(Community Matters) Did you watch? Who won? Anyone lose? Immediately after, I wrote:
Wrapping up delayed watch of GOP debate. Buy: Huntsman & Romney. Sell: Perry. Neutral: Bachmann. The rest are irrelevant as candidates
But, I’ve come to revise my thinking. Perry was playing to his base. And, to them he must have played very well. He was willing to fight, to insult a sitting president (called him a liar), refute science, lied about the quality of Texas jobs created and anything else that didn’t serve the narrative he’s building.
So, for his purposes (the primary), I think he won. And, I don’t think he’ll withstand the scrutiny of the national press before the American people – he’s corrupt (pay to play) and his policies make life worse for average citizens, albeit quite lucrative for those who play.
Community Matters 
I watched the debate and did so, believe it or not, with as open of a mind as possible. Given that the 2012 election is going to be very tough for Obama (at least as it stands today), I wanted to think about how I would feel with each of them as President. I think you’re right about Paul, Cain, & Gingrich not being viable. Paul seems to have the most conviction, honesty, & authenticity of the bunch, so I almost admire that. His positions just go too far beyond the practical, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I really can not get a sense of Cain and that may be the media’s fault – he certainly does not seem to get a lot of time in debates and very little coverage when he is not on stage. Gingrich is just completely unlikeable and needs to accept a role behind the scenes. At times, he sounds coherent and logical and at other times he sounds divorced from reality (as an aside, how silly to chastise the moderators as liberals out to protect the President by provoking the candidates to debate at a… um, well, debate!).
I was most interested to see Huntsman and I just didn’t see him doing anything that moved the needle in any direction for him. He did not come across as more appealing to me (his tweets earlier in the week gave me hope that I would like him a lot), although I still do not know a lot about his policy positions. He also did nothing to shore up the GOP base, from what I saw.
Bachman is just still scary with a capital S. She has absolutely no regard for the facts and is only interested in making broad general statements to fire up the Tea Party and President/Democrat-hating base. I’m really frustrated that more in the media aren’t taking her to task on this. During the debate, she made several strong, unequivocal statements that “Obamacare” is job killing and someone should have really pressed for details about which aspects of the health care reform are problematic and how exactly they are “killing” jobs. Given that most of the health-care reform isn’t in effect yet (I think that’s right), these statements are just silly. She’ll continue to do well with her base but will not be able to withstand the scrutiny of a national election (gosh, I hope I’m right on this).
Perry is also scary with a capital S and, now that I look back at the comments I had about Bachman, they probably apply equally well to him. He’s also going to continue to do well with his base, but the facts will catch up to him in a national election.
Romney still has the best chance to win a national election, by far. He should be the biggest fear for Obama’s team. He just may not be able to survive the GOP process, given how rabid and active the most extreme part of the base appears to be at this moment. Having said that, I think many within the GOP are going to come to their senses soon enough as they start to think more about who actually has a chance to win the general election and, therefore, start to consider Romney more seriously. He will be a bitter pill for many in this more extreme faction, but, as I said, the most pragmatic among them (if there are any pragmatists remaining) will come back to him.
I keep hoping that Palin will jump in so that we can watch Perry, Bachman, and her try to out-crazy each other in their attempts to appeal to the tea party base. And think of the SNL skits to come!
Yours in political fortune-telling,
stephen