And then there were two
Wednesday night, there were actually four on stage at the Reagan Library in the CNN televised Republican presidential debate, but you’d never know that Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul were actually there, and still in the race.
Front-runners John McCain and Mitt Romney attacked each other’s conservative credentials as they fought for their party’s top spot during the final showdown before the Super Tuesday contests.
The sharpest exchange in the debate came when Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was asked about the McCain campaign’s charge that he once said he favored a strict timetable for removing troops from Iraq.
Romney has consistently denied ever having backed a timetable and said McCain was taking a small portion of a quote out of context.
“It’s simply wrong,” Romney said. “By the way, raising it a few days before the Florida primary, when there was very little time for me to correct the record, falls in the kind of dirty tricks that Ronald Reagan would have found reprehensible.”
Actually, it was uncomfortable to watch, as all these debates have been lately with extraordinarily sharp sniping between candidates of the same party. Both parties.
In this case, it was also baffling why Sen. John McCain was so aggressive and ‘snarky’ (as some put it) with Gov. Mitt Romney when McCain was enjoying the crest of a new wave of popularity and success. I wasn’t alone in that reaction…..’insta pollsters’ put up the graphs right afterward to show that the audience holding the meters reacted negatively to McCain’s attacks on Romney. Why, the day after that Florida victory, did McCain go on the attack?
The back-and-forth between McCain and Romney threatened to dominate the evening.Â
No, it did dominate the evening.
CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said the heated exchange over Romney’s Iraq quote was one of the debate’s key moments — and may have favored Romney.
“Romney made a very, very eloquent defense of himself that had some outrage in it,” said Schneider. “I do not think McCain looked good in that exchange.”
He certainly didn’t look presidential.
For almost two hours, Obama and Clinton examined their differences on the Iraq war, health care, immigration and governing style, with Clinton emphasizing her lengthy resume and experience and Obama challenging her about judgment and the ability to inspire the country.
“It is imperative that we have a president, starting on Day One, who can begin to solve our problems, tackle these challenges and seize the opportunities that I think await,” Clinton said.
“Senator Clinton, I think, fairly has claimed that she’s got the experience on Day One,” Obama later replied. “And part of the argument that I’m making in this campaign is that it is important to be right on Day One.”
It’s interesting that WaPo capitalized ‘Day One’. That’s elevating it as an election term. Like….’Change’.
Photo by Chris Carlson/AP
Here’s some potential change…in plans….that people have wondered about lately.
The longest and loudest applause line of the night came when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer noted that many Democrats have said they’d like to see a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket in November.
Neither ruled out the possibility of selecting the other as a running mate.
There it is. Deep in the CNN story, mentioned in passing. Remember that.
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Hi Sheila,
Rolling the Dice!
Unfortunately you have unconsciencely subcumbed to the mainstream media blackout of the best “Catholic” political candidate Mike Huckabee by only giving him lip service in your blog. (see http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26620&page=1)
It is no secret that the elite conservative pundits prefers Romney while the mainstream liberal press prefers McCain, hence the total blackout of the best conservative and pro-life candidate, Mike Huckabee. (See http://www.mikehuckabee.com)
This self-fullfilling reporting has co-opted usually thoughtful prolife journalists and general public alike into believing that it has been a one or two man race scince the begining of the primary season.
When are we going to wake-up! Just because the pundits predict for us who they want to win doesn’t mean we have to co-operate as was poignantly evidenced in Iowa.
Mike Huckabee is STILL IN THE RACE inspite of the intentional and unintentional blackout of his campaign.
We need to stop co-operating with the “secular” media and research his positions to determine for ourselves, what he actually stands for, rather than believing all that is reported by agenda driven secular political pundits and the liberal mainstream press who do not represent social conservatives nor even the average family for that matter.
McCain must be defeated and the Romney alternative ruse must be uncovered. (http://massresistance.org/romney/ ) Both have serious defects on pro-life issues as evidenced by Arizona Pro-life groups among many more that endorse Huckabee.
This primary election is not over but pro-life Catholics and Protestants alike need to engage in the battle and stop accepting the candidate choices being selected for them by secular conservatives and the liberal mainstream press.
If we don’t, we will be rolling the dice in November at best!
Magdaleno Villegas
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
http://www.mikehuckabee.com
Sheila-
Is there a reason why you are going along with the mainstream media’s drumbeat that this is a two man race? IT IS NOT!
There are still four main Republicans candidates running.
I would hope you add some more information for your readers about the full spectrun of candidates.
For instance, do your readers know that Mike Huckabee is the only consistently pro-life, pro-family, pro-business, fiscal conservative left in this race that has a chance to WIN? Maybe not…because the mainstream, anti-life media has put him and Ron Paul on a media “Blackout.” I guess they figure that if they don’t give them coverage, than they don’t exist. Does that seem earily familiar to why there was little or no coverage of the Pro-life March in Washington? Again, if they do not report it, the American people do not know it exists.
Many come to you for valuable unbiased information that they can not get anywhere else. Please do not succumb to reporting only the AP newswire stories and providing CNN (Communist News Network) weblinks. We want the facts, not the mainstream media spin.
Thank you for listening.
For information about the only pro-life, pro-family candidate that has a real chance to still win, please checkout:
http://www.mikehuckabee.com