultimately, scoring points off Paul doesn't do much for Santorum.


Ron Paul 2.0 isn't all that different than the original version

For all the focus on how the Texas congressman is running a different race this time around, he is still the same libertarian iconoclast who is unwilling to modulate his views.

His exchange with Santorum -- where he sounded at moments like he was defending those looking to harm the United States -- provided the latest proof of that and earned him boos from an otherwise sympathetic crowd.

However, at other points in the debate, Paul was charming and funny, quipping, "Not quite," when asked if his home state governor, Rick Perry, deserves so much credit for the state's economy. He would say more, he went on, but he feared that Perry would would "raise my taxes."

For whatever reason, Paul clearly enjoys needling Perry, and it remains an entertaining sideshow as the debate season unfolds. It also has a tactical effect -- Paul seemed to get under Perry's skin, making him part of the pile-on that contributed to the governor's less-than-stellar evening.


Jon Huntsman can't quite read a room

Kurt Cobain? Really?

One of Huntsman's more memorable lines was an attempted joke about the title of Romney's book "No Apology," which he pretended to confuse with the long-dead grunge rocker's song "All Apologies." He paused after he delivered the line, waiting for the audience laugh, but the moment was met with silence by a crowd that didn't seem to get it.

He bemoaned the "drama" between Perry and Romney, took snide jabs at the Massachusetts pol's flip-flops on issues and, in general, had an uneven performance.

Huntsman showed some stage presence and spoke forcefully at times but gave a disjointed answer to an audience questioner who asked about women in Afghanistan, made a joke that crash-landed about Perry making a "treasonous" comment, and closed his evening by praising NGOs.


Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain are non-factors

After two debates in a row playing the media scold, the former House Speaker instead shifted into a mostly genial, elder statesman mode. It's not a bad move: it allows him to head closer toward a rapprochement with the conservative elites he's had a falling out with since launching his ill-fated campaign, and toward a potentially graceful exit if he ultimately decides this is no longer worth it.

Cain, meanwhile, played mostly for laughs. After starting out with a real head of steam earlier this summer, he has continued to trend downward. His debate performance didn't alter his trajectory­other than a few one-liners, Cain barely left his mark.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63353.html